These pages discuss additional features of ProWrite 2.5 which are not covered in the manual. Please keep these pages with your ProWrite User's Manual.
Faster Typing Speed ProWrite now can handle much faster typing speeds than before, making it the fastest multiple-font word processor on the Amiga. It is now almost impossible to out-type it.
&Simultaneous Text and Picture PrintingPARA
With ProWrite you can now have pictures printed even when printing in NLQ or Draft mode. Simply turn on the "Print Pictures" option in the "Print" requester (this option is only available when either "NLQ" or "Draft" is chosen as the print quality). Printing text with pictures will be slower than printing text only, but faster than printing in "Standard" mode. Of course you will not have the benefit of ProWrite's multiple fonts (since you will be using the printer's built-in font for the text), and as described in the manual you must use the Topaz-11 font for the entire document in order to have the spacing of the document be correct.PARA
Adjustable Page Size You no longer limited to the four paper sizes in ProWrite's "Page Setup" requester, you can specify any page size you desire. Simply click on "Custom" for the page size in the "Page Setup" requester, then type in values for the paper width and height (in inches). ProWrite will automatically reformat the document for this new paper size. Note that since printers cannot print on the outer 1/4 inch of a page, ProWrite will not let you move margins into this un-printable region. Also, unless you have the "No Gaps Between Pages" option turned on, ProWrite will also subtract a default 1/2 inch of top and bottom margin from the page.
Print Density You can now choose the print density (in dots per inch) your printer will use when printing in "Standard" mode (or when printing pictures with text) directly from the "Page Setup" requester.FSCC
No Gaps Between Pages Since many printers have problems printing across a paper's perforation, normally will ProWrite automatically include 1/2 inch of blank space on the top and bottom margin of each page. You can disable this by turning on the "No Gaps Between Pages" option in the "Page Setup" requester. This is useful for printing on mailing labels, where you want to print on the label's full vertical size.
Insert Date and Time You can insert the current date and time anywhere into a ProWrite document, either as fixed text (just as if you had typed it), or as an updating marker which will change to the current date and time whenever you open the document again.FSCC
To insert the date or time as an updating marker, choose "Date" or "Time" from the "Insert" submenu on the "Document" menu. The date or time marker will be treated like a single character for formatting purposes--you can change its font, size, style, or color just like any other character. You can also change the date or time format used by the marker (see Date and Time Formats below).FSCC
*To insert the date or time as fixed text, hold down the Alt key when choosing "Date" or "Time" from the "Insert" submenu. The current date or time in the format you have chosen will by inserted into the document just as if you had typed it. It will not change when you later work with the document.FSCC
Date and Time Formats You can change the format used by the date and time markers (or date and time text when it is inserted) by choosing the "Insert Formats" command from the "Document" menu (this command replaces the "Numbering Style" command discussed in the manual). When you choose this command, a requester will appear where you can choose from six different date formats, two different time formats (12 or 24 hour), five page numbering formats, and a starting page number for the document.FSCC
XCentered Tab Stops You can create tab stops that center the text that is over tabbed to it. To create centered tab stops, choose "Center" from the"Tab Type" submenu on the "Paragraph" menu, then click on the ruler where you want the tab stop to be. This option is useful for creating tables that have entries that are centered in their columns.FSCC
<Text Files When loading or saving text files, you can specify whether or not the text file has or is to have line-feed characters either at the end of paragraphs only (the preferred type) or at the end of each line. Specifying line-feeds at the end of every line is useful when loading files that came from an on-line information service or bulletin-board service (BBS),. When loading a file of this type, ProWrite will automatically remove the line feeds and create whole paragraphs out of the text (an end-of-paragraph is then indicated by two line-feeds in succession).FSCC
Show/Hide Ruler You can turn off the display of ProWrite's ruler in order to use the full height of the window for displaying your document. Simply choose "Show Ruler" from the"Edit" menu to turn on or off the ruler display.FSCC
&Document Information The "Document Information" requester now includes a sentence count for the document, as well as the average word length (in characters) and average sentence length (in words) for the document. This information is useful in determining the readability level of the document.FSCC
Faster Spell Checking ProWrite's spelling checker is now much faster, especially on floppy-based systems where it is over twice as fast on some documents. ProWrite's dictionary has also been increased in size to over 100,000 words.
