Printers: Citizen PN48

The PN48 printer emulates the Epson LQ-850. You should set the copy intensity to as low a value as possible when the ribbon is new. You'll find that the ribbons get used up very quickly especially when printing graphics.

For this reason, you will get the best use out of the multistrike ribbon (it can be reused). The single strike ribbon is best used for final copy (can only be used once).

--Information provided by GWRepJohn

Article#0226
Updated 06/08/92
Printers: Oki 82-a

The Oki 82-a is not supported in GEOS. The closest driver is the OKI Microline 92, but you will be lucky if you can get that driver to work in HIGH mode without the 82 dropping bytes, and creating a mess on the page.

There are no plans to support this printer in graphics mode, but if you have to print out text, you can use the Oki 92 driver in Text Only mode for character only printing. Just remember to use only the URW Mono 12 point font throughout your document.

--Information provided by DavidDGW (Dave Durran, GeoWorks Engineering)

Article#0227
Updated 06/08/93
Printers: ThinkJet

The ThinkJet is not currently supported directly, but the QuietJet instruction set should give most of the support you will need to print. Use the printer driver for the QuietJet.

--Information provided by GWRepDoug

Article#0228
Updated 04/17/92
Printers: IBM Execjet

The EXECJET is supported in GeoWorks Pro. However, the EXECJET did not get listed in the list of printers.

Here is what to do to get that EXECJET up and running:

Set the printer to the IBM MODE.
Select the BJ-130e driver during setup.

--Information provided by GWRep Don

Article#0229
Updated 04/17/92
Printers: Tandy DMP 134

PROBLEM: There is no specific driver for this printer, but the manual recommends several alternatives including the IBM Proprinter and Proprinter II. With each of these, the printing begins further down on the page than necessary and flows onto the top of the next page in proportion. Any suggestions for a fix or possibly a specific driver?

SOLUTION: The answer here is to adjust the page and paper sizes for the printer. There are several printers out there that do this and GeoWorks is aware of it. It takes some calculation and work to set everything up just right.

Start out by changing the default Paper and Page settings in Preferences, Printer to 10 inches. Also, change the top margin of the document to .25" (the smallest allowed). Now try printing out the document. It should fit OK, but sometimes a little tweaking is needed on the Paper and Page defaults to get it correct. The loss of 1" of document will be absorbed by the header. This 1" loss will most likely result in the loss of the whole header, unless you change the top margin to around 2", and compensate by changing the bottom margin to 1/4".

--Information provided by GWRep Don

Article#0230
Updated 04/17/92
Printers: HP PaintJet

Use the QuietJet driver. There may be border and page size problems (due to limitations on border edge printing).

--Information provided by GWRepDoug

Article#0231
Updated 04/17/93
Printers: Envelope Printing Suggestions

I have some suggestions that in general work well with formatting anything on any printer.

Don't use GeoWrite, use GeoDraw instead. That way you can put text anywhere you want directly rather than worrying about inserting the right number of blank lines and spaces.

On page setup, don't pick the envelope, just pick plain 8.5x11 inch paper.
Using GeoDraw, set up a grid (any kind of document landmarks you want: characters, lines, whatever that covers a whole piece of 8.5x11 paper).

Print your grid document with the envelope in the printer. See if your orientation was correct (portrait or landscape) and change your grid's page setup accordingly.

Print your grid document again with the now correct orientation and see what parts of your grid end up on the envelope in the areas you want (return address, address, special message area). Go back to your Geodraw grid document and put markers (boxes are nice) around the corresponding areas.

Delete the grid, leaving only the area markers. Save the GeoDraw Document and you now have a no-fuss, no-muss home made reusable precision template for printing envelopes.

When you want to print an envelope just put address, return address, etc. into the boxes, delete the boxes, but not the addresses and print your envelope.

--Information provided by OLEGGIO (a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0232
Updated 06/08/92
Printers: PostScript, Inconsistent Colors

I have identified a problem with inconsistent colors when printing GeoDraw documents on a color PostScript printer, using the "PostScript Compatible" printer driver and printing to a file.

The problem is that choosing the SAME COLOR from the Text, Line, and Area Attributes boxes results in different RGB colors in the PostScript file. To make the colors consistent, I manually edit the RGB colors in the PostScript file before sending it to the printer.

Here are some examples of the RGB color values which are appearing in the PostScript file. They can be found by looking at the SGC command, which has been defined to invoke the setrgbcolor PostScript command.

COLOR  -  TEXT ATTRIBUTE  -  LINE & AREA ATTRIBUTES
-----  -  --------------  -  ----------------------
bright red  -  255  85  85  255  -  68 154
dark  red  -  170  0  0  -  205  0  0
bright green  -  85 255  85  -  119 255  0
dark  green  -  0 170  0  -  85 255  34
bright blue  -  85  85 255  -  0 255 255
dark  blue  -  0  0 170  -  0  154 255

--Information provided by FuhrmanTom (a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0233
Updated 06/08/92
Printers: PostScript common driver

The lowest common denominator PostScript driver entry is the Apple LaserWriter II NT. This should work (though slower than it needs to with newer printers) with almost any PostScript printer.

--Information provided by Dave Durran, GeoWorks Engineering

Article#0234
Updated 06/08/92
Printers: Texas Instruments 3000

QUESTION: I used version 1.0, which works (in draft mode only, apparently), and then installed v1.2, which does not work at all! I have tried switch and emulation changes to no avail. I use a T.I. 3000 and a pass-through portable hard disk on the printer port. The same set-up for v1.0 worked.

ANSWER: The problem sounds like you did not reset your printer port (I assume it is LPT1). On 'pass-through' interfaces, you must use the interrupt on the parallel port that uses DOS for the direction of the port information.

V1.0 had an interrupt level called 'POLL', which was set to tell GEOS to talk with DOS during the printer communications.

V1.2 has removed the 'POLL' interrupt and replaced it with two new ones. These are, in order of which one to try first, are 'BIOS' and 'DOS'. This allows you to better 'tune' your system in order to get best speed from GEOS.

Please run the Preferences application. Select the Computer button and then set the interrupt for LPT1 (if this is your printer port) to BIOS first and try it. If it doesn't work yet, select the DOS interrupt. This should fix your problem.

Article#0235
Updated 06/08/93
Printers: Printer Speed

Q: How fast can you print a page?

A: Printer speed depends primarily on print quality and printer type. The higher the print quality, the longer it takes. Laser printer owners  especially tend to comment on the amount of time it takes to print. This is because GeoWorks products print primarily in graphics mode.

This has to do with outline font technology used. Generally, it's advisable to print drafts and documents in progress at less than high resolution. Then print high resolution for the final copy. GeoWorks Pro and Ensemble 2.0 can make your HP LaserJet print faster than it could in GeoWorks Ensemble V1.2 by downloading fonts to the printer. Just print in text mode only to take advantage of this feature.

Article#0236
Updated 06/08/93
Printers: Epson LQ-1050 with sheet feeder

I used an Epson LQ-1050 with a sheet feeder at work for a while and had a problem with blank pages between my printed pages. The reason for the problem is two-fold.

First, you may need to change the 'number of spaces at top' to 1.

Second, you need to tell GEOS the paper is not really 11 inches long, but 11 inches minus the default top spacing caused by the sheet feeder. I set my defaults in GEOS to 10.625 and all worked well.

To do this, run the Preferences application, select the Printer button. In the Printer window, select the Default Settings... button and change BOTH the default document and default page sizes to the desired settings. The only other thing you have to remember is that any documents you have previously done or bring in from another computer may have to have the document size changed to match what you use.

By following the above advice you will lose a little of the bottom header. To cure this, set the top margin to .875 and the bottom margin to 1.125. This should even out the page again. Some experimenting may be needed to get it exactly right.

--Information provided by GWRep Don

Article#0237
Updated 06/08/93
Printers: White lines or squashed characters

If your dot matrix printout has white lines or "squashed" characters, try printing using the friction feed option on your printer, instead of the tractor feed.

If the friction feed does fine, then the problem is isolated to the gear train that is feeding the paper into the printer in continuous feed (tractor feed). This means there is enough wear in the gear train to allow the paper to shift a little bit (maybe just 1/32"). This translates into the printed line being out of position by that much.

When you use TEXT ONLY MODE, or another one of your DOS applications printing text based, the internal fonts of the printer are used to print the characters. When the internal font is use, the character is made in one pass (line) of the print head. This means the characters are always the same height on every line, so the problem may not be apparent.

When you use HIGH or MEDIUM mode (not TEXT ONLY), or when you use another DOS application printing graphics (Draw Program), the printer is put into a graphics mode and the internal fonts of the printer are no longer used. Now, when you want to print a character, the program running (GeoWorks Ensemble, in this case) has to 'draw' the character on the paper, emulating the height of the character by a certain amount of dots (Dots Per Inch or DPI). For this example, let's say the character is 12 points high, which equates to about 5/32" in height. Most nine pin printers can print graphics 8 pins at a time. Also, to make a higher resolution, the printer will 'lay' down more dots in a given area. So, to make this character using a 150 DPI (medium mode), will take about 4 passes (23 dots high), depending on the type of printer.

Now the problem: If the paper, which is micro fed by the program telling the gear train to move (as little as 1/64" each time) slips a little on the tractor, or the paper bail is away from the friction roller, or if the gear train binds a little and doesn't move the required amount or moves a little too much, then the next pass of dots laid on the paper will be out of place and will distort the printout resulting in smaller characters or white lines.

An 'italics' look could be caused by the paper slipping left-to-right. Make sure the paper bail is down and check for excess movement of the paper left-to-right. It can also be caused by the printer printing bi-directional (both ways) and the right-to-left pass of the print head is out of alignment with the left-to-right one.

If the characters are smaller, this is an indication the gear train is not moving the full amount ordered. You may try cleaning the gear train and applying a little light machine oil or grease. It is best to have the machine serviced by a dealer: they know what to look for and have the specs on the oil, grease, or whatever is needed for the job.

--Information provided by GWRep Don

Article#0238
Updated 06/08/92
Printers: HP LaserJet, Print a Full Page with only 512K

Question : I have a laser printer, but it only has 512K of memory and I can't afford an upgrade to more memory, but a full page printout is really important to me. How can I get a full page printed in high resolution?

Answer: In GeoDraw, what I do is simply break the document into components that will print. For example. I did an advertising layout for my employer the other day and it was a full 8.5 x 11 page of text and graphics. It would only print about 3/4 of the page at once before running out of memory.

So, I CUT some graphics and text and printed it once. Then, replaced those graphics and text where they were, and CUT the things that had just printed, and then, reprinted the page, with the same piece of paper back in the paper tray again. Needless to say, you should have 20 lb paper minimum to be doing this with. Cheaper 16 or 18 pound might catch in the printer on the second pass.

Another tip: if you want to preview a full page of text and graphics, but don't want to go to all that bother, what I do is fuse the full page in GeoDraw, then shrink and rotate it, till it takes up 1/2 the page at the top in landscape position (i.e. sideways) and then print. This is also useful for making a four page insert or flyer from one 8.5x11 sheet of paper.

Of course, for GeoWrite documents, I copy them into GeoDraw then pull these tricks on them.

--Information provided by PC Robin and GWRepKnox

Article#0239
Updated 04/15/93
Printers: Print on both sides of the page

Here's what I do to organize all those helpful tips and newsletters. I prefer a hard copy when looking up a "how to" item but I found so many that my three ring binder filled fast. Then I realized I was only using half the space available. Next time you print out a large document use both sides of the page. Just manually select all the odd pages first (Title pages are even since the next page is page one) then advance the paper an extra page before you detach it. Now, reinsert the paper on the other side being sure to line up to start on the same page as the first printed odd page. Now print out the even numbered pages and you will have saved space and done your bit for ecology, too!

If you're really ambitious you can cut and paste all the odds or evens to a second document and print each document to a side.

--Information provided by PC Robin and DavidL129

Article#0240
Updated 06/10/92
Printers: Print to file with Ensemble v1.2

This tip involves using the file PRN2FILE.COM. You can download this file from America Online. Just do a keyword QUICKFIND and type in PRN2FILE as your searchword.

This file will make it possible for you to print a GeoWorks Ensemble v1.2 file to disk instead of sending it to the printer.

Before using PRN2FILE, run Preferences/Computer and change the printer port to BIOS. This allows DOS (or a TSR) to direct the output where it is needed.

Next, exit GEOS before installing or removing this or any other TSR. With PRN2FILE in your current directory or path, type:

PRN2FILE [drive:][path]filename

EX: prn2file d:\prncap.prt
(in this example, all files will be "printed" to the file prncap.prt on drive d:).

If you are on a Novell network, you may use the CAPTURE command. As above, exit GEOS before using or removing this utility. With CAPTURE in your current directory or path, type:

CAPTURE ti=45 [l=n] nb cr=server\volume:homedirpath\filename

Where l=1, 2, or 3 and corresponds to LPT1:, LPT2:, or LPT3: homedirpath is the path to your home directory
filename is the filename you want the printer output to go to

EX: CAPTURE ti=45 l=1 nb cr=code0pa\vol1:user\doe\capfile.prt

This will capture the output of LPT1 to the filename you gave in the command. Now start up GeoWorks Ensemble again. Install the printer you want the output formatted for. You will get a warning that the printer is not responding. This is OK. Continue with the installation as usual. When you are ready to print, make sure that you are sending output to the printer you just installed, and it should be sent to the filename you selected when you used the PRN2FILE or CAPTURE command.

--Information provided by PC Robin and WMarkH

Article#0241
Updated 06/10/92
Printers: Multicolor Printing from Ensemble v1.2

To create several posters in multiple colors we have used GeoDraw in the following way. Draw the poster in its entire form. Make sure that the parts that you want different colors are in separate objects. When you have it finished, copy it several times to different files. For instance, 'drawing blue', 'drawing red', 'drawing black', etc. Then go into each one of these and delete all objects except those that you want that color. When you are finished with each, print them. Then take them to a print shop where they can layer them with color copiers or other means. Some offices even have copiers with multiple colors. I have done this with really sharp results.

