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Table of Contents Introduction 2 Installation 3 System Requirements 3 Installing the Envelope Program 3 APT Envelope Printer Installation Files 4 Moving Around The Menus 5 Data Entry Menu Keys 5 Running the Program 7 Main Menu 7 Printer Setup 8 Print Single Envelope/Maintain Address File 10 Selection Lists 12 Printing an Envelope or Label 12 Maintaining an Address File 13 Generate A Bulk Mailing 14 List an Address File 16 Merge Two Address Files 17 Delete an Address File 18 APT Envelope Printer 0 Introduction The APT Envelope Printer program provides the home or business user an easy way to produce professional looking envelopes and labels using only their personal computer's laser or dot matrix printer. The program supports three sizes of envelopes (7 3/4 Monarch, #9, or #10) and three sizes of mailing labels (Avery 4013 or compatible for dot matrix printers and Avery 5160 & 5161 or compatible for laser printers). All envelopes and 5161 labels will be printed with United States Postal Service approved POSTNET bar codes to allow you to take advantage of Postal Service automation to help speed mail to it's destination. Additionally, using POSTNET codes may qualify you for additional discounts if you are doing a bulk mailing. The program supports any Lexmark or HP compatible laser printer, as well as Epson compatible dot matrix printers. Envelopes or labels may be fed manually or automatically (feeding envelopes automatically will require an envelope feeder attachment on most printers). When printing single labels on a laser printer, the program allows you to print on any label on the sheet, thus eliminating unused labels. Names and addresses may be saved in one or more address files. Multiple address files are supported allowing you to easily categorize your mailings into personal, business, or other groupings use. For bulk mailing, the program can be used to generate a mailing using all or part of an address file. Bulk mail envelopes and labels are printed in zip code sequence and, along with the zip code totals you can produce, allow you to easily package the mailing into the various zip code groups. APT Envelope Printer Installation System Requirements The APT Envelope Printer requires at least the following: -DOS 3.3 or greater -Approximately 125K for program files and sample files -A Lexmark or HP compatible laser printer or Epson compatible dot matrix printer -512 KB of system memory Installing the Envelope Program The APT Envelope Printer program may be installed to your hard disk by performing the following steps: 1. Place the installation disk in a floppy drive on your system (usually A: or B:). 2. Type A:INSTALL or B:INSTALL to begin the installation program. 3.Follow the instructions on the screen. The installation program will ask you for the directory where you want the program installed. You should switch to this directory to run the APT Envelope Printer program. APT Envelope Printer APT Envelope Printer Installation Files When you install the APT Envelope Printer, the following files will be copied to the installation directory: File Description ENVELOPE.EXE The envelope program. ENVELOPE.INI The program information file that keeps track of last used information, printer and option settings, etc. SAMPLE.PTR Sample name and address file (pointer portion) SAMPLE.DAT Sample name and address file (data portion). README.DOC A file containing any updates to the documentation that were made too late to be included in the manual, and other information about the APT Envelope Printer. This also contains a list of any additional files that may be installed. APT Envelope Printer Moving Around The Menus While using the APT Envelope Printer you will need to enter information through a series of simple menus. This system makes liberal use of your keyboard's function keys as well as many other keys (such as the [Right] and [Left] arrow keys and [Tab] keys). You move around these menus using the [Tab] keys to move from field to field and the [F10] key to process a menu that has been completed. Data Entry Menu Keys The following keys are the main keys used by the data entry menus: Key Function [F10] Pressing this function key indicates you are finished with the menu and want it to be processed. [Esc] The escape key indicates that you do not want to process any information on a menu but, instead, want to return to the previous menu. [Tab] The tab right key is used to move from field to field in a menu. Tab right [->|] moves you to the next input field. If you are in the last field on the menu, tab right moves you to the first field on the menu. [Shift+Tab] The tab left key is used to move from field to field in a menu. Tab left [|<-] moves you to either the beginning of the current field (if not already there) or to the previous input field. If you are at the beginning of the first field on the menu, tab left moves you to the last field on the menu. [Enter] The enter key acts the same as the tab right key unless you are in the last input field on the menu. When you are in the last input field on a menu and press Enter, the menu will be processed just as if you had pressed F10. [Right] The right arrow key [->] moves you one character to the left within a menu field. If you are at the first position in a field, a beep will sound and no movement takes place APT Envelope Printer [Left] The left arrow key [<-] moves you one character to the left within a menu field. If you are at the first position in a field, a beep will sound and no movement takes place. [Bkspc] The backspace key, like the left arrow key, moves you one position to the left. Unlike the left arrow, however, it deletes the character that was at that position and shifts the following text one position to the left. [End] The end key moves the cursor to the end of the text within the current field. [Ctrl+End] The Ctrl+End key combination erases all characters in the current field from the cursor to the end of the field. [Fn] Various other function keys may be active during the processing of a data entry menu. These