a E i - Commodore Is Awesome

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typing and filing which will get you
used to the package and some of its
capabilities.
Upon loading the program you will be
presented with a notice board. Here
you will find any message that the
previous user has left for you. An alter
date function lets you set up todays
date for use within the program while
!he Diary function allows you to look
at the selected months appointments,
birthdays etc.
Once you have finished with the
notice board then it's on to the main
menu. here you can select at the press
of a key the following options:
Accounts - the book keeping functions
Typing - the wordprocessor for typing
letters
Filing - the database
Spreadsheet - for cashilow forecasts
General - Altering screen colours,
company name etc.
Backup - Copy a disk
Close Down - Finish for the day and
edit noticeboard
One extremeley nice function is the
ability to press the HELP key at any
time. Should you press the key while
on the main menu a help screen similar
to the above is given together with
where you can find more information
within the package. When help is
C128 REVIEW
selected you arc also given the chance
of printing the help screen out and
editing the screen.
Should you select typing from the
main menu then the computer will go
away and load the Wordprocessor
from disk. Again you will be presented
with a menu of options, as with the
main menu. These are:
Edit text
Load from disk
Store on disk
Print on paper
Clear textspace and
Destroy text file
I think that all of the above options are
self explanatory anti therefore need
not be dealt with in more detail.
The wordprocessor isn't as flash as
some of the dedicated wordprocessor
programs that are available on the
market it does however offer a few
'nice' tlinctions which make it both
pleasant and easy to use. Options
available to the user are as you would
expect inserting and deleting of lines
and characters, an automatic insert
that allows you to add text in the
middle of text already entered. Unlike
with a typewriter the only time that
you are required to enter a carriage
return is when you %rant to force a line
feed, such as at the end of the text. The
program has an automatic word wrap
which will prevent the rest of the paragraph
from appearing on one line.
The find option allows you to
search any word in the text making it
easy to move around the text.
The block functions allow you to
delete blocks of text from your article
as well as print them or move them
elsewhere.
If you are lucky enough to own a
printer that supports such features as
Underline, Italics or Near Letter
Quality then you can make use of
these. The setup printer section of the
program allowing you to customise the
program for specific printer.
A couple of extremely nice and useful
touches to this word processor are
the *date and *name commands.
Whenever these are found within a
document the program will automatically
insert the current date, entered
when loading the program and the
name and address of your company.
For companies who have large
YOUR COMMODORE january 1987
51
mailing lists you will no doubt find the
mailmerge option of use. This will
allow you to insert information within
your text that has been retrieved from
the database, for example the name
and address of all your clients. Provision
is also made to allow you to
enter a merge list, the information to
be entered into the text, from the keyboard
which is useful for those one off
letters. A number of advanced features
are included here with allow you to
perform calculations on information
before it is entered into the letter you
can even set the number of decimal
places that are used when printing
numbers.
All in all the wordprocessor is
excellent for producing small
documents or letters. As I have said
none of the fancy features available
with larger wordprocessors, such as
spelichecking, are present but it will
make sending out letters etc. much
easier.
I CLIIIMIVIS FRE 1
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Fib M talasisis M i b l
bias b o i l amble' tie
Mw*$INIwI S A
The database or filing section of the
program is where you can store
information such as names and
addresses or items in stock.
For those of you who may have
never come across a database it can be
viewed as a type of electronic card
index box. As with the cards yu can
decide what information that you wish
to store and in what format you want
to hold it. However a database is much
more flexible. Let's say for example
that you have a list of club members
stored under their surname. The file
may contain their name, address and
whether they have paid their subscription.
Now let's say that you want a list
of all people who hadn't paid up. With
the card index system you would have
to go through each card in turn taking
out the people who hadn't paid. With a
database then you could ask it to give
you a list of people who hadn't paid