You can use a similar technique with a DeskJet printer. Buy different colored ink jet cartridges for the printer and feed the paper back through, changing colors each time. Use thick paper as it can get a bit "moist".

--Information provided by PC Robin and IMJerry

Article#0242
Updated 06/10/93
Printers: HP DeskJet margins tip

Many people who own a DeskJet printer have the problem of "losing" the top and bottom of some documents. Due to the paper handling mechanism of the Deskjet, it cannot print in the half inch at the edges of the page, whereas most printers can print to within a quarter inch of the edges.

The only work-around in Ensemble v1.2 or GeoWorks Pro is to set margins of at least a half inch in GeoWrite, and to position graphics in geoDraw so that they are at least a half inch from the edges of the page. Ensemble 2.0 provides the "Scale to Fit" option when printing which takes care of the problem quite elegantly.

To print an existing document in its entirety in Ensemble v1.2 or GeoWorks Pro, you can do this:

1. Select 50% or 25% from the "view" menu, whichever it takes to see the whole page at once on your monitor.

2. Use the select tool to drag a box around the entire page, so that all the objects on the page are selected. (In the GeoWorks Pro version of GeoDraw, just click Select All in the Edit menu.)

3. Select Fuse from the Edit menu.

4. Using the left mouse button, grab the lower right resize handle and drag it up and to the left, reducing the size of everything on the page slightly. (You want to reduce the size of the page at least one half inch in both the horizontal and vertical directions.) In GeoWorks Pro, you can copy and paste the object into the Scrapbook and use Copy at View % to reduce it proportionally, then paste it back into GeoDraw.

5. Using the right mouse button, grab the object (the whole page is one object now) and reposition it to center it on the page, so there is now a half-inch margin all the way around it, instead of the original quarter-inch margin.

6. Print.

That should do it. Takes a lot longer to describe the process than it does to actually perform it.

--Information provided by PC Robin and GWRepDon

Article#0243
Updated 06/10/93
Printers: HP LaserJet II, Fast Multiple Copies

To make lots of copies of GeoWorks documents without waiting hours for it to send the image one pixel at a time to the printer for each copy on a Hewlett Packard Laser Jet II, do as follows:

On the Laser-Jet Control Panel:

1. Press the MENU Button

2. Use +&-keys to set the number of copies you want

3. Press the ENTER RESET MENU Button

4. Press the MENU Button repeatedly to Scroll to "00 READY"

5. Press the CONTINUE RESET Button and hold until you see "07 RESET".

Whatever image that's sent to the printer's memory will be printed as many times as you want. This works because the GeoWorks printer driver doesn't tell the laser jet how many copies to print, so it doesn't override the "Number of Copies" setting when it prints.

Remember to repeat the above procedure to reset the "number of copies" to 1 as the printer retains the number of copies setting even when it's powered down.

--Information provided by GeoWorks

Article#0244
Updated 04/04/93
Printers: QUME PostScript Driver Patch

The Qume CrystalPrint Publisher is a PostScript printer that we initially had problems printing to. A customer was kind enough to let us borrow one for a day, and we've discovered the problem and an easy solution.

Believe it or not, the bug is in the version of the PostScript interpreter (it is non-Adobe) that is in ROM in the printer. The interpreter chokes on a bit of PostScript code that the Adobe reference guide says should be just fine, and which works fine on REAL Adobe printers.

Our PostScript driver allows for PostScript patch files to "fix" problems that crop up after we ship the driver. Users that have this printer should create a file called "DEVPATCH.PS" in their SYSTEM directory. This file should contain the following piece of ASCII text:

GWDict begin
/CFN {dup 64 string cvs length dup 1 add string /ts xdef string cvs
1 exch ts 3 1 roll putinterval ts 0 (_) putinterval ts cvn} bdef
end

Article#0245
Updated 04/04/93
Printers: Star NX-2420 EPROM Upgrade

The NX 2420 has an EPROM chip located under the removable cover for the font cartridge just below the ribbon cassette. If you have an earlier version EPROM you will get 1/4" blank lines when printing from GEOS. On the EPROM there is a paper sticker, it should sa something like ZBL 1.3. The current version is 1.7. You can request an upgrade from Star Micronics. Call their tech support number 908-572-3300 and ask for the FIRMWARE EPROM UPGRADE. If you don't feel comfortable changing the chip yourself, then take your printer to the nearest Star repair location and they will take care of it. This might even be covered under the warranty.

--Information provided by JohnF18431 (a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0246
Updated 04/04/93
Printers: Text Printing "Uphill" in Landscape Mode

Something I discovered recently has to do with a text line riding up the page while printing in landscape mode. It appears that one word will print fine, the next will be up around 1/16 inch or so, and so on. By "uphill" I mean up the page as you look at the sheet after printing and positioning it for normal reading.

If this is your problem, then it points to the use of Character Spacing, which is located under the GeoWrite Text menu. I have talked to GeoWorks and found that it is a known bug with character spacing and landscape printing.

We recommend you not use character spacing (leave it at zero) when formatting and printing in landscape mode. Also, if you are using full justification, it will not justify correctly with character spacing set to something besides zero.

--Information provided by GWRep Don (Don Stewart, GeoRep)

Article#0247
Updated 04/04/93
Printers: Canon BubbleJet, envelopes

What I did was to work with a regular sheet of paper until I got everything placed where it would print correctly on a regular business size envelope. Be sure the envelope is pressed firmly into the slot. A really thick one won't go through smoothly.

It's a little tricky to include graphics. I tie in a graphic on my letterhead with a repeat of the graphic on the envelope. I get such nice compliments about that! For a detailed description of how to place text next to graphics in GeoWrite in Ensemble 1.2 or GeoWorks Pro, see GeoFax document #126 or the December 1991 issue of GeoBytes.

When I'm writing to someone, all I need to do is go to GeoDex, drag my mouse over the address, and click Edit>Copy. Then I open my addressee template, in which I've left the address selected (highlighted), and just click Edit>Paste: the new address replaces the one in the template. Or I can simply type the new name and address in the template.

Then I print my envelope and, when I exit my template file, it asks if I want to save the changes. I just click NO and the original name and address place holder remains as it was before I used the template.

Using this procedure, I can quickly drag to highlight and then change the font or style if I want. It all works in a second or two. Sounds time consuming, but it isn't.

--Information provided by MaryL20 (Mary Leek, a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0248
Updated 04/04/93
GeoWrite: Style Sheets

Ensemble 2.0 provides a style sheets feature.

In earlier versions of GEOS, although there is no formal "style sheets" command, try this work around.

Save the first document as a template by using the "Save as..." command from the File menu. Give it a name which will remind you of its special status. Then, use and re-use that template as needed. If you want to get really secure about it, you can go to GeoManager and set the file's attributes to Read Only. That way, you won't be able to save any changes to your template.

--Information provided by GwRepRandy

Article#0249
Updated: 06/08/92
GeoWrite: Fractions in GeoWrite

Here's a cool way to enter fractions in GeoWrite:
1. Select Superscript in the Styles menu.
2. Type the numerator.
3. Select Plain text from the Styles menu.
4. Type the special fraction slash: SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+3.
(If the special slash does not appear in the font you are using, use the Sather Gothic or the Shattuck Avenue font just for the slash.)
5. Select Subscript from the Styles menu.
6. Type the denominator.

If you need, you can adjust the character spacing (kerning) to align the elements of the fraction more precisely.

A suggestion: If you're going to use this fraction often, you might want to save it in a scrapbook.

If you want to preserve your leading (line spacing). Try reducing the size of the super- or sub-scripted characters by 3 points for text sizes up to 12 points; experiment with even larger reduction for larger sizes.

--Information provided by GwRepRandy (Randy Padawer)

Article#0250
Updated: 06/08/92
GeoWrite: Line Spacing vs. Manual Leading

Setting a line-spacing of 0.5 for a 14 point font is not the same as setting a manual leading of 7.

Line-Spacing is something of a misnomer. It really sets the height of each line to 1/2 what the line would be naturally. In this case the line becomes 7 points tall.

Manual leading sets the distances between the baselines of adjacent lines. For example, the distance between the baselines might be set to 7 points, but the lines themselves are still 14 points tall.

The result in the case of setting line-spacing to 0.5 is that each line is drawn, and then the area below the line is whited out. This results in a heavily obliterated document. The text is drawn from the top of the line, and then 7 points below that GeoWrite starts whiting stuff out.

In the case of manual leading, the baseline is shifted up to make it 7 points below the line above. When GeoWrite goes to white out below the line, it doesn't actually mess up the data on that line.

I guess you can think about it this way: Line spacing moves the bottom of each line up or down. If it moves it up (making the line shorter) then the line will be clipped.

Manual-leading moves the line itself up or down (by moving the baseline). The result will be that lines are not clipped, instead you will have lines crashing in to each other.

I hope this makes sense. I know it doesn't really solve the problem of having lines crashing into each other and making your screen a mess, but perhaps it will make it easier when deciding which of these two features to use when you are trying to generate an effect.

--Information provided by GW John (John Wedgwood, GeoWorks)

Article#0251
Updated: 06/08/92
Telecom: Minimize AOL during Download

Here's how I minimize (iconify) America Online while I'm downloading a file.

When I want to download something, I use my TAB key to highlight the download button. Then I hit the ENTER key to start the download process. As soon as I hit the ENTER key, I click on the minimize button. AOL will iconify, but the directory window then comes up. Select where you want the download to go and it will start. The download gauge will pop up on top, but the desktop is active. Just click on any active application and the gauge will go behind it. You can do anything at this point except leave GEOS. When the download finishes, it will beep (if sound is on) and the "Download Completed - OK" window will pop up front. You won't miss a thing.

--Information provided by GWRepMike

Article#0252
Updated: 06/08/92
GeoWrite: How to save your View in Ensemble 1.2

When we entered GeoWrite using version 1.0, we set up the screen and saved the options so it would default to be Enlarged to 125 % to make the most of the displayed screen.

With version 1.2, we set the screen up the same way, changed a couple of other options (for the Spell checker), and saved the options. However, when we start up GeoWrite, the screen did not return to the Enlarged to 125 % display we had selected.

I was goofing around with GEOS.INI and discovered that, if I delete the line:

  measurementType = 0

GeoWrite then defaults to 125 % View.

Article#0253
Updated: 06/08/92
GeoWrite: Headers and footers in Ensemble 1.2

Ensemble 2.0 gives you more control over your headers and footers. If you are using an earlier version of Ensemble, then this discussion might help.

THE PROBLEM

1. I want my header/footer to appear on all pages, but have page numbers on "following pages" (i.e., pages 2 through the end) only.

2. I want the header/footer on "following pages" of my document to be different than on the first page.

3. I'm using letter head stationery, but I don't want the letterhead to appear on "following pages".

If any or all of the above are true:

THE SOLUTION

1. Set up headers and footers on the first page of the document as they should appear on the final product. If page numbers are to appear below the header on "following pages", make sure there is sufficient height in the header area of the document.

2. After the document has progressed to the second page, select Page Setup... from the File menu.

3. Click the Yes button beside the Title Page option. This will hide the header and footer on the first page, effectively protecting it.

4. Proceed to the second page of the document (temporarily designated as page 1) by using the Page arrows or by pressing CTRL+N.

5. Set up the headers and footers as they should appear on all "following pages" on this second page of the document.

6. Place the page number in the header or footer as desired by selecting Insert Page Number from the Edit menu. Page 2 will be labeled as Page 1 at this point, but will appear correct at the end of this procedure.

7. When headers and footers for the "following pages" are established, select Page Setup... from the File menu.

8. Click the No button beside the Title Page option. This will re-establish the first page of the document, complete with headers and footers as they were first set up.

9. Proceed with the document as needed. Be advised that any changes to the headers and/or footers beyond this point will require this process to be performed again.

--Information provided by AClem (John R. Bendixsen, a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0254
Updated: 06/08/92
GeoWrite: Unequal column widths in Ensemble 1.2

Ensemble 2.0 provides much greater control over column shapes and sizes. If you are using an earlier version of Ensemble, this work around might be helpful.

I found a decent way to do this (as long as it's the right column you want narrower): use Page Setup to make the page "too wide" for your actual paper, so that part of the right column is beyond 8.5" page width. Then, as you enter text into the right column, just move the margin in (with ruler aligned to page) so that it falls on your paper, and voila! Instant unequal columns in GeoWrite!

--Information provided by SilntObsvr

Article#0255
Updated: 06/10/92
GeoWrite: Preformatting and Reformatting

One of the great features of many Ensemble applications is the ease with which you can alter formatting. For this reason, you can work with text and graphics in a way that you are comfortable with and then reformat when you're finished to get the kind of output you desire. A few simple suggestions and examples...

Making use of GeoWrite's style, font, size, and color...

Text font and size:

I like using the Shattuck Avenue font but am not able to read it easily on screen. Therefore I work in URW Roman or Sans and when I'm finished I highlight my work and change to Shattuck Avenue. (Do this by clicking your left mouse button 5 times to highlight whole page, then select desired font.)

I do the same with font sizes. In this way I can work with 18 or 24 point type on screen then size down to print.

Special effects:

If you have a long passage to type underlined, bold, italic, etc. consider using this technique to make your work on screen easier to see. Type the entire passage, highlight, then click on Styles, then choose the desired effect.

Using COLORS to change screen appearance:

Again this will be of greatest value to folks like me who have trouble dealing with the bright white background and black text.

Changing text color:

To change text color, click on Styles, click on Text Color. A box displaying a choice of colors will appear. Pick the desired color then click on "apply". Your best bet on a light background is a dark color... and on a dark background a light color. In either case, pick solid as it's easier to read on screen than shaded text (dark, med. or light). Once finished typing you can change your text back to the original color by highlighting it, clicking on styles, text color, and picking black/solid.

Changing background color:

Click on Paragraph, then Paragraph Color. A box similar to the Text Color box will appear. Choose the desired color then pick "apply". Remember to highlight the area and return the paragraph color to white before printing or you'll get a surprise.

Please folks don't do what I did and chose the same paragraph color and text color... then sit there wondering what's WRONG with GeoWrite.