will be listed at the bottom of the screen. APT Envelope Printer Running the Program To start the APT Envelope Printer program, switch to the directory where you installed the program, type ENVELOPE, and press [Enter]. After pausing for the copyright screen, the program will stop at the Main Menu. Main Menu The main menu contains several options: 1. Print Single Envelope/Maintain Address File 2. Generate a Bulk Mailing 3. List an Address File 4. Merge Two Address Files 5. Delete an Address File S. Setup Printer and Paper You would select the option you want by entering a 1 through 5, or S in the "Enter Option" input field and pressing [F10] to process the menu. Pressing [Esc] from the Main Menu causes the APT Envelope Printer to terminate. APT Envelope Printer Printer Setup The first time you use the APT Envelope Printer, you should go to Setup Printer and Paper by selecting options 'S' from the Main Menu. Printer Setup is used to set the type of printer you will be using and the size of the envelopes or labels you are printing. The options you set here will remain in effect until you return to this menu to change them. Two status lines appear on each menu of the system to indicate what printer and paper size has been selected. The menu has two input fields, Printer Type and Paper Size. Either of these options may be changed at any time. Printer Type The APT Envelope Printer supports two classes of printers, laser and dot matrix. H - Indicates you want to print envelopes on a Hewlett Packard compatible laser printer. Selecting this option causes the program to use PCL language to print envelopes and labels. Most HP compatible laser printers default to PCL mode. If you choose this option and your printer is not normally in PCL mode, you must set it into this mode before printing any envelopes or labels. L - Indicates you want to print envelopes on a Lexmark/IBM compatible laser printer. Selecting this option also causes the program to use PCL language to print envelopes and labels. However, since some Lexmark laser printers support several different printer languages, additional commands are sent to the printer to place it in PCL emulation mode. M - Indicates you want to print envelopes on an Epson compatible dot matrix printer. Paper Size The APT Envelope Printer supports 3 sizes of envelopes and 3 types of labels. The paper size you choose also implies the orientation of that paper. For a dot matrix printer, all envelopes and labels must be fed in portrait (i.e. "normal") orientation. However, for laser printers, labels are printed in portrait orientation while envelopes are printed in landscape (i.e. edge first) orientation. Check your laser printer owners manual for more information about feeding envelopes into your printer. APT Envelope Printer 7 - Indicates you want to print #7 Monarch envelopes. These are the standard small personal envelopes sold in most stores and are 3 7/8" by 7 1/2". 9 - Indicates you want to print #9 business envelopes. These are usually used for business reply envelopes and measure 3 7/8" by 8 7/8". 10 - Indicates you want to print the standard #10 business envelope and measures 4 1/8" by 9 1/2". 13 - Indicates you want to print on Avery 4013 or compatible labels (15/16" x 3 1/2", 1 across) on your dot matrix printer. You cannot choose this paper size if a laser printer is chosen as your printer. These labels do not have room for a POSTNET code. 60 - Indicates you want to print on Avery 5160 or compatible labels (1" x 2 5/8", 3 across a sheet, 10 down) on your laser printer. You cannot choose this paper size if a dot matrix printer is chosen as your printer. These labels do not have room for a POSTNET code. 61 - Indicates you want to print on Avery 5161 or compatible labels (1" x 4", 2 across a sheet, 10 down) on your laser printer. You cannot choose this paper size if a dot matrix printer is chosen as your printer. POSTNET codes will be printed on these labels. APT Envelope Printer Print Single Envelope/Maintain Address File The Print Single Envelope/Maintain Address File menu is the heart of the APT Envelope Printer and is reached by selection option '1' on the Main Menu. Using this menu you can - create new address files - add, delete, or change names in an address file - print single envelopes or labels using names you enter on this menu or names from an address file There are three areas of input on this menu, the Address File Name field, the Return Address field, and the Send To Address field. Address File Name This tells the envelope program which address file you want to work with for a particular operation. To print a single envelope or label you need not use a file at all, but can simply type in all of the information into the return and send to addresses. Usually, however, you will want to specify an address file so you can save the names you are using for when you need them again. If you specify an address file, you must specify the complete path for the address file unless the file is in the current directory. For example, to use the address file "MYADDR" located in the "MYDATA" directory on the C: drive you would type C:\MYDATA\MYADDR in this field. For certain operations such as deleting or finding a name, this file must exist. However, when saving a new name, if this file does not exist it is created for you automatically. Names are stored in the address file in alphabetic sequence as they appear in the return or send address fields. Since names may be the names of companies, organizations, or individuals, no attempt is made to keep any information as "last-name-first". Thus the following examples would be shown on a selection list in the order indicated: APT Computer Solutions John Zenda Larry Adams APT Envelope Printer RCA Finally, address files in the APT Envelope Printer actually consist of two files that work together. In the above example the two files would be named MYADDR and MYADDR.PTR. You are allowed to move these two files to a new location on your system as long as both files are moved to the same new location. Return Address This field contains the name and address