View Menu

View menu - Overview

The following are available:-

· Order

· Browse or Detail

· Tool Bar

· Paragraph Bar

· Ruler

· Status Bar

· Index Data

· Navigator

· View Mode

· Merge Data

· Control Characters

· Zoom

Order

The following options are available which organise database records, they can be changed by selection from the View | Order menu or by a left click with pointing device on the appropriate Label.

The highlighted Label indicates the current Order of the database.

· No - Document number and begins database primary index.

· Group - Group Name then primary order.

· User/Date - User Name and Date order.

· Subject/Description/Issue - Subject Oreder.

ToolBar

Visible unless the item in the View menu is shown without a tick.

The Toolbar includes an increasing number of buttons as the program stages are introduced:-

· stage 1 & 2: - four large buttons, Open, Save, Speak and Picture.

· stage 3 & 4: - the above four buttons plus five Color buttons.

· stage 5: - Open, Save, Preview and Print buttons, five Color buttons plus Sound and Picture.

· stage 6: - Open, Save, Spell, Preview, Print buttons, Font Color change and Highlight Color change, plus Sound and Picture.

· stage 7: - stage 6 buttons plus Cut, Copy and Paste buttons.

· stage 8: - New, Open, Save, Spell, Preview, Print, Font Color, Highlight Color buttons; Zoom document selector, Bullet and Indent, Decrease Indent, Show/Hide control character, Find, Replace, Insert Video or Sound, Picture & Close All buttons.

Paragraph Bar

Visible only when a tick shown in the View menu.

To change a font type or size

· Select the text whose format you want to change.

· Click the drop down arrow of Font box and make your selection from the list.

· Click on the Font size drop down arrow and select a size.

· If you want a different size to those displayed then click in the font size box, type in the size you want and press the Enter key to change text size.

To change a font style

· Select the text whose format you want to change.

· In the middle of the Paragraph bar are three buttons with

B - for Bold, I - for Italics and U - for Underlined.

To format a paragraph

· Click anywhere in the paragraph you want to format.

· In the middle right of the Paragraph Bar are three buttons indicating Left, Right and Center which aligns the text.

· The fourth Justify button produces a vertical beginning and end to the wrapped lines of a paragraphs by 'stretching' the text, this effect tends to be used in published text.

Tab type buttons

· Located to the right of the Paragraph Bar, click to select Left, Right, Decimal or Centered Tab button.

· Click on Ruler to Insert chosen Tab type.

Note:-

· You can specify the font for new text by changing the font settings before you begin to type.

· You can change the font for an entire document by using Select All from the mouse menu (usually right click) before making your Font selection.

· You can define paragraph formatting for a new document by changing the format options before you begin to type.

Ruler

Located immediately above the document and is visible only when a tick is shown in the View menu. The Ruler controls:-

· Paragraph Indents are the triangular icons on the Ruler left side, the top icon dictates the indent value for the first line with the bottom icon controlling the indent value for other lines within the paragraph.

· Tab positioning controls the additional indent or spacing of text after a Tab key entry. A Tab position icon may be added to the ruler by clicking at the chosen position, the type of a Tab function is dependent on which Tab button is selected. Tab icons may be dragged to a new position or deleted by dragging them off the ruler.

· Line Wrap icon is triangular - located on the right of the Ruler . It may be dragged to determine the position at which all lines within the paragraph wrap onto a new line. The action is referred to as 'soft return', whereas pressing the Enter key insets a 'hard return' the point at which a new paragraph starts.

· Table Cell icon is a grey vertical line - controls the position and size of a cell, when a cell icon is dragged other cells to the right are resized proportionally to fir the table row.

Status Bar

Visible only when a tick shown in the View menu and provides information as to the position of the caret, such as Page and Line number, Column position.

Also Zoom factor and the status of the Insert(OVR), Capitals Lock(CAPS), Number Lock(NUM) toggle functions.

· OVR showing - Text entered using the keyboard will overwrite existing text else text is Inserted.

· CAPS showing - Text entered by keyboard is in CAPITALS.

· NUM showing - Dual mode keys are locked as Number values.

Index Data

Visible if the option item in the View menu is shown with a tick.

The panel contains the database head record field edit controls. The highlighted label indicates the record Order, click on a Label to change database record order.

Buttons include:-

· Browse - shown in Detail mode.

· Detail - shown in Browse mode.

· Next - enabled when window state is in maximised, in normal window state button text shows grey.

Navigator

Database Navigator buttons are located at the bottom of the WordBase window and are provided to facilitate one touch use with the pointing device.

From the left the buttons provide access to the First, Prior, Next and Last records respectively. The navigational options in the Edit menu perform the same function.

The button on the right with the 'tick' icon performs the Post edit/'Soft Save' function, if the 'tick' is dimmed no data change has occurred since the last post/save. The Soft Save function commits data but dependent on your Windows energy conservation setting may not write to your hard disk. Important if you use a Laptop in battery mode.

The Save function in the File menu performs a 'Hard Save' ie database on hard disk is updated.

Changing the current record automatically performs the Post edit/Save function.

Merge Data

Located in the View menu, shows the Merge Mail database and enables standard letter/documents to be printed quickly with different names /data values. For example, a standard letter may be personalised to include each person's name and/or results, cost etc;

· When the Merge Data window is activated, if the text file Data.txt exists in the current directory then the contents are loaded into the database else a help entry is displayed showing that Link Marker replacement text has to be separated by a coma (,)

· The Merge Data window includes a navigation control which has buttons to:-

· Go to First record - finds first line/record in database

· Move to Prior record - finds record before current record

· Move to Next record - advances current record

· Go to Last record - locates last record in the database

· Insert record - adds a blank new line for edit

· Delete record - removes record from the database

· Post edit - commits changes made to the current record in the database.

· Cancel edit - abandons insert mode or edit changes and reloads current record from the database.

· Select the Merge button to copy database comma delimited text to the respective Link Marker in the active document. Simply - the first part of the text visible in the Merge Data text box (up to the first comma) is copied and replaces the text in the document's first Link Marker; text after the first comma (up to the second comma) is copied and replaces text in the second Link Marker and so on.

· Select the Close button to de-activate the window and Save data to the text file Data.txt in the current directory, if file does not exist then it will be created (assuming write access).

The View menu View Mode has two options:-

Page view - replicates the multiple pages when printed.

Continuous - the document has no page breaks.

If checked in the View menu then Control Characters appear within the document. Enables end of paragraph 'hard' returns to be differentiated from 'soft' returns used in the text wrap function.

The View menu and Toolbar Zoom selector has a stepped value range from 10% to 400% which controls the magnification level of the document as viewed. Refer to Paragraph Bar to change text size.