A few general tips about reformatting:

Whether you're changing fonts, text color, or paragraph color you can leave the option window open and just move it off the bottom of your screen. To keep the window open select "apply" but not "close". In the case of fonts, click on Fonts, click on More Fonts. This will give you the same list of fonts (unless you have purchased extras) but with a window that lets you preview and apply them without closing the window. This may sound like a small matter but can save a lot of mouse clicking in the long run.

--Information provided by PC Robin

Article#0256
Updated: 06/10/92
GeoWrite: Mail Merge in Ensemble 1.2

Ensemble 2.0 provides a mail merge feature. If you're using an earlier version of Ensemble, then this work around may help.

This is something I discovered in the wee hours of the morning (3:00am). While fiddling with the spell checker (and forever longing for search/replace) I realized it could be used as a mini mail merge. Here's a short, silly little example to see how it works:

1. Create and save a "Basic Merge Document" with the following text:

Name1
Address1
Address2

Dear Name2,

You owe me Amount1. Please mail it to me no later than Date1.

Sincerely yours....

2. Use "Save As" to create a new document and start the spell checker. As it encounters each of the unknown words ("fields") type in a replacement. Filling in the blanks moves along quickly even if the spell checker stops at what you've typed in, hitting ENTER works to replace a word and to skip an unknown word.

3. A test to see how much will fit in one "field" revealed "This is a test to see how much the spell checker will let you typ".

4. Yep, I thought of cutting and pasting from the GeoDex into the replacement window but the spell checker closes up shop.

My example is silly, but I do see several obvious practical applications for this method, mail merge letters, simple fill in the blank invoices, etc.

My mom would have loved this. After we kids moved away from home she typed "generic" letters to the three of us. I wondered why she wrote my name in (after 'dear') rather than typing it... until I got the third letter, a carbon copy.

--Information provided by GWRep Rose

Article#0257
Updated 04/15/92
GeoWrite: Using Paragraph Borders

Drawing borders around paragraphs in GeoWrite really makes your work look spiffy but it can be just a bit tricky.

The easiest way to have a border around your paragraph is to plan ahead. Before you start typing the paragraph text, select PARAGRAPH from the GeoWrite menu. Pick Border. Then you have to make a decision: one line, two line, shadow top left, custom, or color. Click on the one you want. Your cursor on the GeoWrite page will now be in a rectangular box that represents your paragraph border. Type your entire paragraph.

If you just hit a few carriage returns and type a new paragraph, you will get a single border around both or all paragraphs. If you want to have a border around just the one paragraph, you'll need to get out of that box! Let's say you've just typed the last line of your paragraph. Hit the ENTER key so your cursor is sitting on a blank line. Now chose Paragraph, then Border. This time pick None. Your border will close at the bottom of the paragraph and your cursor will be outside of and below the box. You can now continue typing normally.

--Information provided by PC Robin

Article#0258
Updated 04/15/92
GeoWrite: Left Margin Indent

In GeoWrite, just below the 0 (zero) in the ruler line, there are two small half arrows. The upper one sets your paragraph margin while the lower one sets your left margin.

If the paragraph margin (the upper half-arrow) is to the left of the left margin (the lower half-arrow), the left margin acts like a tab. This allows you to easily create bullet or numbered paragraphs by placing the paragraph margin where you want the bullets or numbers to start, and the left margin where the text of the paragraph should go, then just type the bullet or number, a tab, and keep typing. GeoWrite will word-wrap the text correctly and line up the left edges of each line at the left margin.

--Information provided by GW Adam

Article#0259
Updated 04/15/92
Telecom: Offline message reader

Here's a cheap and easy way to keep up on the GeoWorks message boards on America Online (or any other message board) without breaking the bank.

The idea is simple: capture the messages while online, log off, then read them without concern over online charges. Here's how:

1. Log on.

2. Click on FILE. Click on LOGGING.

3. Pick Session Log (note: Conference Log will for capture chatroom text to a file).

4. Click on OPEN.

5. Pick a directory and a filename for the session log. The default name is LOGFILE.TXT. You can leave it as that or change it to anything you want. If you really start using this method, you may prefer using the date as the logfile name: 09_20_91.TXT for example.

6. Click on OK. You are now logging (or saving) every bit of text you view to the file you just named. Only text will be saved so you won't see icons, online menus, etc.

7. Go to keyword (CTRL+K) GEOWORKS.

8. Click on Message Boards (or the Beginner's Room if you want to read its message board).

9. Pick Find New. This will list all new messages since your last visit. Click on each message one at a time. You only need to wait for the hourglass to disappear, then go to the next message. You needn't read it now. And don't worry if you don't hear a disk write. It is being saved. Continue moving through the messages in this way. It is very quick.

10. When you have reached the last message, click on FILE then LOGGING.

11. Click on CLOSE. Click on OK.

12. Log off.

Now that you are offline, you can read through the messages at your leisure. To do this you may use AOL's offline file reader (CTRL+o), the Notepad, Text File Editor, or GeoWrite.

If you wish to compose replies to messages, you can write them offline then log on, relocate the message area you are responding to (that's the hard part), then copy your reply to an "add message" screen via the Edit menu or using the right mouse button to drag and drop the text.

--Information provided by PC Robin

Article#0260
Updated 04/15/92
GeoWrite: Export text from GeoWrite

You can save any GeoWrite document as an ASCII text file. This will remove all GeoWrite formatting codes from the document (i.e. bold, underline, double space) and will make your document readable with an ASCII viewer or the DOS TYPE command:

From any system prompt, give the command

TYPE filename|MORE

Where filename is the name of the document

Note: the | (shift backslash) in |MORE tells DOS you want to see your document one page at a time instead of having it scroll off the screen.

To export a GeoWrite document to ASCII text:

 - in Ensemble 1.2, click on the File menu, then click on Save As Text File.

 - in Ensemble 2.0, choose File, Other, Export.

Give it a filename (to avoid confusion, give it a name that is similar to your GeoWrite document but not the same. I like using the document name with the extension .TXT meaning its saved as ASCII text.

QUESTION: I often need use GeoWrite to develop and print in-house reports and memos. Since I also use an E-MAIL system that supports an ASCII file upload, is it possible to have GeoWrite automatically place a CR and LF at 80 characters when saving a GeoWrite document as a text file?

Unfortunately when GeoWrite exports a document to ASCII text, each line ends with a soft carriage return. There is currently no option to have GeoWrite place a hard return at the end of each line for you. You'll need to do this yourself.

--Information provided by PC Robin

Article#0261
Updated: 04/04/93
GeoWrite: Import and Export

Ensemble 2.0 supports import and export for a variety of word processor formats.

If you are using an earlier version of Ensemble, then you'll need to use ASCII format. Here's how:

1. Start the "other word processor" and call up your document. Save it as ASCII text. Be sure to give it a new name so your original document won't be overwritten.

2. Start GeoWrite. Click (press left mouse button) on the File menu, click on Insert From Text File. You will see the regular GeoWorks file selection window with your GeoWorks directory displayed. Go to the directory or drive where your ASCII text file was saved, highlight that file, and click on IMPORT.

NOTE: Before importing, you way wish to select the URW Mono font. With this font, all letters are the same size (eg. M doesn't take up more room than i) so any columns or indents in your ASCII file will still be formatted correctly. To do this, click on FONTS, click on URW Mono.

To EXPORT from GeoWrite to another word processor, you must follow the above process in reverse. Save the file as an ASCII text file from GeoWrite, then import from ASCII into your other word processor. To save a file in GeoWrite as ASCII, click on the File menu, click on Save As Text File, and give it a name.

Article#0262
Updated: 04/04/93
GeoComm: It doesn't remember my settings in Ensemble 2.0

If you're having trouble with the GeoComm Protocol box (the one with the BPS rate, COM port settings, etc.) popping up each time GeoComm is opened, try this fix:

1) Run Preferences, Computer

2) Check your COM port setting on the first box, then click Speed and Format Options

3) If, after checking Speed and Format option in Preferences, you have no changes to make, make one anyhow. Change Handshake from None to Hardware and back, for instance. This will make the Apply button active at the bottom of the Speed/Format box.

4) Click Apply and click OK on the original box.

5) That should solve the problem (and any difficulties you may be having with GeoDex not dialing as well)

If that doesn't work, make a fresh copy of GEOS.INI from installation disk number one and configure your modem in Preferences, Modem before launching GeoComm.

--Information provided by GWRepDave

Article#0263
Updated 06/26/93
Fax: Ensemble 2.0 and The Complete Communicator

To get GeoDex to launch from the Fax dialog box in Ensemble 2.0, you must type in some "search criteria" where you would normally enter the phone number, then click the "get from GeoDex" button.

Do not use the Autodial feature of GeoDex, but instead, drag and drop the phone number for GeoDex into the phone number field in the Fax dialog box.

Article#0264
Updated 06/26/93
Telecom: Taskswitching

You can taskswitch out to a DOS program while using GeoComm or AOL, without losing connection on most computers using DR DOS's TaskMAX. What's needed is to set the modem to ignore DTR. Whatever you are doing online is suspended, but when you swap back to GeoWorks Ensemble, everything continues where it left off.

Of course, you probably will not want to stay out in another program for more than a few minutes at a time if you're on a commercial service, since the meter is still running while you're out there. However, this can be really handy for checking on a feature in another program, or for searching out some information with a word processor that has a search feature for copying to the TaskMAX clipboard or saving to a text file, for pasting into Email or on a message board.

What is needed is to tell your modem to ignore DTR. The Hayes command for this is:

&D0 (that's a zero, not the letter o).

Some modems default to this setting, while others default to something else. And there are a few modems that won't even recognize the command.

Some modems will accept the command AT&D0&W, which will save the &D0 setting in non-volatile RAM within the modem, so that it becomes the default every time you boot up. To use this, use GeoComm, or any DOS terminal program you like. If your modem responds to AT&D0 (not all do, like the Courier HST), then just enter in terminal mode:

AT&D0&W

Or you can include the command AT&D0 in the postmodem string or in the premodem string in AOL's Setup. For some people it works better in one place or the other, trial and error. Or you can use a telecom program to send the command to the modem before signing on to whatever BBS or service you are calling.

Be sure that &D0 is not followed by some other &D command which would cause the setting to be changed. (Check your scripts if you use one.)

--Information provided by GWRepMike

Article#0265
Updated: 06/08/92
Telecom: America Online Screen Names

HOW TO CREATE SCREEN NAMES:

When you first signed on to AOL, you either picked or were given a screen name. That name will always stay on your account and can't be changed. However, you can create up to four other names for use on your account. Here's how:

1. Go to keyword (CTRL+K) NAMES.

2. Pick "Create a screen name"

3. Click on "continue"

4. Type in the 3 to 10 letter name you want. You may have to get pretty creative. Many names are already taken. If a name you want is taken, you will be offered the next closest possibility. For example, if you ask for "Hello", you may be offered "Hello6". If there's nothing available that's close to what you selected, you may be offered a name like "Member4485". If you want to accept that name, click on OK. If not, erase it and try something else. When satisfied, click on OK.

5. Select a password, type it in, hit the TAB key, type it in again and then click on "Set Password".

That's it, you've just added a name to your account. If you'd like to use this new name, you will have to sign off and then log back on. Notice the name that's displayed in the AOL sign on window. That will be the name you log on with unless you change it. There are up and down arrow keys to the right of the name. Click on either until the name you wish to logon with is showing in the window. Then sign on as you normally would.

Though your various names are on the same account, each has a separate "life" of it's own. When logged on under one name, you can't read mail that was sent to the others.

You can only have 5 names on your account at one time. If you have 5 and would like to make a new one, you will have to delete one of the existing ones. (Similar to creating a screen name, but select delete instead and type in the name you want to delete.) Be careful, once you delete a name, you can't get it back for at least six months.

--Information provided by PC Robin

Article#0266
Updated: 06/10/92
Telecom: Changing your AOL access numbers

For those of you who travel and still want to keep in touch online, you will have to change your local access numbers in order to avoid long distance charges. Here's how you do that.

Before you leave town, sign on to AOL and go to keyword (CTRL+K) NUMBERS. Search for the closest city and choose the access number that best matches your modem speed. Write the information down.

Sign off AOL, select Setup, and in the dialog box that appears, edit the information for the primary and secondary access numbers. Don't enter the area code, since the access numbers will be local for you. Click on OK to save it.

REMEMBER TO SAVE THE CURRENT ACCESS NUMBERS FOR USE WHEN YOU RETURN FROM YOUR TRIP.

When you arrive at your destination, sign on to AOL, and enter your password when prompted, or if you are presented with a dialog box that asks for the certificate information, just enter your screen name and then your password and you should be set.

When you return from your trip simply edit your Setup info again and enter the local access numbers you saved earlier.

--Information provided by PC Robin and GWRepJohn

Article#0267
Updated: 06/10/92
Telecom: Restoring your America Online account

When installing a new version of AOL, installing on a new computer, or reinstalling after the dreaded "crash", the question arises "how do I get my identity back?"

No problem! After installing AOL, you should have two options available to you: "New User" and "Guest".

Go ahead an log on as a New User. It will call the 800 number for you and you'll need to select your local access numbers. After that, you'll be asked for your "certificate number". Enter one of your screen names and then enter the password for that screen name.

--Information provided by PC Robin

Article#0268
Updated: 06/10/92
Telecom: How to find a GeoWorks Chat

GeoWorks representatives are available to chat with you on America Online seven days a week. Here's where and when to find them.

Select Keyword: GEOWORKS to get to the GeoWorks area (or click on Computing and Software, Industry connection, DOS Companies, Geoworks).

From the main GeoWorks Support Center window, click on Chat Room. Once you are in the Chat Room you will get a screen like those in People Connection and you will receive this message,

OnlineHost
OnlineHost  You are now in room "GeoWorks Forum."
OnlineHost

The Chat Room is always open and is hosted by a GeoRep from 9 pm to 11 pm Eastern time, every night.

--Information provided by PC Robin

Article#0269
Updated: 06/10/92
Telecom: The GeoWorks Message Boards on America Online

If you're having a problem with a specific function or feature of GeoWorks, there's plenty of help for you on the GeoWorks Message Board, available from the main GeoWorks Support Center window. Here's what you can to do get your question answered as quickly and thoroughly as possible.

