Database Software present MINI OFFICE * Word Processor * Database * Spreadsheet * Graphics FOR ZX SPECTRUM 48K Word Processor ....................... Page 3 Database ............................ Page 14 Spreadsheet ......................... Page 23 Graphics ............................ Page 31 (c) Database Software 1984 WORD PROCESSOR A WORD processor is ideal for writing letters and reports instead of using a typewriter or pen and paper. When you make a typing error or change your mind the word processor enables you to edit the text with ease. No longer will you need to use unsightly crossing out, rubbers or Tippex - and find you need to start again because it's such a mess after all the changes. To load and run the word processor simply type: LOAD "WORD" and press Enter. When loading has been completed, the various options available are displayed. An option is chosen by pressing the appropriate key as indicated. Pressing Break (Caps Shift, Space) at any time will bring you back to the display of options/ Getting Started Suppose you want to type a short letter to your friend about your recent holiday. Begin by pressing key 1. In the middle of the screen you will see START and END displayed. These mark the beginning and the end of the letter. However, since you haven't written anything yet there is no text in between. At the top of the screen is displayed the time that has elapsed since you started using the program, the number of words you have entered so far, and the number of characters you can key in before the computer's memory is full. Start typing your letter exactly as in this sample, mistakes and all: i have just had a supper holiday in blackpool. If you didn't manage to type that in successfully, press Break followed by 0 and then in answer to the question "Are you sure?" press Y. Then start again by pressing 1. If you still have difficulty, read on. Now to start correcting the letter. By using the cursor control keys (Caps Shift with 5, 6, 7 and 8) the flashing cursor can be made to move about the text to any position you want. First correct the word blackpool to read Blackpool with a capital B by moving the cursor onto the letter l after the b. Now press Delete (Caps Shift 0) and the b is rubbed out. Now press B while holding down the Caps Shift key and the word Blackpool should now be correct. The first word i can be changed to I in a similar way. (Note that upper and lower case letters and symbols are obtained in the normal way with the Caps Shift, Caps Lock (Caps Shift 2) and Symbol Shift keys.) Now correct supper to read super by moving the cursor onto the e and pressing Delete (Caps Shift 0). All letters should start with Dear Eric, or something similar. To insert this into the letter, move the cursor to the start of the first line and type: Dear Eric, followed by Enter. Similarly, a letter would end with Yours sincerely, Carol. So move the cursor to the end of the last line and press Enter. If you want a blank line before Yours sincerely press Enter again. Then type: Your Sincerely, (Enter Enter) Carol You should now have a complete and perfectly laid out short letter. If you want to add to it, change it or put in more spaces or blank lines, just move the cursor to the appropriate place and type what you want to say. While you have been typing you may have noticed that the figures below WORDS and FREE displayed at the top of the screen have changed. These indicate how many words are contained in your letter and how much space you have left if you wish to extend your letter. If you now press Break, the options that are available to you will be displayed again. So far you have only been using the large letter editing mode. Pressing 2 will now show your letter in normal sized characters. You could have written your letter in this mode if you had preferred. Having written your letter, you might like to save it for later - or even to send it to Eric on tape. If you now press Break followed by 5 you will be asked to enter the file name. Make sure you have a tape with nothing useful on it, and enter: letter1 (Enter) and your letter to Eric is saved as a file called "letter1". If you wish to check that the file has been saved correctly, rewind the tape, press 6 and enter the file name again to verify it. Suppose you now want to write the same letter to Chris. Press 2 so that Eric's letter is shown. Then edit the letter by replacing the word Eric with the word Chris. You have now written two letters that are almost the same with the minimum of effort. The second letter can now be saved in the same way, using a different file name. To start a completely new file, press Break, then 0 followed by Y. Pressing 1 or 2 shows that there is no file there any more. To load Eric's letter back in, press Break then 7 followed by Y to the first question. Then type: letter1 (Enter) making sure the correct tape is ready. Pressing 1 or 2 will show that Eric's letter is back. If you have a printer you might like to print the letter so that you can post it to Eric. To do this press Break then 3. If you reply to all the questions like this: 16 (Enter) 8 (Enter) N N N (any key) the letter should be printed out. A more detailed description of the various options and functions follows. Options Break (Caps Shift, Space). This always terminates the present operation to allow one of the following options to be selected. 1 This selects the editing mode with double size characters and 16 characters per line. 2 This selects the editing mode with normal size characters and 32 characters per line. 3 This selects the printer option. You have the choice of selecting the maximum number of characters per line (any number from five to 32), as well as the width of the left margin in character widths and the size of the characters. The maximum number of characters per line depends on the character size and the margin chosen. If Paged mode is chosen, this causes the print out to be divided into pages containing the number of lines chosen with a gap between each page. Paged mode will also take into account the end of page markers. When one of these is encountered, the next line is printed on the next page. If paged mode is not selected, then page end markers are ignored and printing is continuous. The preview of text enables the printing format chosen to be viewed before actual printing, though it is always shown in normal size characters. If the preview is too fast to read, pressing any key will halt the display until a key is pressed again. The printing option has been designed to operate a Spectrum printer or equivalent. 