"Spell Check As You Type" OptionPARA
ProWrite can now automatically check the spelling of words as you type them. To turn on this option, choose "Continuous" from the "Spelling" submenu on the "Document" menu. Whenever you type a word that is not in ProWrite's dictionary, it will beep and flash the screen. For best performance, you should either have the dictionary on a hard disk or the RAM disk when using this option.
Miscellaneous The overall appearance of ProWrite has changed somewhat from the screen displays shown in the manual, particularly in requesters. However, the operation of the requester items is unchanged. One item to note is that now both up/down (or left/right) scroll arrows appear together below (or to the right of) the positioning slider they are associated with. This change appears in document windows and all requester list boxes.
_The ruler display has also changed slightly. Previously, ProWrite ignored the 1/4 inch on the left and right of a page that a printer could not print on--ProWrite considered the zero point on the ruler to be printer's left-most printing location. Now ProWrite includes the printer's unprintable left-margin in its ruler, so the left-most location on the ruler is now 1/4 inch, not zero. This means that the ruler measurements are now physical distances from the edge of the actual paper (except when using the "P 10" ruler, where ruler measurements are still in 10-pitch characters from the printable edge).
Some menu command key equivalents have been changed, and several new ones have been added. The affected keyboard shortcuts are:
Command Keyboard equivalent
Copy Format Amiga-K
Paste Format Amiga-YTEXT
Show Ruler Amiga-RTEXT
Left Aligned Amiga-[TEXT
Centered Amiga-=TEXT
Right Aligned Amiga-]
aFinally, the "Adjust Colors" command has been moved from the "Character" menu to the "Edit" menu.
ProWrite UtilitiesPARA
On the ProWrite System disk there is a "ProWrite Utilities" drawer which contains two useful programs for use with ProWrite. These utility programs are described below.PARA
RAM Start RAM Start is a utility that will start up the Amiga's RAM disk (if it is not already present). Simply double-click on the "RAM Start" icon and in a few seconds the Amiga's RAM disk icon will appear on the Workbench screen.FSCC
zSystem Mover System Mover is a utility for quickly and easily erasing or moving system files (such as fonts and printer drivers) from one disk to another. When moving fonts it will also automatically update the font information (".font") file and move metric files if present, and for library and device files it will give information about the version of the library or device.FSCC
To use System Mover, double-click on the program icon to start the program, then choose the type of system file you want to move from the "Move" menu, and the disks you want to copy the files from and save the files to from the "Disk" menu. Once you choose a "From" disk, a list of all system files of the chosen type will be shown in the window. Choose the files you want to erase or move by clicking on them in the list (you can choose more than one file by holding down the Shift key when clicking on them). To copy the selected files, click on the "Copy" button; to erase the files, click on the "Remove" button. Be careful when erasing files, since you cannot get back a file once you have erased it.
System Mover is also included with our font packages, ProFonts I and ProFonts II, and more complete documentation on System Mover's usage and operation can be found there.
ProWrite File Convert
?Included on the ProWrite Program disk is ProWrite File Convert, a program for converting other word processor files into ProWrite files while retaining as much of the original document's formatting information as possible. This version of Convert will convert Textcraft, Scribble, and TextPro files into ProWrite files.
To use ProWrite File Convert, double-click on the icon to start the program, choose the file type you want to convert, and click on "Convert." You will be asked for the name of the file to convert, and for a name for the convert file.FSCC
_There is additional documentation on this program in the drawer containing the Convert program.
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