You can cut down on the response time and your time online by initially providing as much information as possible. Full descriptions can sometimes be lengthy so here are some time saving steps to follow.

(1) Use PKZIP and create a ZIP file containing your SYSINFO and GEOS.INI files (they can be found in the \GEOWORKS directory) and your current AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files. For users of the stand alone AOL package, your ZIP file should contain your GEOS.INI file (it can be found in the \AOL directory) and your current AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files.

(2) Compose your message offline using the Notepad. Include as much information as you can about your system such as:

Description = Example
----------- = ----------
Type of computer = 386SX 16MHz
BIOS = AMI bios <date>
RAM = 2 meg
Monitor = SVGA (1024x768)
Video card = Trident Technologies w/1 Meg
Printer = Panasonic KX-P1124  24-pin dot matrix (Epson emulation) (LPT1, IRQ 7)
Modem = PC Works internal 2400 baud (COM 2, IRQ 3)
Mouse = Logitech C-9, 3 button serial (COM 1, IRQ 4) <Version of driver software>
Mass Storage = Maxtor 7080A, 80 Meg IDE
Floppies = 3.5'' 1.44M Teac, 5.25 1.2M Mitsumi
Operating System = MS DOS 4.01

Obviously, you may not always need to include all of this information in your message, only the relevant portions should be necessary. Save the file but leave your Notepad window open. Sign on to AOL.

(3) Locate the board where you want to post your message, find an existing folder with a topic related to your message or create a new folder if you need to. Click on 'Add A Message', enter a subject heading. Press CTRL+o to open the America Online text editor. Locate the file in the standard file selector dialog box. Your message will be copied into the message area. Copy and Paste your message, then close the text editor.

(4) In your message indicate if you are sending your ZIPed setup file via email to the GeoRep or copy each of the relevant files (CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT, GEOS.INI and/or SYSINFO) into your message. Place the files at the end of your description so that they are easy to find and read as well.

--Information provided by PC Robin and GWRepJohn

Article#0270
Updated 04/15/92
Telecom: Multitasking while downloading

Let's say you're going to download a file from America Online. The download is going to take 17 minutes. You don't want to just sit and look at the screen, and with GeoWorks, you don't have to. Here's what to do:

1. Get your download ready to go, but don't start it: Select DOWNLOAD, give it a filename but don't click SAVE just yet.

2. Point your mouse at the small box in the upper right corner of the screen (the "control button"). Click the left mouse button. You'll notice that the AOL screen has become smaller. Now you can see part of your GeoWorks background.

3. Put your mouse pointer at the very bottom of your AOL window. Just at the boarder, it changes from a pointer to a down arrow. Click the left mouse button and hold while moving the mouse upward. As soon as you can see part of the GeoManager, release the mouse button. You just made your AOL window smaller.

4. You're now ready to start your download. Click on SAVE. (If the save option isn't showing, move the window up by clicking on the menu bar, dragging upward and releasing). You will see the familiar file transfer window.

5. Move your mouse down so that the pointer is in any part of the Geomanager window that's visible below the AOL window. Click the right button. Your screen now changes to GeoManager.

6. To play Solitaire, point at the Solitaire icon and double click. You can now play Solitaire as you usually do. If you close the game, you will return to GeoManager.

7. To check on the progress of your download, point and click on the Express menu (the blue E) in the upper left corner of your screen then select America Online.

8. When your download is done, you will hear a beep. Remember, even though you're playing Solitaire, you're still online with AOL and will be until you log off.

(This example involves playing Solitaire during download, but you can use any other GeoWorks application by opening it from GeoManager instead of Solitaire).

--Information provided by PC Robin

Article#0271
Updated 04/15/92
Telecom: How to decompress files you download

Compressed files on America Online will be in one of three formats: ZIP, ARC, or self-extracting.

ZIPed files end with the extension ZIP. To decompress these files, you will need a program called PKUNZIP. If you don't have this, you can download it. To find it, go to keyword QUICKFIND, then type PKZ110.EXE. Choose "Get Description" then select "Download file". To unzip a ZIPed file, just type:

PKUNZIP filename

at the DOS prompt, where "filename" is the name of the ZIPed file exactly as it appears. So to decompress a file called Cookbook.zip, you'd type

PKUNZIP COOKBOOK.ZIP

and then hit the ENTER key.

Another type of compressed file you may find online, though it's less common, is an ARC (or archived) file. To decompress these files, you can either use a program called Qextract or PKXARC.

Using Qextract, just highlight the file you want to have decompressed and then click on "extract". Qextract will create a subdirectory on your hard drive with the same name as the file you are extracting, then extract all of the files to that directory. Qextract will also decompress ZIPed files.

If you are using PKXARC, the syntax is similar to pkunzip:

PKXARC filename.arc

The third kind of compressed file you may encounter online is a self-extracting file. These end in the extension EXE and don't need any special software. Just type the name of the file at the DOS prompt, or double click on the file's icon in GeoManager, and it will decompress itself. When extracting such a file, copy it to the directory or disk where you plan to use the files.

Note: There is another fairly popular compression technique called LHARC. Files compressed in this way will have the extension LZH. You won't find these files online but may run into them on a local BBS. A program to decompress these files is available on America Online, called LHA.


--Information provided by PC Robin

Article#0272
Updated 05/15/92
Telecom: Running America Online under OS/2

I'm using AOL under OS/2. The important points to remember are:

1-If you have your mouse on COM1 and your modem on COM2, GeoWorks will not see COM2 and you can't use the modem. Either exchange the mouse and modem ports, or set the second serial port to COM4.

2-Set IDLE_SENSITIVITY to 100 (disable the idle detection) for GeoWorks in the DOS settings. This will speed up AOL. (If you don't do this, OS/2 will think GeoWorks is looking for keyboard input and not doing anything else and AOL will slow to a crawl.)

--Information provided by AaronB6 (a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0273
Updated: 04/04/93
Telecom: Batch Download to Multiple Subdirectories

This article is about how to do an unattended download to different subdirectories using the Download Manager in America Online version 1.5. It works great, I use it all the time. I've never tried it while using Windows, but I see no reason for it not to work.

Here's what you do:

1. Browse around the libraries and find all the files you want to download. Doesn't matter where you want them to ultimately go on your drive, although keeping files that go together in sequence makes it slightly easier. Anyhow, click Download Later to place each file in the Download Manager.

2. Bring up the Download Manager. Look at the first file (top of the list) and decide where you want it to go. Click the "Destination" button and choose the destination for THAT file. Click the "Start Download" button.

3. When the transfer has started and you have the "gas gauge" box, wait at least five (5) seconds, then click Finish Later. The transfer log will indicate that the file was suspended and transfer terminated. The file that was started will go to the bottom of the list.

4. There will now be a new file at the top of the list. If this file goes into the same directory as the previous file, just "Start Download" and once it has started, "Finish Later". If it goes in a DIFFERENT directory, use the "Destination" button and choose a new destination for this file, and THEN "Start Download" and "Finish Later".

5. Each time you suspend the transfer, the current file goes to the bottom of the list and you can select a new destination for the next file. Continue selecting destinations and starting/suspending each file until all files have been "started" into their proper subdirectories. You can tell which files have been "started" because they will have a % in the far right column of the Download Manager list.

6. Once ALL files have been started, you can then click "Start Download" and go to sleep (or watch a movie, or play LOTS of Tetris) and when it's all over, each file will have downloaded, intact, into he desired directory!

Please note that once you have "started" a file, there is no way of changing its destination, nor does the Download Manager indicate where each file will go. The destination path shown on the Download Manager display is merely the last path that you manually specified. But believe me, this DOES work. I have tried it out several different times, with different paths.

--Information provided by PCA SBMike

Article#0274
Updated: 04/04/93
Telecom: Modem Volume on America Online

If you're one of those folks who thinks silence is golden, well here's a 14 karat bit of information for you.

You can adjust the level of the speaker volume from low to high, by adding one of the following commands, L0, L1, L2, L3 in the POST-MODEM STRING box in the AOL Setup.

Your command would look something like this:

ATE1Q0V1X4L0

If you wanted to turn the speaker OFF completely, you would use M0 (em zero) in place of one of the 'L' commands. The other 'M' (speaker control) commands are:

M1 - Turn speaker ON during dialing, turn speaker OFF when carrier is detected

M2 - Speaker is always ON

M3 - Turn speaker OFF during dialing and carrier detect. Turn ON otherwise.

--Information provided by PC Robin and GWRepJohn (John Ezike)

Article#0275
Updated: 04/04/93
Telecom: Use Notepad as Memo on AOL

In case you haven't discovered it yet, the multi-tasking abilities of GEOS allow you to have an on-screen notepad while you're online. Sign on to AOL, then click on Notepad in the Express menu startup list.

Reduce the notepad to about 3" x 4" and move it to the lower right corner of the screen. Then, instead of grabbing for a pen and a piece of paper when you want to write something down, just click the mouse in the writing area of the notepad and type away.

No need to worry about saving your notes. If you forget, GEOS  will remind you when you go to close Notepad. It's especially great for forum meetings, online seminars and People Connection!

A second Notepad is available within the America Online application. Just press CTRL+n to bring up a new blank Notepad file, or press CTRL+o to open an existing text file.

--Information provided by PC Robin and NealK

Article#0276
Updated: 04/04/93
Terminology: PC/GEOS vs. GEOS vs. GeoWorks

QUESTION: What is the difference between, GEOS, PC/GEOS, GeoWorks, and Ensemble?

ANSWER: The name of our product is, officially,

 GeoWorks Ensemble

not Ensemble, GeoWorks, GEOS, etc. We can't trademark Ensemble all by itself, it's too generic.

GEOS is the name of the operating system. We sometimes refer to PC/GEOS to distinguish the newer PC version from the older Commodore and Apple operating system.

The company name is GeoWorks (not Geoworks, not GeoWorks Inc.)

Article#0277
Updated: 06/08/92
Terminology: Iconify, iconfied

QUESTION: I see many references to having an application ICONIFIED, and have not found that word in the GEOS User's Guide. Can someone explain ICONIFIED??

ANSWER: ICONIFIED is GeoSlang (it's amazing how quickly new terms develop around a product). When you see the term, people are referring to Minimizing a program so that the program is still running, but appears on your screen as an icon rather than an open window. Double clicking on the icon will open the window.

Article#0278
Updated: 06/08/92
Terminology: SDK, what is it?

QUESTION: I keep seeing references to the SDK. What is it?

ANSWER: SDK stands for Software Development Kit. The Software Development Kit will be sold by GeoWorks (release date not yet announced) as an aid to developers who wish to write applications which will run under the GEOS operating system.

For further information about the SDK, send email to GW TECHDOCS or get a copy of GeoWorks Fax-on-demand document #1001.

Article#0279
Updated: 06/08/92
Terminology: GeoWorks Jargon, Window Words

This is a dictionary for those terms you see bantered around all the time but are too shy to ask about. The definitions appear in a logical, rather than alphabetical, order.

WINDOW: A rectangular area on your screen in which you can view an application or document. It may take up a part of the screen or even the whole screen. The difference between a window and a screen is that a window can be moved and resized while a screen can't.

ACTIVE WINDOW: The one window that will respond to keystrokes. You can tell which window is active by looking at the menu bar, it will be highlighted. Also, the active window is usually the one on top or in the foreground. To make another window active, just click on any part of it.

MAXIMIZE: Make a window as large as it can possibly be, often it will take up the whole screen.

MINIMIZE: Make a window as small as it can possibly be, often it will be just an icon.

ICON: A small picture that represents an object, concept, or message. In Ensemble, icons may represent files, directories, or applications. By clicking on the picture you can select, open, or run the application or the file it represents.

ICONIFY: Minimize a window so that it becomes an icon.

ANATOMY OF A WINDOW:

1. Text area: area within the window itself, where text may be viewed or edited.

2. Border: area around the outside of the window where your mouse changes from a pointer to an arrow. If you place your mouse right at the border so it's an arrow then press the left mouse button and hold while dragging, you'll resize the window.

3. Title bar: The horizontal bar at the top of your window that displays the name of the window. The title bar of your active window will be highlighted (black). If you click your mouse pointer on the title bar, it will change to four arrows pointing in all directions. If you click and drag your mouse, you will move your window without changing its size.

4. Menu bar: The horizontal list of menus, just below the title bar.

5. Scroll bar: If the there's too much text to fit all in one window, you will see either a vertical or horizontal scroll bar. Clicking on one of the arrows at the ends will cause the text in your window to shift one line or column. Clicking in the dark space next to the arrows in the scroll bar will cause your text to shift one "screen's worth."

6. Control panel: The options you get when you mouse click the square in the upper left corner of your window. This control panel will let your maximize, minimize, move, resize, or close your window. Note: not all options will always be available.

7. Control Buttons: Some windows have control buttons. These are the two small squares in the upper right hand corner of the window. The small dot will make your window an icon (minimize), the larger square will maximize or make it full screen.

--Information provided by PC Robin

Article#0280
Updated 04/15/92
Text: Carriage Returns in Text Files, TEXTCON

GWRepBobby uploaded to America Online a handy utility I use all the time called TEXTCON (in the Shareware and Utilities library, under the name "Remove CRs") which formats text in ASCII format.

Have you ever written text in Notepad or Text File Editor and then gone to DOS only to find that the lines are too long for your DOS ASCII editor? Have you ever wanted to format text in GEOS only to find that there are carriage returns everywhere?

Well, TEXTCON takes care of all that and more. The hardest part about using it is reading through the instructions since it is a rather complex program. To save you the trouble, I am showing you what is in my batch file called CONVERT.BAT.

The way it works is this: Type CONVERT followed by the filename of the text file you want to convert. TEXTCON will then automatically analyze the file, convert it, and save it to a file named CONVRTED.TXT. You don't have to do anything but specify the filename.

