VALDOCS 2 TIPS EDITOR Avoiding word processing errors When creating a document be sure to enter all of the text first BEFORE making any formatting changes (e.g. page size, centering, margins, line spacing, bold, italics, tabs, etc.) The way that the Editor works, it stores all formatting changes as codes and/or pointers and the more formatting changes that you make, the more information that the Editor has to work around to get to the text that you entering or changing. Therefore, by first entering and editing only text, the Editor can work a little easier and is less likely to encounter a word processing error. After all the text is correct and STOREd, then make all the formatting changes needed to get the document the way you want it to look. Not only does it help in avoiding word processing errors, but helps to improve the speed of the Editor as well. Conversions The Valdocs 1.1x to Valdocs 2 conversion process is less than perfect. It appears that Valdocs 1.1x documents that have a minimum of formatting will convert the best and the more formatting that the original document has the less chance it has of being a usable Valdocs 2 document. One of the anomalies of a converted documents is that when an operation from the ook-for menu is performed, it will display garbage characters all over the screen when you are asked for the word to search or replace. We recommend that you do not use the document conversion unless absolutely necessary. The truth about typestyles There are only 2 font sizes; Compressed and Normal. The other 2 font sizes, Large and Super, are a hardware manipulation called "character zoom". Therefore, the best way to refer to the font sizes (from smallest to largest) is: Compressed, Normal, Enlarged Compressed, Enlarged. There is no solid proof for it, but it is suspected that Compressed character fonts are what make trouble for the Editor and the Spreadsheet. By limiting the use of the Compressed character fonts you may get Valdocs to operate better. CALC/SPREADSHEET Spreadsheets that do not shrink Because Valdocs uses virtual memory, it had to limit some of the features of the Spreadsheet. When a worksheet is created, space must be set aside on the disk for every new column or row that is added. However, when you delete any unneeded rows or columns, you do not regain any disk space. Rather than compressing the worksheet back down to a smaller size, it simply ignores the data on the disk for the deleted row or column. DRAW Indexing and graphs Although Draw uses the Indexer like all the other modules of Valdocs 2, it does not interface as well as the other modules. When you RETRIEVE a graph, you can get it by its Index name, but when you go to STORE it, you must re-enter the Index name all over again. Unfortunately, you end up with a Graph Index that has a lot of old graphs that you will not need. It is therefore, recommended that you purge some of the unneeded graphs to make space available on your disks. SETUP Initial module - Menu vs. Editor A lot of customers prefer to have Valdocs 2 load up directly into the Editor, since they do mostly word processing. Although this is quite convenient, it has the potential of locking you out of Valdocs 2 (especially if you a hard disk with your QX) if a word processing error should occur. It is our recommendation that you have Menu as the start up module, since it loads quickly and is only a keystroke from the Editor. Most importantly though, you will not be caught in a word processing error upon boot up if it should occur and you will then be able to effect recovery from the word processing error.