4 This enables the Tab key (see "Editing Functions") to be set. There are four tab values, which must be chosen in ascending order. The maximum tab value is 32. If less than four tab values are required, give the last few the same value. The effect of the Tab key when in the editing mode is to move the cursor to the column position indicated by the next tab value, which it does by inserting spaces. The next tab value is the lowest tab value that is greater than or equal to the present cursor position. For example, suppose the tab values are 5, 10, 12 and 15, and the cursor is at present at the beginning of the line in Column 0. If the tab key is pressed at this stage, the effect would be the same as pressing Space five times, so moving the cursor to Column 5. If xyz is now typed, so that the cursor is now in Column 8, and the Tab key is again pressed, the next tab value is 10. So the effect is that Space has been pressed twice to move the cursor to Column 10. If abc is now typed, taking the cursor to Column 13, and the Tab key is pressed again, since the cursor is beyond the third tab value this value is ignored and the fourth tab value of 15 is used. So effectively the cursor moves to Column 15 by the insertion of two spaces. Pressing the Tab key when the cursor is beyond the largest tab value has no effect. A tab value larger than the number of characters per line is also ignored. 5 This enables the text at present in memory to be saved. Simply enter the name of the file followed by Enter. The file name must follow the same rules as for program file names. Ensure that there is nothing on the tape you are going to use. 6 This enables text that has just been saved to be checked against the file still in memory. If they do not match, the report "tape error" occurs. (N.B. The file will not verify correctly after a return to an editing mode has been made since saving.) 7 This enables a file to be loaded from tape. Simply press Y if you are sure you do not want the file at present in memory, and enter the file name followed by Enter. The file already in memory will be destroyed by loading in another file, so be sure this has been saved if you wish to keep it. If the message "The file loaded was not a text file" is displayed after loading it means that either the file has been corrupted or it wasn't a text file. 8 This displays the functions available in an editing mode. 9 This changes the normal Spectrum character set for an alternative set or vice-versa. 0 This simply erases the file in memory. Only press Y if you are sure you do not want the present file in memory. Editing functions The following functions are obtained by pressing Caps Shift and the key indicated. These only operate when in an editing mode. 1 The Copy key. It is used when using the copy function. See 4 below. 2 Caps Lock. This switches between capitals and lower case letters as normal. 3 This displays the typing speed in words per minute for the present text file. When a file is loaded or saved, this information is loaded or saved with it. This makes it possible for typing speeds to be correctly shown for a particular file, even though it may have been started and saved the previous day. Typing speed is calculated from the number of words in the file and the total time spent in an editing mode and not the time spent at the keyboard. 4 This enables a section of text to be copied to the cursor position. To use, first position the cursor at the destination point for the copied text. Then press Caps Shift 4. Next move the cursor to the start of the text to be copied and press the Copy key. The screen display will then revert to the situation that existed when Caps Shift 4 was pressed, except that the top line of the screen will show the line of text being copied. Each press of the Copy key copies another character. The left and right cursor keys move the line of text being copied, rather than the cursor. The up and down cursor keys are not used. The rest of the keys behave normally, inserting text at the cursor point. To exit this function press Caps Shift 4 again. 5 The cursor left key. 6 The cursor down key. 7 The cursor up key. 8 The cursor right key. 9 This inserts an end of page marker at the cursor point. These markers are used in the paged mode when printing, 0 The Delete key. Symbol Shift The Tab key. Further advice and information It is always a good idea to save sections of long text at regular intervals. By doing this, you can ensure most of the text has been safely saved should you experience a power failure or similar mishap. The time display will lose time during tape and printer operations as these halt the timer. When loading and verifying, file names must be specified. A null file name will not load or verify. If you have a Spectrum+, the extra keys provided behave as follows: True Video ..................................... Caps Shift 3 Inv Video ...................................... Caps Shift 4 Break ...................................... Caps Shift Space Delete ......................................... Caps Shift 0 Graph .......................................... Caps Shift 9 Extended mode ....................... Caps Shift Symbol Shift Edit ........................................... Caps Shift 1 Caps Lock ...................................... Caps Shift 2 Cursor Left .................................... Caps Shift 5 Cursor Right ................................... Caps Shift 8 Cursor Up ...................................... Caps Shift 7 Cursor Down .................................... Caps Shift 6 DATABASE A DATABASE is an ideal way of storing information such as names, addresses, telephone numbers and ages. Each of these four pieces of information is called a field. Together they make a record. So a database is really like an electronic filing cabinet containing a lot of individual records. You will find that your micro can manipulate information in the database very easily and very quickly. In no time at all it can search for one particular item and display it for you on the screen. It can also carry out a multiple sort and provide you - in the following example for instance - with a list of all the people in your file who live in Liverpool and whose ages range from 15 to 25. There are two types of field - numeric and string. The former is used for numbers (such as ages). String fields are used for words. But it should be noted that entries such as telephone numbers