If the file is in the ASCII format, for example, (i.e. no carriage returns until the paragraph ends) it will convert it to 80 column ASCII and vice versa. Here is my batch file, called CONVERT.BAT:

@echo off
c:\utils\textcon -T3 -I3 -S69 %1 CONVRTED.TXT

--Information provided by FrankLfr (a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0281
Updated: 06/08/93
Text: Cut and Paste with TaskMAX

An additional benefit can be obtained by using GeoWorks Pro or Ensemble 2.0 with DR DOS 6.0. Registered users of DR DOS 6.0 should have received an update disk to go with that program. Included on it, but not documented, is TaskMAX R1.02. This version was actually developed jointly with GeoWorks as a means to use the cut and paste function of TaskMAX to cut and paste blocks of data to and from GeoWorks documents and other TaskMAXed programs.

When you turn ON Clipboard Support in the Express Menu TaskMAX Control Panel, the TaskMAX clipboard and the GeoWorks clipboard become the SAME clipboard. You can then use the clipboard to cut and paste between other tasked DOS applications and GeoWorks Pro applications.

Having a knack for complicating the simplest things it took me ten long minutes to figure that out. In WordPerfect I copied text to the TaskMAX clipboard by hitting CTRL+ESC and following the menu choices. When I switched back to GeoWorks Pro I opened the Notepad and stared at it for five full minutes waiting for the clipboard text to jump on the screen. When it didn't, I started pulling down menus. Lo and behold! the Edit menu Paste option was darkened so I selected it. My TaskMAX clipboard text instantly appeared. Copying to the TaskMAX clipboard from GeoWorks is just as easy. Amazing, huh? Thanks, GeoWorks and Digital Research! What a nice feature!

--Information provided by GWRep Rose and GWRep MK

Article#0282
Updated: 06/08/92
Text: Notepad file size limits in version 1.2

The Text File Editor in Ensemble 2.0 will handle any size text file, limited only by your swap space.

In version 1.2 of GeoWorks products, there is a limit in the amount of text that a single text object can hold. Since the Notepad is a single text object, it also has this limit.

The limit isn't entirely based on the number of characters. It's also based on the number of lines and the number of tabs. The text object keeps track of the size of the text and the associated data-structures and issues this warning when the combination gets too large.

One way to increase the amount of text is to make the Notepad the full width of the screen. This will reduce the number of lines in the document (if they aren't all ended with carriage-returns).

--Information provided by GW John (John Wedgwood, GeoWorks)

Article#0283
Updated: 06/08/92
Text: Converting WordPerfect files to GeoWrite

Ensemble 2.0, GeoWrite provides a direct import feature for WordPerfect files.

To convert a Word Perfect file to GeoWrite in Ensemble 1.2 or GeoWorks Pro, save your file using File, Text Out, Generic in Word Perfect. This will save it as an ASCII file, without carriage returns at the end of every line. Then import that file to GeoWrite using GeoWrite's Insert From Text File feature.

--Information provided by GW Steve

Article#0284
Updated: 06/08/92
Text: Appearance of ASCII imported to GeoWrite

Many users dislike the way imported ASCII text looks.
"Nothing lines up right." They ask, "What can I do?"

In Ensemble 1.2 or GeoWorks Pro, Select the "URW Mono" font before using the "Insert from text file" command from the File Menu. "URW Mono" is a monospaced font, rather than a variable-width one. This means that every character takes the same amount of space, rather than an "m" taking more space than an "i" for example. Using the monospaced font will make most imported ASCII line up beautifully.

In Ensemble 2.0, import the text first, then select all the text and switch to the URW Mono font.

--Information provided by GwRepRandy

Article#0285
Updated: 06/08/92
Text: Soft Hyphens

Ensemble 2.0 supports automatic hyphenation.

In earlier versions of GEOS, a soft hyphen can be inserted with the key press CTRL+- (hold down the CTRL key, while pressing and releasing the hyphen key). If the word is at the word-wrap boundary, it will break and place a hyphen. If not, the hyphen will not appear.

The GeoWrite spell-checker will catch any word with a hard hyphen, but will "okay" any word with a soft hyphen.

--Information provided by GWRep MK and GW Brian (Brian Dougherty, GeoWorks)

Article#0286
Updated: 06/08/92
Text: WordStar to GeoWrite

Ensemble 2.0 imports Word Star files directly.

If you are using an earlier version of GEOS, then you'll need to save a WordStar document as a text file for importing to GeoWrite, here's how:

Make a copy of the WordStar document.

Open the document with "D", (the normal way).

At the first line of the document, type .RM (PERIOD,R,M), press Return.

This gives you the widest right margin possible.

Justify the document with Control-QJ. Watch all the paragraphs become one very long line.

Save the document. Open the document again with "N" (Non-Document).

Justify the document again with Control-QJ. This will remove WordStar high-bit characters, change tabs to spaces, and other general clean up.

Save the document. Now you can use the document in GeoWorks, Word Perfect and other word processors.

--Information provided by Michael549

Article#0287
Updated: 06/08/92
Text: Unusual Characters

Have you ever been staring at a screen trying to figure out whether you were reading an uppercase O or a zero? Have you ever wished there was a way to use one of those nice slash-zero characters?

It's possible to use non-standard ASCII characters both on America Online and in your other GEOS applications. For a complete listing, see your Geoworks User's Guide. You'll see a listing of Accented language characters, Typographical symbols, Special punctuation, Currency and numeric symbols, mathematic symbols, and accent markings.

Here is a list of a few of the more common characters that can be included in your GeoWrite/Draw documents. They will not work on America Online. CTRL+ALT+R means hold down the CTRL and ALT and R keys all at the same time then release. CTRL+ALT+E then SHIFT+A means hold down CTRL, ALT and E; release them; then press SHIFT+E.

CTRL+ALT+R  Registered Trademark
CTRL+ALT+G  Copyright
CTRL+ALT+2  Trademark (tm)
CTRL+ALT+7  Paragraph
CTRL+ALT+1  Upside down Exclamation Mark
SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+/  Upside Down Question Mark
CTRL+ALT+;  Ellipsis
CTRL+ALT+4  Cent sign
CTRL+ALT+3  Pound Sterling
CTRL+ALT+Y  Yen
CTRL+ALT+F  Florin
SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+3  Special Fraction Slash
SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+8  Degree (as in temperature)
SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+5  Percent-per-thousand
CTRL+ALT+=  Not Equal to
CTRL+ALT+X  Approximately equal
CTRL+ALT+,  Less than or equal
CTRL+ALT+.  Greater than or equal
CTRL+ALT+/  Division symbol
SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+=  Plus/Minus sign
CTRL+ALT+5  Infinity
CTRL+ALT+P  Pi
CTRL+ALT+V  Radical
CTRL+ALT+J  Delta
CTRL+ALT+Z  Omega
CTRL+ALT+W  Sigma

Following is a list of some of the characters that WILL work on America Online. These characters will display in most text windows and can be typed into a chat room. They will not, however, send via email or Instant Message. You will see them on your end, but the person who receives the IM will only see a blank space. If you're not working with a foreign language, you probably won't find these characters too useful beyond typing them casually in a chat room to amaze your friends! It can really be fun to type some words with the non-dotted i and see how long it takes people to notice.

CTRL+ALT+E then SHIFT+A  Uppercase A acute accent
CTRL+ALT+U then SHIFT+A  Uppercase A diereses accent
CTRL+ALT+` then SHIFT+A  Uppercase A grave accent
CTRL+ALT+I then SHIFT+A  Uppercase A circumflex accent
CTRL+ALT+N then SHIFT+A  Uppercase A tilde accent
CTRL+ALT+A then SHIFT+A  Uppercase A ring accent

To get the same accents for the other vowels, substitute the proper vowel letter for the letter A. For example, for a tilde accent uppercase U, type:
CTRL+ALT+N then SHIFT+U

For lowercase accented vowels, omit the shift key from the sequence. For example, for a lowercase tilde accented a, type:
CTRL+ALT+N then a

SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+C  Uppercase C Cedilla accent
CTRL+ALT+C  Lowercase c cedilla accent
CTRL+ALT+N then SHIFT+N  Uppercase N tilde accent
CTRL+ALT+N then N  Lowercase n tilde accent
SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+O  Uppercase Zero-slash
CTRL+ALT+O  Lowercase Zero-slash
CTRL+ALT+U then SHIFT+Y  Uppercase Y dieresis accent
CTRL+ALT+U then Y  Lowercase y dieresis accent
SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+'  Uppercase AE diphthong
CTRL+ALT+' Lowercase ae diphthong
SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+Q  Uppercase OE diphthong
CTRL+ALT+Q  Lowercase oe diphthong
SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+I  Dotless i
CTRL+ALT+S  German Double S

--Information provided by PC Robin (Robin Bush)

Article#0288
Updated: 04/04/93
Video: VGA on an LCD Laptop

QUESTION: What driver should I use for VGA support on my LCD laptop?

ANSWER: Select the GridPad 640X400 Mono device (ATT6300.GEO -Driver). If the Gridpad 640x400 driver doesn't work, try the MCGA driver.

Article#0289
Updated: 06/08/92
Video: CGA or Tandy 16 color mode and color

QUESTION: Why is there no color driver for CGA or for the Tandy 16 Color mode?

ANSWER: The following was written by two of the engineers at GW and gives a good perspective on this issue:

The problem with supporting the tandy 16-color 640x200 mode is not the difficulty in writing the driver itself. The difficult part is the need for completely new artwork for everything in the system. Think of all the icons and little things you see on the screen. There are a lot of them. Another point is the way things are drawn in color takes up way too much room for a 200-pixel vertical resolution. Each 3-dimensional button has 4 extra pixels of border to give it that 3-dimensional look. There are a large number of routines in the Motif specific UI that draw things in color. Each and every one would have to be changed to recognize the squashed CGA resolution and adapt themselves, similar to what the black and white drawing routines already do. This is not trivial work.

The reason we are not supporting color CGA is that it would require us to reduce the resolution from a barely tolerable 640x200 to an intolerable 320x200. The real problem is the reduced resolution. We've played around with resolutions that low and they just don't work for this software.

If you want an example of what it would look like, place a piece of paper over the right half of your normal CGA screen. Work like that for a while and then decide if you would really want color.

We want our users to be satisfied with the software. Our hope is that the black and white CGA is satisfying to use. We are confident that color CGA with the 320x200 resolution would not be.

Article#0290
Updated: 06/08/92
Video: ATI Super VGA card update

A user mentioned that he was having problems with his ATI Wonder super VGA card in 800x600 mode. We were able to reproduce this problem in house (it seems to happen only on boards that are bundled with some PC clones) and we found a solution.

Track down the VGA utilities disk that came with the board, and run the vga setup utility (ours was called vsetup). Set the monitor type appropriately and exit. Reboot your system, then run the VGA test program on the utilities disk (vgatest, in our case) to make sure that all modes are running correctly. Reconfigure GeoWorks Ensemble to the ATI Super VGA 800x600 mode and that should do it.

--Information provided by GW Eng (Jeremy, GeoWorks Engineer)

Article#0291
Updated: 06/08/92
Video: Orchid Pro IIs

If you're having problems using the Orchid Pro IIs SVGA in 800x600 VESA compatible mode, here are some ideas. I'm using the same board in my machine, but I've had to fiddle with the Orchid TSRs to make it really VESA compatible:

Copy the ORCHDVSA.COM driver from one of the disks included with the board to someplace on your hard drive. Beware, though, their manual lied to me about which disk contains the driver. Mine was really on the "Drivers 3" disk.

Run ORCHDVSA before running GEOS, reconfigure your video driver to "VESA compatible 800x600 16 color," and it should run like a dream.

--Information provided by GWDashe (Jeremy, GeoWorks Engineering)

Article#0292
Updated: 06/08/92
Video: Video Driver, IBM PS/2 Model 30, MCGA

Description
The IBM PS/2 Model 30 comes with an IBM MCGA video adapter which we drive in 640x480 monochrome. It has the same problem as standard CGA: it only does 320x200 in color. We are not able to support it in color. Therefore, you should use the video driver specifically for MCGA, or the one named "VGA: 640x480 Mono."

Article#0293
Updated: 06/08/92
Video: Leading Edge DLT Video Drivers

The problem:

I'm unable to see bottom part of screen using VGA driver, even though my system claims to support VGA. I'm using a Leading Edge DLT 386SX laptop w/LCD display. SETUP.EXE selected VGA as default.

The solution:

Select the EGA driver.

Article#0294
Updated: 06/08/92
Video: Toshiba Laptop Video Driver

The problem:

SETUP installs all files and then, at the point in the graphic setup where video driver confirmation should appear, the screen goes blank.

The solution:

Toshiba laptops have their own video setup program that includes options for VGA or EGA text mode which are incompatible with GEOS. You need to run Toshiba's setup utility (not GeoWorks Ensemble's SETUP.EXE) and make sure that the video is set to the correct graphics mode.

Article#0295
Updated: 06/08/92
Video: Blank Backgrounds on Monochrome monitor

On certain monochrome display machines, bit map backgrounds will appear all black or all white or blank. There is no known work around.

Article#0296
Updated: 06/08/92
Video: Blank screen on exit

The problem:

Sometimes upon exiting to DOS, the screen is blank except for a cursor which will move around the screen as you type commands, just as if it were attempting to echo keystrokes like usual.

The solution:

The problem is that your system is not switching back from graphics to text mode. Type the command

mode co80

at the blank screen. This should switch it back to 80-column text mode. We do not yet know why this happens on a few systems. Please send GeoWorks a copy of your SYSINFO file if you have this problem.

Article#0297
Updated: 06/08/92
Video: GeoWorks Screen Saver not working

For VGA cards, we use a BIOS function to do the screen blanking. There are two cases in which it has been verified that the problem with screen blanking on a VGA card is due to a bug in the video board manufacturer's BIOS. In both cases, the manufacturer has indicated that our users should call them to get a bug fix for the driver.

Compudine is not one of those two. They may have bought their cards from one of the VGA manufacturers and put their own name on it (this is fairly common).

The two video board companies that we know have BIOS bugs are STB and Trident. If either of these company names appear on the video board or in the video board documentation anywhere, contact the appropriate company. If not, contact Compudine to determine if in fact it is one of those companies.