you want to appear in the return address portion of the envelope. The field is initially filled in with the last return address used. The name and address that appear here need not be in any of your address files (you could have manually entered it the last time). You may manually enter a new name or look up a new name in an address file by pressing [F6] and making a selection from the list of names presented. You may also save a newly entered name by pressing [F3]. When saving a name in an address file, the name in the first line of the menu is used to keep track of the entry in the file. You may save the same name in a file more than once, but the system will ask you if you want to replace the earlier entry or make a new one. This is to allow you to keep track of different people or companies who happen to have the same name. When filling in this menu, the city, state, and zip code for the return address must be entered on the last line of the field. Intervening blank lines will not be printed on the envelope. If you use envelopes that are preprinted with a return address, you may leave this field blank. Send To Address This field contains the name and address you want to appear in the send to portion of the envelope. As with the return address, the last send to address used appears here. As with the return name, you may manually enter a new name or look up a new name in an address file by pressing [F7] and making a selection from the list of names presented. You may also save a newly entered name by pressing [F4]. Again, the last line of the field must contain the city, state, and zip code of the recipient of the letter. The 5 or 9 digit zip code specified here is used to generate the POSTNET code on the envelope just below the address. APT Envelope Printer It is important to note that there is no distinction made between return and sending addresses in address files. That is, if you save a return address to an address file, you may later retrieve it for use as a send to address. Selection Lists Several of the function keys allow you to select a name from an address file for the return or send to addresses, or to delete a name from the file. When choosing one of these options, you are first presented with a small menu at the bottom of the screen where you can enter part or all of the name you are looking up. If you enter nothing in this field and press [F10], you will be shown a selection list starting at the beginning of the specified address file. However, entering a portion of the name desired in the field will cause the selection list to begin at that portion of the file. For example, entering an "E" in the field will cause the selection list to begin with the names starting with "E". Entering "Tammy" will cause the list to start with the names beginning with Tammy. Note that this only tells the system where to begin the selection list. All of the names from this point to the end of the file will be shown. Printing an Envelope or Label If the paper choice (from Printer Setup) is an envelope, you simply fill in the return and send to address fields and press [F10] to print. If printing the envelope on a laser printer, the printer will pause to ask you to load the envelope when it is ready to print. However, when printing on a dot matrix printer, you must have positioned the envelope in the printer prior to pressing [F10] to print. If the paper choice is a label, only the send to address is printed on the label. If the paper choice is a laser label (i.e. 60 or 61), you will be asked which label on the sheet of labels you want to use. Maintaining an Address File This menu contains several function keys to help you use this menu to add and delete records from an address file, as well as print envelopes APT Envelope Printer or labels. These keys are defined as follows: Key Description F3 - Saves the name and address in the return address field in the address file indicated in the Address File field. F4 - Saves the name and address in the send to address field in the address file indicated in the Address File field. F5 - Allows you to delete a name and address from the address file indicated by selecting it from a selection list. F6 - Allows you to select the return name and address from the address file indicated by selecting it from a selection list. F7 - Allows you to select the send to name and address from the address file indicated by selecting it from a selection list. F8 - Move the cursor to the Address File Name field allowing you to specify a new file name. You may also use the [Tab] key to get to this field. F10- Prints the information in the menu on an envelope or label. Esc- Returns to the Main Menu. APT Envelope Printer Generate A Bulk Mailing The bulk mail option of the APT Envelope Printer provides a business or organization the ability to generate a bulk mailing using any of the address files created by the program. For a bulk mailing you may specify that all of the names in a file or only a range of zip codes be included in the mailing. Printing takes place in zip code sequence with one envelope or label printed for each name in the address file in the range you selected. Envelopes contain a return address, a send to address, POSTNET codes, and the words "BULK RATE" printed on the envelope below and to the left of the send to address. Labels contain only the send to address and only #61 labels have room for POSTNET codes. You may also obtain printed statistics for the bulk mailing. The statistics sheet shows the number of pieces of mail that meet each of the zip code breakdowns required for bundling bulk mail. There are totals for each 9 digit, 5 digit, and 3 digit zip code grouping as well as totals for the state and multistate groups. These totals are printed in zip code sequence allowing you to work through the mailing, easily bundling the various groups. You would start by bundling the 9 digit zip code groups, each of which would be together in the mailing. Follow that by bundling the 5 digit zips, then the 3 digit zips, then each of the states, and finally the multistate group. There are a couple