are also regarded as strings because they may include characters like spaces and hyphens. The main difference between the two becomes apparent when they are sorted. When treated as a number, 2 comes before 11. But when it is a string, 11 comes before 2 - just as aa comes before b in a telephone directory. To load and run the database program simply type: LOAD "DBASE" and press Enter. When loading has been completed, the various options are displayed. Choose the one you want by pressing the appropriate key as indicated. Getting started To set up a file of records we must tell the computer what type of information we wish to keep in each record. As an example we shall set up a file of records to hold the names and addresses of a group of friends. A typical record would be: SURNAME: JONES FIRST NAME: SIMON ADDRESS1: 6 BROAD LANE ADDRESS2: LIVERPOOL TELEPHONE: 051-633 8000 AGE: 42 Each line of information in the record is known as a field, so this record has six fields, with the address being split over two fields. Selecting Option B from the menu will allow you to start setting up the file. The first piece of information that you will need to tell the computer is the number of fields you need for each record. We have decided to have six fields, so in answer to the question: "How many fields per record?" key in 6 and press Enter. The next step is to give a name to each of the fields so that from now on we will be able to refer to them by name rather than number. The computer will also need to know whether to treat the information stored in each field as a number or as a string, as well as the maximum number of characters to expect for each field. For the field title enter SURNAME. The computer will then ask for the field type to be entered. Since this field will contain only alphabetic characters and we will not want to perform arithmetic operations on them, enter S for string. Finally we need to tell the computer the maximum number of characters to expect for the field. The maximum allowed for any field is 21, so we will enter 21. Now repeat this for fields 2 to 4, using this table as a guide: Field No. Title Type Length 1 SURNAME: String 21 2 FIRST NAME: String 20 3 ADDRESS1: String 21 4 ADDRESS2: String 20 In field 5 we are going to store the telephone numbers. But although this information is numeric we are going to tell the computer to treat it as a string. If we were to use a numeric field then telephone numbers starting with a zero would lose the leading zero. 5 TEL: String 15 6 AGE: Numeric 3 After entering the details for field 6 you will find the screen displays a summary of all the fields. You are then given the opportunity to make changes to any of the details entered. As an example we shall change the title of field 5 to TELEPHONE. Answer N to the question: "Is this correct?" and then enter 5. Row 5 of the field summary should now change colour. All you need do is to retype the information for this field and enter TELEPHONE instead of TEL. for the title. Once you are satisfied with the field definitions press Y and you will be returned to the menu. Adding records (Option C) Now that we have set up a file we can start to add records to the database. The number of the record being entered is always displayed at the top of the screen. The title of the field for which the computer is expecting an input is printed on the left. So the first field title to be displayed for our file will be SURNAME. To enter the first record type: SURNAME: JONES FIRST NAME: SIMON ADDRESS1: 6 BROAD LANE ADDRESS2: LIVERPOOL TELEPHONE: 051-633 8000 AGE: 42 When you have finished entering the record a list of possible options will appear at the bottom of the screen. If you wish to modify the record press A. Each field is then displayed in turn, along with the prompt: "Is this correct?". If you wish to change your entry for the field then press N and key in the new information. Pressing Y will allow you to go on to the next field. If you want to add another record press N. Otherwise press M to return to the menu. Loading a file (Option A) A demonstration file has been provided with the program. This will give you an opportunity to experiment with the features outlined below without having to enter your own set of records. Select the load option by pressing A. Loading a new file will erase any records already stored. As a precaution, if a file has already been set up, the computer will ask if you are certain you want to load a new file. Now enter the filename of the file you want to load. You must use a filename, not just press Enter. The demonstration file is called DFILE. You must ensure that the tape is in the correct position. (The file follows the Database program.) Once the file has been loaded you can perform various operations on the records by selecting the appropriate option from the menu. List records (Option F) This option allows you to examine the records that have already been entered. After selecting this option you will be asked if you want to print out the records. If you do, press B. If not, press A. You must now tell the computer which records you wish to see. For example, if you would like to look at records 3, 4, 5 and 6 you should enter 3 (Enter), followed by 6 (Enter). The first record you requested will then be displayed, and at the bottom of the screen you will see a list of the possible options available to you. Pressing N will allow you to move to the next record. If you wish to delete the record displayed on the screen press D. Pressing A will allow you to alter the record. This operates in the same way as if you had selected Option E from the main menu or when adding records (Option C) and has already been described. To return to the menu press M. Field search (Option G) This option allows you to find any record quickly without having to go through each record in turn. After selecting the option, you must state which field you wish to search through. The options available then depend on whether the field is a string or numeric one. If you have selected a string field you can choose to search for a specific string or for part of a string. The difference is that if, for example, you search for "row" as a specific string, the word "rows" would not be found. But it would have been had you asked for a part string search. For a numeric field, you have four options: A. Search for a specific value X (i.e., the number you entered). B. Search for values >X (i.e., any numbers greater than the one you entered). C. Search for values