Basically, there is no way for a VGA screen blanking problem to be due to a bug in our software. I realize this may be hard to believe, but please report it to the appropriate video board manufacturer or give GeoWorks the info about their board so we can contact them.

Article#0298
Updated: 06/08/92
Video: One way to switch monitors

If you have two monitors connected to your machine and wish to switch from one to the other, try this:

First run GEOS and select the driver for Monitor A. Exit GEOS and change to the \GEOWORKS directory and copy GEOS.INI to GEOS.AAA.

Repeat the steps in the above paragraph for Monitor B. What you will end up with in the \GEOWORKS directory are the files GEOS.INI, GEOS.AAA and GEOS.BBB .

Edit your GEOS.BAT file as follows:

@ECHO OFF
CLS
C:
CD\GEOWORKS
GETKEY "Select a monitor A or B" ab  ;check the docs for the correct syntax
IF ERRORLEVEL 2 GOTO BMON
COPY GEOS.AAA GEOS.INI
echo SELECT MONITOR A ON A/B SWITCH ^G
ECHO ^G
PAUSE
GOTO RUN
:BMON
COPY GEOS.BBB GEOS.INI
echo SELECT MONITOR B ON A/B SWITCH ^G ^G
ECHO ^G
PAUSE
:RUN
KERNEL %1 %2 % %4

NOTE: Use the keyword QUICKFIND, search for and download the file GETKEY.

When you run GEOS.BAT, Getkey will prompt you to choose one of the two monitors. If 'B' is pressed, processing will branch to the label BMON (B monitor) and GEOS.BBB will be copied to GEOS.INI.

The next prompt will beep to remind you to select the correct monitor on the A/B switch. *VERY IMPORTANT*. The ^G's are bells and can be entered by holding down the ALT key and typing 255 ON THE NUMERIC KEYPAD, not on the row of numbers across the top of the keyboard. Processing then continues and KERNEL is run.

If 'A' is pressed the above steps will take place for Monitor A.

--Information provided by GWRepJohn

Article#0299
Updated: 06/08/92
Video: ATI Wonder XL

If your ATI Wonder XL does not work in 600x800 mode with the ATI Wonder driver, use the VESA SVGA driver.

--Information provided by PaulM89901 (a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0300
Updated: 06/08/92
Video: VGA Conflicts

There is a known conflict with the IBM VGA and 8514 standards at address 2E8 (one of the "normal" settings for COM port 4). Keep it in mind when you are faced with a mouse, modem, or video problem that is hard to pinpoint. I just spent the better part of 2 months with one from the video side, and during that time I also had some unexplained problems with the America Online software. Now my modem is on COM 1 and my mouse on COM 2.

--Information provided by NDWood

Article#0301
Updated: 04/04/93
Video: VideoBlaster

VideoBlaster can be used with GEOS.

I figured out that you can view your old family recordings through GeoWorks after picking a CGA mono setting. Works very nicely.

I put the VideoBlaster picture in a corner somewhere and in GeoWorks size BOUNCE or TETRIS (keeping them off) just over the picture which gives a total clear, transparent, see-through view of the VideoBlaster picture while everything else works the same. I imagine that you can even capture the picture with screen dump and manipulate your family.

--Information provided by ClemensKo (a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0302
Updated: 04/04/93
Viewer: Opening Quattro files and icons

QUESTION:
The Quattro Viewer works fine, but if I look in the \DOCUMENT\QUATTRO directory at the sample spreadsheets and graphs, they have the generic DOS file icon (contrary to the small picture in the left column on page 25 of the "Pro Addendum" manual). Also, when double-clicked, the file is not opened under Quattro Pro. This seems to suggest some glitch with GEOS.INI e.g. some association not made. Any thoughts, please?

ANSWER:
In order for the document icons to appear differently then there must be some entry under the "filenameTokens" field in the GEOS.INI file which tells GeoManager what icon to display for that file.

One of two things may be going on here: 1) The line in the GEOS.INI file is missing or 2) The file name doesn't have the right suffix.

Here's what I have in my GEOS.INI file:
------------------------
 [fileManager]
 filenameTokens = {
  *.EXE = "gDOS",0
  *.COM = "gDOS",0
  *.BAT = "gDOS",0
  *.TXT = "FILE",0,"NPAD",0
  *.DOC = "FILE",0,"NPAD",0
  *.HLP = "FILE",0,"NPAD",0
  *.WQ1 = "VWQ1",0,"VIEW",0
  *.WK1 = "VWK1",0,"VIEW",0
  *.EPS = "VEPS",0,"VIEW",0
 }
 promptOnReturn = FALSE
-------------------
You can see the lines with the "*.WQ1", etc in them. Your GEOS.INI file should have lines like these. Check it out.

You can't edit the GEOS.INI file directly from within GEOS, of course.

--Information provided by John Wedgwood, GeoWorks (GW John)

Article#0303
Updated: 06/08/92
Viewer: Title clipping in graphs in the Viewer

There is a known bug in the Viewer that causes the loss of titles in graphs imported from Quattro Pro via the Viewer. While it does prevent you from bringing in a chart with titles intact from Quattro Pro, you always have the option to bring in the chart without titles, and add the titles with the outstanding GEOS font technology. That way you have a great deal more control over how the finished product looks.

Bring your chart into GeoDraw. Add the titles, legends and whatever else you wish to add. Fuse it into one object and then bring it into GeoWrite.

--Information provided by GW James (Jim Kirkpatrick, GeoWorks)

Article#0304
Updated: 06/08/92
Windows: Running GEOS from Windows 3.0

It is possible to run GEOS from Windows in the 386 enhanced mode, but you must first set up a .PIF file and add GEOS to the Non-Windows application group.

To set up the .PIF file:

1. Run Windows.

2. In the Program Manager window double-click the Main Group icon.

3. Open the .PIF Editor.

4. In the .PIF Editor, you need to change only the following options (leave all other options alone).

MAIN .PIF EDITOR WINDOW OPTIONS

Program Filename ...... KERNEL.EXE
Window Tile ......... GeoWorks PRO
Start-up directory ... C:\GEOWORKS
Execution .............. Exclusive

ADVANCED OPTIONS

Display Options......... Video Memory High Graphics (All other display options should be de-selected)

Other Options......... Reserve Shortcut Keys (Alt+Space, Alt+Enter)

5. Click OK to accept the new values and in the main options window.

6. Select Save from the File menu and click on the OK button to accept KERNEL.PIF as the filename.

7. Close the .PIF Editor.

To add GEOS to the non-Windows applications group:

1. In the Program Manager window, Choose New from the File menu.

2. Click OK to accept Program Item as your selection.

NOTE: If there is no Non-Windows Applications group icon, you need to create one. Consult your Windows manual.

3. In the Program Item Properties window, type in GEOS in the Description box. This caption will appear under the icon in the Non-Windows Applications window.

4. Press the TAB key to move to the Command Line box and type in KERNEL.PIF.

5. Click the Change Icon button to display the Select Icon window and type in W3ICONS.DLL.

6. Move through the icons by clicking the View Next button until you see the World icon.

7. Click OK.

8. Click OK to save and exit the Program Item Properties window. The newly created icon should be displayed in the Non-Windows Applications window. Double-click on the GeoWorks PRO icon to launch it.

SOME TECHNICAL NOTES

One way to improve the performance of GEOS is to increase the Foreground Priority value in the Advanced Options window. You can use any value between 1 and 10,000, higher numbers are better.

All the task switching hot keys, q+`, a+`, and a+t are active.

If you have less than 4 MB of RAM, you should create a Permanent Swap File to improve Windows' performance.

To create the Permanent Swap File

1. Run Windows in Real Mode using the WIN /r command.

2. Close all open applications.

3. Choose Run from the File menu.

4. Type the filename "Swapfile" and click OK.

5. In the dialog box, type in a new value or accept the recommended value as your swap file size. Click OK to create the swap file.

6. Exit Windows and run it again using the WIN command.

As an alternative to creating a Permanent Swap File, you can use a Ramdisk for your swap area. Add the following command to your CONFIG.SYS file:

DEVICE=C:\DOS\RAMDRIVE.SYS XXXX/E

where xxxx is the Ramdisk size in Kilobytes and /E creates the Ram disk in extended memory. A size of at least 2048K (2 MB) should be adequate. Make sure that you have also included the line:

SET TEMP=D:

in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, where D: is your Ram disk drive letter (which actually may not be D:). Consult your DOS manual for more information about Ramdisks.

--Information provided by GWRepJohn (John Ezike)

Article#0305
Updated: 06/08/92
Windows: Using GEOS Graphics in Windows Applications

You can use the Windows clipboard to transfer GeoWorks graphics to Windows documents. First, launch GeoWorks from Windows (either by setting up a PIF for GEOS or by starting a DOS session from the DOS prompt Icon). It is best to run GeoWorks full screen until you have finished all manipulations in GeoWorks (i.e. until you have fully opened any GeoDraw documents or Scrapbook files).

You now have 2 options:

1) Copy the screen to the Windows clipboard by pressing "Print Scrn." Exit GEOS and paste the clipboard into Paintbrush. You can then copy and paste any portion of the results into whatever document you wish.

2) This method is more selective, but it involves running GEOS in a window. (Actually, you're just putting GEOS in a Window during the copy and paste operation.)
NOTE: if you launch GEOS from a PIF, be sure you have not reserved the ALT-ENTER keystroke for GEOS.
Again, launch GEOS from Windows. Run full screen until you have your graphic file open. Move the mouse pointer out of the way. Hit ALT+ENTER. GEOS should now be running in a window. (GEOS must be in 640 x 480 mode, and WIN in 640 x 480 OR 800 x 600 16 colors mode). Don't worry about the weird colors. Click on the control box in upper left corner of the window and select EDIT and MARK. Highlight the graphic. Again click on the control box and select EDIT and COPY. The graphic is now in the Windows clipboard. It is best to go ahead at this point and hit ALT-ENTER to put GEOS back to full screen mode and exit, although I have sometimes minimized the GEOS Window and operated in Windows with GEOS running as an Icon. You may now paste the graphic into Paintbrush to clean it up (if you copied more than you wanted) or paste the graphic directly into WORD or EXCEL or whatever Windows application you desire.

I have used this method frequently to utilize my GeoWorks clipart in Windows applications. Note that I would recommend a minimum of 4 meg RAM to do this. Also be aware that occasionally GEOS may hang on exit (happened to me twice so far out of many dozens of sessions). If so, you will have to press ALT+CTRL+DEL which will terminate GEOS but not Windows. You will have to reset GEOS upon restarting it.

--Information provided by LarkinT (a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0306
Updated 04/04/93
DOS: No or Unformatted Disk in Drive

A user has reported that his "No/Unformatted Disk in Drive... A to abort/R to retry" error message problem was cured by removing MS DOS 6.0's INTERLINK command from his system startup files.

--Information provided by GWRep Neal

Article#0307
Updated 06/28/93
Networks: NFS

QUESTION: Will Ensemble 2.0 recognize my NFS mounted drives?

ANSWER: In 1.2, we used the data in DOS data structures to locate network drives for things other than netware (which leaves no traces in DOS).

In 2.0, we switched over to using the DOS calls for finding redirected devices, which we figured would cover more networks. Apparently we were wrong.

The networks with which the thing has been tested are Netware 3.11, Netware 2.2 (not positive about that one, though), Lantastic 4.1, and Netware lite 1.1.

There are some other networks where it mostly works. Invisible LAN 3.2, for example, works for network drives, but I believe has problems with printers.

The MSNET.GEO driver ought to work with many peer-to-peer networks. We have Banyan VINES 5.0 in a box outside my office, but neither equipment nor personnel to install the thing (sigh).

I thought PC-NFS was one of those things that supported the ms-net int 21h calls to look for redirected devices...

--Information provided by Adam de Boor (GeoWorks Engineering)

Article#0308
Updated 06/25/93
Hardware: Ensemble 2.0 and disk drives

Be sure your drives or partitions have unique volume names. You can use GeoManager to rename the drives, or you can use DOS's LABEL command.

If Ensemble 2.0 is not recognizing your drives or is giving error messages about reading files, here are some lines you can add to your GEOS.INI file which will force GEOS to recognize your drives. That might solve the problem.

In the [system] section add lines that say

 drive X = number

where "X" is the drive letter and "number" is one of the following

 65535 = fixed disk
 0 = ignore drive
 360 = 360k 5.25"
 720 = 720k 3.5"
 1200 = 1.2mb 5.25"
 1440 = 1.44mb 3.5"
 2880 = 2.88mb 3.5"

Be careful. Use the correct values. These will make GEOS see the drive according to the values you enter, whether it's the correct type or not.

Also, add the line

 waitpost = false

EXAMPLE: I have a 1.2mb drive A and a 1.44 mb drive B and a fixed drive C, so my lines would look like this

 [system]
 drive a = 1200
 drive b = 1440
 drive c = 65535
 waitpost = false

If you are using DR DOS and your system is not recognizing the new files when changing diskettes, try adding the /D- /B- parameters to the SuperPCK command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

Article#0309
Updated 06/26/93
Printers: HP DeskJet and envelopes, patch

This patch is not recommended or endorsed by GeoWorks. Use it at your own risk.

Here is a patch which changes the way the Ensemble 2.0 DeskJet driver prints envelopes. If you don't have experience editing binary files with DEBUG or Norton DiskEdit, etc. you might want to have someone help you through this, although it isn't very difficult. IT IS IMPORTANT TO FIRST COPY THE FILE DESKJET.GEO TO ANOTHER FILE FOR A BACKUP in case of a problem. For example:

  cd\geos20\system\printers
  copy deskjet.geo djold.sav

Now you can safely edit the original DESKJET.GEO. I used Norton DiskEdit to locate the string
  <esc>&l#H  (that's a lower case L, not a number 1)

In hex the string is
  1B 26 6C 23 48

Change these five bytes to null characters, in hex 00 00 00 00 00. Save the change and you're done.

Here are step by step instructions for performing the patch using DEBUG.

For each DOS or DEBUG command below, hit the ENTER key after typing the command.