of differences between a bulk mailing and mailing a single envelope or label. We have already mentioned that the words "BULK RATE" appear on a bulk mailing envelope. Another difference is that if the address file being used for the bulk mailing contains the return address name shown on the screen, no envelope or label will be printed with this name as the send to address. The Bulk Mailing menu is reached by selecting option '2' from the Main Menu. This menu has the following fields: Address File Name This is the name and path of the address file to be used in the bulk mailing. This may be the name of any address file maintained by the APT Envelope Printer. For more information, see the description of "Address File Name" under Print Single Envelope/Maintain Address File. Return Address Name APT Envelope Printer If envelopes are being used for the bulk mailing, this is the name that will be the return address on all of the envelopes being mailed. If you are using envelopes pre-printed with a return address, you should make this field blank. If labels are being used in the bulk mailing, this name is not used except to keep a label with the same name from being generated. This is initially filled in with the last return address that was used and if it is not the name and address you desire, you may type over this name with the one you want. However, you cannot save the new name and address in any file. Saving names and addresses must be done from the Print Single Envelope/Maintain Address File menu. Mail to Zip Codes __ Through __ The beginning and ending zip codes from the address file to be included in this bulk mailing. You may specify a 5 or 9 digit zip code. If you specify a 5 digit zip code for the starting zip code, it is assumed you want to start with lowest code that begins with those 5 digits. For example, specifying a starting zip code of 12345 is the same as specifying a starting zip code of 12345-0000. If you specify a 5 digit zip code for the ending zip code, for example 34567, it's the same as specifying 34567-9999. To use all of the address file in your bulk mailing, enter a starting zip code of 00000-0000 and an ending zip code of 99999-9999. Note that the starting and ending zip codes do not actually have to exist in the address file. Manual or Automatic Feed For laser printers only, whether the labels or envelopes will be fed automatically or manually. For labels, automatic feeding means the labels are loaded in the primary paper source. For envelopes, automatic feeding means your printer is equipped with an envelope feeder and recognizes the PCL command to select that source. APT Envelope Printer List an Address File You may list the contents of an address file by selecting option '3' from the Main Menu.The address file may be listed on the screen or on the printer. The List Address File menu has the following fields: Address File Name This is the name and path of the address file to be listed. This may be the name of any address file maintained by the APT Envelope Printer. For more information, see the description of "Address File Name" under Print Single Envelope/Maintain Address File. Place Listing on Display or Printer Enter a 'D' if you want the names listed on the screen, 'P' to list them on the system printer. City - State Optionally, you may list only the records for a specific city, a specific state, or a specific city-state combination. If you do not want to limit the listing, leave these fields blank. These fields are ignored if a zip code range is specified. List Zip Codes ____ Through ____ You may list only those records that fall into a range of zip codes. If this range is specified, the city and state fields on this menu are ignored. For more information, see the zip code range description under Bulk Mail. APT Envelope Printer Merge Two Address Files The APT Envelope Printer allows you to merge two address files together into a single file (called the target file). If the target file does not exist at the beginning of this operation it is created. If it does exist, all of the records in the from file are merged into the target file in their proper place. As the merge occurs, a check is made to determine if the target file already contains a record with the name being inserted. In these cases you are asked if you want to include the record being merged in the target file or if you want to skip it. At the conclusion of the merge the target file contains all of its original records plus all of the selected records in the from file. The from file also still exists after the operation. If you wish to delete it, see the section Delete an Address File. The Merge Two Address Files menu (option '4' from the Main Menu) contains the following fields: From Address File Name The path and address file name whose records are to be merged into another file. Into Address File Name The path and address file name where the records are to be inserted (i.e. the target file). If this file doesn't exists, it will be created. City - State Optionally, you may merge only the records for a specific city, a specific state, or a specific city-state combination. want to merge all cities and states, leave these fields blank. Merge Zip Codes ____ Through ____ You may merge only those records that fall into a range of zip codes if you desire. If this range is specified, the city and state fields on this menu are ignored. For more information, see the zip code range description under Bulk Mail. APT Envelope Printer Delete an Address File APT Envelope Printer files are normal DOS files and may be deleted by using the DOS "DEL" command as long as the .PTR file is also deleted. However, you may use the Delete an Address File menu (option '5' from the Main Menu) to easily delete an address file. There is only one field on this menu: Delete Address File This is the name and path of the address file to be deleted. This may be the name of any address file maintained by the APT Envelope Printer. For more information, see the description of "Address File Name" under Print Single Envelope/Maintain Address File. APT Envelope Printer