1. Exit Geos and get yourself to the DOS prompt.

2. Change directories by typing:

  CD\GEOS20\SYSTEM\PRINTER

3. Make a copy of DESKJET.GEO in case you make a mistake:

  COPY DESKJET.GEO SAVEJET.SAV

4. Start Debug:

  DEBUG DESKJET.GEO

You'll see the elegant Debug prompt, a single hyphen with the blinking cursor after it.

5. Search for the bytes we want to change:

  S 100 2000 1B 26 6C 23 48

Type the above line EXACTLY at the - prompt and hit enter. Debug will respond with an address consisting of two four-character sequences separated by a colon.  Write down the four characters to the RIGHT of the colon for use in the next step. In my case they were 116E, but it is remotely possible that it could be different in yours.

6. Type the following line EXACTLY and double check it before hitting enter. (I'm showing 116E as the address offset, but if your's was different then make the substitution.):

  E 116E 00 00 00 00 00  (those are zeros, not capital O's)

7. If you have done everything above correctly, then type at the - prompt:

  W  (this writes the modifications to disk)

8. Quit Debug by typing:

  Q

To print an envelope, insert it into the printer and press the envelope load buttons. Then issue the print command from GEOS. Your DJ 500 will no longer spit out the envelope that you're trying to print on. I have tested this patch with several documents in both GeoWrite and GeoDraw with perfect results, but of course I cannot guarantee that it wouldn't cause a problem in some situation, although I doubt it.

The original escape code is use to create the code for an explicit page feed from the paper tray. It isn't needed because the DJ500 is smart enough to know to feed a sheet of paper if there isn't one ready to print.

--Information provided by DougStrnde (a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0310
Updated 06/26/93
Hardware: Philips Magnovox and Ensemble 2.0

Users who upgrade to Ensemble 2.0 from the Philips Magnavox with the CD-ROM should note these handy tips:

There are batch files in a directory on the C: drive that run all the applications on the CDs that come with the magnavox system like:

GROLIERS
MANHOLE
SMALL BUSINESS CONSULTANT
BOOKSHELF
PCGLOBE

The directory where the files are is: C:\CDAPPS

When you upgrade to Ensemble 2.0, you will not find any icons for these applications. You will need to use the Launcher-Maker feature in Ensemble 2.0 to make new launchers for those applications.

The CD Player will give the error FM-27 which is "An error occurred during this operation. Please try again" if you try to read the CD drive by clicking on the drive button in GeoManager more than once. The work around is to choose Rescan Drives in the Disk menu in GeoManager.

The version of MSCDEX that shipped with the Philips is not compatible
with MS DOS 5 or MS DOS 6 but adding

SETVER MSCDEX.EXE 4.0

to the SETVER table will solve the problem.

Article#0311
Updated 06/26/93
Video: VESA local bus and Ensemble 2.0

One GeoWorks customer reports:

"I was having severe lockup problems with Ensemble 2.0: KR-06, 07, 09 messages, etc. It was worse with the Trident SVGA driver, but still occurred using the standard VGA driver. I finally isolated the problem to the mother board. Since I work for a computer network consultant, and have access to all kinds of hardware. I replaced the mother board with one of the same brand and type (VESA local bus, 486DX-33, 256k cache), but it still crashed frequently in the same way."

"Now I have replaced it with another brand without the VESA local bus and it seems to work just fine. Keep in mind that Ensemble 2.0 was the only program where I would have any problems. Granted, it probably uses extended memory more than any of my DOS applications. The bottom line is that apparently Ensemble 2.0 is not fully compatible with all clone mother boards that are out in the marketplace. Perhaps it has something to do with the VESA local bus (I did not have any VESA local bus cards installed in any of the mother boards).
I have now permanently swapped out my mother board and am very happy with the results. I really wanted Ensemble 2.0 to work properly at almost any cost. If someone else has this problem, do you have a VESA local bus with a 486DX-XX mother board?

"There are systems with VESA VLB. There are also systems with local board video but not to VESA standards. When it comes time to change adapters for video or networks or drive controllers, you might not be able to get compatibility if it is not VESA."

Article#0312
Updated 06/26/93
GeoFile: Labels

QUESTION: I'm trying to set up a mailing label layout. However, even tho I change the page size in single record mode to under 1" high and make sure it is narrower than the TRUE paper size/page size in multi-record, it still only shows 1 little record in multirecord mode. What's wrong?

ANSWER: It's not good enough to simply "make sure it is narrower than the TRUE paper size...". You need to do the same math on the width that you do on the height. (If you did and it still didn't work out, then maybe you changed single-record page size, not record size.)

For instance, if your labels are going to be 3-1/2" wide, you need to make the single record size 3-1/2" wide. This means you need to shorten the field boxes manually. Probably the best way to do this is to go into GeoDraw and make yourself a temporary template to size, let's say 3/4" x 3-1/2" if that's the size, and paste it into GeoFile to help you size the fields lengthwise.

Some tips for labels:

1. Set up at least two layouts. The first layout is your primary database layout, complete with field labels. It doesn't matter what size the field boxes are here; you can leave them defaulted.

2. On the second layout, just port over your fields. Then, delete the field labels, unless you need them for some reason (if you do, you have to take them into account when figuring if you can have a double row of labels on the page).

Next, resize the field boxes to your label "template," set single record size and switch to multi-record layout. Now, you should see a double column of labels.

Note that there are two parts to the multi-record "template." The thicker lines outline the actual "single records," the thinner lines outside this area are the multi-record template boundaries. These boundaries can be moved inward to make room for text or art graphics.

Here's yet another tip for spacing lines on a label: after you've got the field boxes the correct size, select them all and use Align/Distribute to close up the space between them.

--Information provided by GWRep Neal

Article#0313
Updated 06/26/93
GeoManager: Using upgraded icons in launcher-maker

When converting individual icons using the new Iconmake for version 2.0, you can change the ID number in one fell swoop, i.e.

iconmake g BLON,5 BLON00FF.000

The GeoWorks Pro ID number is 255, the Ensemble 2.0 one becomes 5.

I tried the hex edit route, but this seems just as fast and easier. (When hex editing there are two instances you need to change. Look for the icon four letter code, the ID number is right next to it.)

--Information provided by GWRepRoseS

Article#0314
Updated 06/26/93
Install: Installing Ensemble 2.0

The installation program for Ensemble 2.0 requires about 520k of free conventional memory. You may need to temporarily remove TSRs or device drivers, or boot from a "clean" floppy disk, while installing Ensemble 2.0.

Article#0315
Updated 06/26/93
DOS: New version of SMARTDRV

There's a new version of SMARTDRV.EXE available for MS DOS 6 users. The file is available on America Online (keyword QUICKFIND, for searchwords see below). Here's the file description.

=================================
Subj:  SMARTDRV: SMARTDrive 4.2 Update
Date:  June 25, 1993
From:  PCA Lou

File:  SMTDRV42.EXE (27794 bytes)
DL time (2400 baud): < 3 minutes
Download count: 19
Uploaded on: America Online

AUTHOR:  Microsoft Corporation
NEEDS:  MS-DOS 6.0

Keywords:  Microsoft, MS, DOS, DOS6, Upgrade, Disk, Cache, Delayed, Write, Behind, Caching, Drive, SMARTDRV, FD
Type:  Freely Distributed

Version:  06/93

This file is a Self-Extracting archive.

Microsoft offers SMARTDrive 4.2 as an alternative to SMARTDrive 4.1 for those who want more conservative disk caching, and are willing to accept slower (but safer!) disk-write performance.  This is especially good for use with DoubleSpace drives.

NOTE:  MS-DOS 6 Upgrade will continue to include SMARTDrive 4.1.

 New Features
 ------------

SMARTDrive 4.2 includes the following new features:

- A default option to write the contents of the write-cache to disk before returning to the MS-DOS command prompt after completing an MS-DOS command or exiting an MS-DOS program or MS-DOS-based application.

- An /N switch that disables the default "write write-cache contents to disk" option noted above.

- A new /X switch that disables write-caching for all drives.

 Installation
 ------------

NOTE:  Use SMARTDrive 4.2 only if you have installed MS-DOS 6.

To install SMARTDRV.EXE:

1.  Copy the SMARTDRV.EXE 4.2 file to the directory that contains your MS-DOS files (for example, C:\DOS).  This should overwrite SMARTDRV.EXE 4.1.

2.  If you have any older copies of the SMARTDRV.EXE (or SMARTDRV.SYS) files on your computer, be sure to delete them (for example, in the Windows directory).

3.  Restart your computer.

Documentation:  README.TXT, SMARTDRV.TXT

Article#0316
Updated 7/4/93
Preferences: Ensemble 2.0 and those question marks

The question mark remains next to the IRQ settings for the serial ports in Preferences in Ensemble 2.0 until GEOS accesses the port. In general, the simple thing to do is to ignore the question marks.

GEOS version 1.x used to poll the COM ports and expected a response back to verify what INT was being used. There's a "gate" between the 8250 (or newer chips) and the I/O bus that must be opened to allow the interrupt request from the 8250 to make it to the CPU.

On some systems, there's something screwy such that unless the gate is opened before GEOS starts, the initial interrupt never makes it to the CPU, so the serial driver thinks it can't deal with the port. We've never been able to figure out just what could be going on (we've even tried waiting for literally half a second between opening the gate and provoking the interrupt, and it didn't help).

I'm told this situation was changed in 2.0, but some of these problems sound like it's not perfect yet. One work around is to create a batch file by which you'll run GEOS, then call another batch file to write 8 to port 3fc which should open the gate before GEOS starts.

Article#0317
Updated 06/26/93
Printers: Screen Saver and printing

QUESTION: When I print a long document and my screen saver becomes activated the printer will pause until I remove the screen saver. Is this normal?

ANSWER: You can stop this by selecting Reduce Priority under Preferences, Lights Out. This will let the printer take priority over the saver.

--Information provided SilntObsvr

Article#0318
Updated 06/26/93
OS/2: Ensemble 2.0 and OS/2, installing

Users attempting to install Ensemble 2.0 on an OS/2 machine using a full screen DOS window may get the following error:

"SYS Error 0005 Access Denied"

Apparently OS/2 thinks there is an extended attribute set for all the files on the installation disks. One user reports he was able to get around the problem by doing the following:

1.) Since the disks were write protected, he did a diskcopy to disks that were not write protected.

2.) Run CHKDSK /F on all the disks. OS/2 will correct what it thinks is an extended attribute error on every single file.

After that the install seems to proceed normally.

Article#0319
Updated 06/26/93
DOS: Installing GeoWorks Pro with MS DOS 6

Apparently, some folks need to add

SETVER SETUP.EXE 5.0

to their SETVER table in order to install GeoWorks Pro properly.

The symptom is that GEOS hangs at the "intializing drive module" line.

Try adding SETUP to the SETVER table, be sure you have SETVER in your CONFIG.SYS file and install GeoWorks Pro one more time. That should do it.

--Information provided by GW Steve

Article#0320
Updated 06/26/93
DOS: Smartdrv and MS DOS 6

MS DOS 6.0 & SMARTDRV will actually let the C: prompt reappear BEFORE the cache is done emptying. If you kill power as soon as you see the prompt, you may well wreck files. There is a TSR available to prevent the cursor from reappearing until cache is flushed (called SMARTP.COM).

--Information provided by DavidKVT

Article#0321
Updated 06/26/93
DOS: TaskMAX and Ensemble 2.0

If you use DR DOS 6.0's TaskMAX, you can still use America Online in GeoWorks Pro and access Ensemble 2.0 without having to shutdown or run the stand alone version of America Online

Simply run GeoWorks Pro and Ensemble 2.0 as tasks and switch between the two via the Express menu. If the swap files for GeoWorks Pro and Ensemble 2.0 are using the default paths, then no change is necessary. However, if the swap files are set to an uncompressed partition, make sure that each swap file is placed in a separate directory in order to avoid a possible conflict.

For instance, if D: is the uncompressed partition, assuming that both GeoWorks Pro and Ensemble 2.0 are installed on drive C: which is compressed, create two subdirectories on drive D:, SWAPPRO and SWAPTWO respectively.

In the PC/GEOS section of Preferences, set the GeoWorks Pro swap file to:

D:\SWAPPRO\SWAP

and in the GEOS section of Preferences for Ensemble 2.0, set the swap file to:

D:\SWAPTWO\SWAP

Remember to add the string "&D0" (no quotes) to your Postmodem string in the Setup section of AOL. This will prevent your carrier from being lost (disconnected) when you switch tasks while online.

--Information provided by John Ezike (GWRepJohn)

Article#0322
Updated 06/26/93
DOS: MSCDEX

MSCDEX is an acronym for Microsoft CD-ROM Extensions. It is a TSR that enables CD-ROM's to be accessed as DOS drives. What it does is talk to your CD-ROM drive via a device driver in your CONFIG.SYS, and interfaces the CD-ROM drive to MS-DOS as a Network drive. So, if you do not have a network and get network related messages, now you know why.

The command to load MSCDEX is placed in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file and should be automatically included when installing your CD-ROM software. It will look something like this:

C:\CDROM\MSCDEX /D:SONY001 /M:10 /L:E /V

In the example above:

C:\CDROM = directory for the CD software files
/D:SONY001 = the device name assigned to your CD-ROM
/L:E = E is the drive letter assigned to your CD-ROM
/V = verbose listing of memory usage

If you use MS DOS 6.0, you may have to use the MSCDEX driver in your MS DOS 6.0 directory. The current version is 2.22. The PATH to your MSCDEX file will then change and become C:\DOS\MSCDEX. The parameters will remain the same.

If you have files from an earlier DOS version being loaded from your CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT file, you should edit your PATH statement in AUTOEXEC.BAT to include only the MS DOS 6.0 directory. Remove any other directory entry for previous versions of MS DOS.

In CONFIG.SYS, change the PATH before any DOS command to point to the MS DOS 6.0 directory.

NOTE: If you always use the directory name 'DOS' (no quotes) for your files, you can always upgrade your DOS files with virtually no changes to your system and batch files.

If you use the GeoWorks CD Manager, PCGEOS.PIF is the setup information file to be used to run the CD manager from Windows. When setting up the CD manager icon in your GeoWorks group, you should specify the full path for PCGEOS.PIF. It can be found in your \GEOWORKS directory. Example:

C:\GEOWORKS\PCGEOS.PIF

--Information provided by GWRepJohn and FIBER (a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0323
Updated 06/26/93
Printers: ZEOS computers

On ZEOS and some other computers, you will need to set the interrupt level of GEOS for the parallel ports to BIOS or DOS to get access to your ports. This is because the hardware design of your ZEOS is not 100% IBM compatible, and is corrected by the BIOS they create. When you select interrupt level IRQ5 or IRQ7, GEOS attempts to talk directly to the I/O card for speed but, due to the hardware design, the communication fails. This is common on several brands of computers, not just ZEOS. Windows also requires the use of BIOS or DOS.

Printing speed is a problem on some machines. A slow HDD (less than 18ms) will slow down printing since GEOS spools to the HDD.

--Information provided by GWRep Don

Article#0324
Updated 06/26/93
GeoWrite: Wrap Type, Wrap Tightly

QUESTION: I pasted a bit map in my GeoWrite document, but when I choose Wrap Tightly, either the text still wraps around a rectangular area or else it wraps too close to the graphic.

ANSWER: The bit map may be surrounded by a rectangle of "white space" which prevents the text from wrapping tightly.

Instead of setting a Wrap Type for the bit map, you can draw another "invisible" object over the bit map and set the Wrap Type for this new object.

If you want the text to wrap around a rectangle, you could use a graphics frame. If you want the text to wrap tightly (but not too tightly), then use a bezier polygon.

You could draw it freehand, but there's an easy way to automatically generate a bezier rectangle: click Graphic, Edit, Create, Polygons and set number of sides to 4. Then set fill to unfilled. By positioning the polygon and adding the appropriate control points, the rectangle can be shaped around any image.

--Information provided by GWRepRoseS and GWRepNeal

Article#0325
Updated 06/26/93
GeoDraw: Export at the DPI you want

By default, GEOS exports at 72 dpi only. You can effectively change that by rescaling your graphic. For precise control, do it with the custom scale option in GeoDraw. Simply Group all the objects in your document (text, vector, bit maps, everything) and scale it to the proper size that will give you what you need when translated to 72 dpi. Make sure your grouped object is selected and choose Export Selected Objects from the Export dialog box. It works for me, give it a try.

The calculations for achieving the desired dpi aren't even particularly difficult. For 360 dpi, you need to scale 500% before exporting (make your page BIG before you start). For 300 dpi, you need 417.67%. For 240 dpi, you'll want 333%, for 200 dpi the figure is 277.67%, for 150 dpi (med-resolution on a laser printer) use 208%, for 120 dpi (med-resolution on a dot matrix) it's 166.67%, and for 100 dpi (low-resolution fax), 139%.

--Information provided by GWRepBobby and SilntObsvr

Article#0326
Updated 06/26/93
Fax: Ensemble 2.0 and Satisfaxtion

Ensemble 2.0 sends data to the printer differently (more efficiently) than did the previous versions of GEOS. The necessary change is to set the LPT port for fax capture to BIOS instead of DOS. It works beautifully this way and allows full multitasking while faxing.

I am using a Satisfaxtion 400 with an HPLJIII driver to LPT3. Perhaps the BIOS setting will work with the Epson driver also.

Also, I use the "MOUSE.COM or MOUSE.SYS" driver to keep it transparent to the faxing process.

--Information provided by SEQUOIA3 (a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0327
Updated 06/26/93
Preferences: What is waitpost?

Wait/post is a small optimization that comes into play when you're trying to make your system do a couple things at a time, one of which is using the disk a lot. Simply put, the BIOS will notify GEOS that it is waiting for something to happen (e.g. the disk to read a particular sector), allowing GEOS to switch to something else, rather than waiting in BIOS until the thread's time has expired and the system goes to look for something more important to do. When the hardware notifies BIOS the thing for which it was waiting has come to pass, the BIOS posts this notification to GEOS, which then makes the waiting thread run again.

This used to be the default behavior in Ensemble 1.2, but it caused problems on enough machines (forcing people to pass the /nowaitpost switch to the kernel whenever they ran it), that we decided to change it to be optional in 2.0, enabled in Preferences.

It is automatically disabled for the session following a crash, to allow you to turn it off again in Preferences, should it cause your system to crash.

Article#0328
Updated 06/26/93
GeoWrite: GeoWrite and Text File Editor

If you try to paste text from GeoWrite to Text File Editor and it doesn't work, here's why.

There are certain characters that TFE does not understand (pretty much anything that isn't in the basic character set). Sadly, rather than filtering those characters, it just aborts the entire paste.

Sorry if this is causing you problems. We recognized this as a problem, but we didn't get a chance to focus on a solution until a bit too late. It's on the list for "things to deal with", but it won't be showing up anytime soon.

--Information provided by GW John (GeoWorks engineering)

Article#0329
Updated 06/26/93
GEOS: Ensemble 2.0 on 286

When I first installed Ensemble 2.0 on my 286, it appeared to run about five times slower than GeoWorks Pro.

Here's a report on my further adventures with Ensemble 2.0

I got a document from GeoWorks automated FAX support line detailing the best memory config for GeoWorks. They are, in order of preference:

Managed extended memory
Managed expanded memory
Unmanaged extended memory
Virtual memory (swapping to disk)
RAM disk

Checking Preferences in 2.0 I found that 2.0 would not allow me to run XMS memory (I could select it, but it would not stay selected). Further investigation with DOS 5.0 MEM showed I had no available XMS memory.

When I checked my AUTOEXEC.BAT file, I found that DOS's SMARTDRV.EXE disk cache program had been added by a long ago Windows installation. When SMARTDRV.EXE is run, it grabs all available upper memory unless told otherwise.

I deleted SMARTDRV.EXE from my AUTOEXEC.BAT file, turned on XMS memory in Preferences and noticed a great improvement in speed. Ensemble 2.0 now loads in 25-30 seconds rather than 75-80 seconds. Other applications and processes show a similar improvement. Ensemble 2.0 is still slower than GeoWorks Pro on my machine, but not so much that it is unusable. My advice for the other people who have experienced speed problems on AT machines is to defragment and tune your hard drive and make sure the maximum XMS memory is available.
Turn off or limit the extended memory use of any caching programs that use it, such SMARTDRIVE. Select XMS memory from the Preferences computer options.

--Information provided by Michae2220

Article#0330
Updated 06/26/93
Hardware: Mouse problems when running from Windows

If you run GEOS from Windows and your mouse doesn't work in Windows, here are some suggestions.

Make sure that you are loading a mouse driver in your AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS file before Windows is run.

If the driver is currently being loaded in the CONFIG.SYS file, try loading it in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file and vice versa. Also, load the mouse driver using the /Y parameter. This helps eliminate some problems.

Open the Control Panel in Windows and try adjusting the mouse sensitivity in the Mouse section.

In the Mouse section of Preferences in GEOS, select the driver named "MOUSE.COM OR MOUSE.SYS".

--Information provided by GWRepJohn

Article#0331
Updated 06/26/93
Graphics: Preparing bit maps for import

I've had pretty good luck in the past using Paint Shop Pro to prepare bit map files for importing to GEOS. Paint Shop Pro has a Decrease Color Depth option that you can use. Let's say you have a 256-color bit map you wish to import, but it doesn't look right, just open it from Paint Shop Pro, then select Increase Color Depth (to 16,000,000). Wait for the program to do its work (it will go faster if you have lots of memory). Then select Decrease Color Depth (to 16 for GeoWorks Pro or to 256 for Ensemble 2.0), and then in the dialog box select Standard Palette. That way, you get either the first 16 or first 256 colors of the default startup palette; these are the same colors GEOS uses.

--Information provided by SilntObsvr

Article#0332
Updated 06/26/93
Graphics: Transparent Bit Maps

Here are some ways to make monochrome bit maps completely transparent. First, if you PASTE a bit map into GeoDraw from a Scrapbook or other document, it doesn't have bit map properties since it's seen as a graphic object. So, with it selected, use Transform, Convert, Convert to Bitmap. For some reason, this makes it transparent.

An imported bit map does have bit map properties without the extra "Convert to Bitmap" being necessary, but using it will make it transparent. The only drawback of using this feature is that it will change a higher-resolution bit map to the default 72dpi.

Another method I use to make a bit map transparent is to go to Attributes, Bitmap Format and change to 16 Color. With this method, you can also set the dpi at the same time. If you know the dpi of your bit map, just set Custom dpi at that number. If you don't set the dpi, you'll get the 72dpi default.

By the way, you must change the Bitmap Format to 16 color if you want to "hand-color" a bit map or add color elements to it.

--Information provided by YumaLamb1 (Susan Lamb, a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0333
Updated 06/26/93
Printers: Panasonic KX-P4410, envelopes

I had a problem printing envelopes to a Panasonic KXP-4410 laser. Here's how I solved it. I changed the width of the envelope template to 11 inches, then I set the PAPER size for printing to 8.5 x 11. This will center the envelope in the page, and match up the template with the location of the envelope in the manual feed slot.

--Information provided by SilntObsvr (a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0334
Updated 06/26/93
GeoCalc: Charts

By default, Line charts will only work properly with data arranged horizontally. If your data is in a column, select it and first create a pie chart. Then, while the pie chart is still selected, immediately change it to a line chart. That will force GeoCalc to "do the right thing."

--Information provided by Jim Ski504 and SilntObsvr (GeoWorks customers)

Article#0335
Updated 06/26/93
Video: Trouble installing Ensemble 2.0

Ensemble 2.0 has several LOADER.EXE files--one for each video device we support:

loadermc  mcga
loadercg  cga
loadereg  ega
loadervg  vga

During the install, GEOS renames the file to LOADER.EXE. For example,
for mcga video, LOADERMC.EXE would be renamed to LOADER.EXE and the GEOS.INI file would have the appropriate mcga driver info.

On rare occasion, for some reason we haven't determined yet, the installation program fails to rename the file and there is an error message such as "Error in script line 244 - error renaming file."

In this situation you can get up and running with the appropriate video by following these steps:

1. Use the installation tools to install the proper LOADERxx.EXE file
2. Rename the file to LOADER.EXE
3. Check to make sure the GEOS.INI file has the correct driver lines in the [screen 0] section

Article#0336
Updated 06/26/93
GEOS: The /log parameter and floppy disk errors

Here is some information from Adam de Boor about the /log option:

Using the /log parameter can help identify boot sector problems or floppy
disk errors.

GEOS.LOG is a general log file that is activated by passing the /log switch
when running GEOS. It shows the loading of various modules of the system and
anything else of interest.

In the case of floppy disks, it'll say things like

"Couldn't read boot sector from drive A 03"

(03 is the error code returned from BIOS)

"Invalid boot sector on drive A
Missing jump instruction 9A 07 00"

(9A 07 00 are the three bytes from the start of the boot sector)

To make use of this, run GEOS with the /log switch, stick the disk
in the drive, click on the drive icon, let GEOS "whine" about the disk, exit
GEOS, then look at the file PRIVDATA\GEOS.LOG to see what it says.

Article#0337
Updated 06/26/93
Video: Ensemble 2.0 and Tseng ET4000

To use the Tseng 800x600 option, you'll have to load VMODE.COM when you boot. Use the syntax:

VMODE 35K

Or you can load the Tseng VESA driver (TLIVESA.COM) and then use the VESA 800x600 driver in GEOS.

--Information provided by GW Rep Tim

Article#0338
Updated 06/26/93
Errors: "DC-" or "Critical Error" messages

Apparently, these error messages which show up when you try to launch GeoWrite can be caused by corrupt GeoWrite Untitled files which were updated to Ensemble 2.0 from earlier versions of GEOS.

To eliminate the errors, just close GeoWrite, go into your \DOCUMENT directory and delete all the "GeoWrite Untitled" files. Exit to DOS and re-enter Ensemble. Your GeoWrite problems should be gone.

Same thing goes for GeoDraw "Critical Error" messages. Delete any "GeoDraw Untitled" files.

--Information provided by GWRep Neal

Article#0339
Updated 06/26/93
OS/2: Ensemble 2.0 and mouses

OS/2 2.1 permits you to have an AUTOEXEC.BAT file for each DOS application. In OS/2 2.0, that option didn't exist, if I recall correctly.

In any event, in the apps-specific or general AUTOEXEC.BAT file, you should invoke the VMOUSE driver in the MDOS directory of OS/2.

Then, you should have a GEOS.INI file that has the mouse driver line for MOUSE.COM or MOUSE.SYS.

Thus, I have two GEOS.INI files: One for when I run Ensemble 2.0 from DOS, and one for when I run Ensemble 2.0 from OS/2. There is a batch file that I use before starting up from DOS that copies the DOSGEOS.INI to GEOS.INI and after closing down 2.0 copies the OS2GEOS.INI to GEOS.INI. As a result, whenever I run Ensemble 2.0 from OS/2, the OS/2 specific GEOS.INI file is active and responds to the mouse driver from OS/2.

--Information provided by ClemensKo (a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0340
Updated 06/26/93
Printing: About GEOS spool files

What gets put into the spooler file is the raw drawing commands ("fill circle at 300, 206" sort of thing), not the stuff that ultimately goes to the printer. The spooler then takes those commands and runs them over and over, drawing into a bit map that is a window onto the page, then it translates the bit map into printer codes and sends them to the printer.

--Information provided by Adam de Boor (GeoWorks engineering)

Article#0341
Updated 06/26/93
Hardware: Num Lock key fix

Apparently Ensemble 2.0's keyboard driver does not work correctly with some systems and the Num Lock key spontaneously toggles its state.

There is a set of shareware utilities called Spacemaker from PKWARE, the authors of PKZIP, which includes a file called SETNUM.COM that will turn off the Num Lock key. I inserted it in the batch file that I use to launch Ensemble 2.0 and it solved the problem, at least for the time being.

--Information provided by TomVicenza (a GeoWorks customer)

I have similar workaround as Tom.  I experience the NumLock problem when I launch a DOS application. There is a small utility I found on America Online called KEY.COM.  This utility can control a number a various key attributes, including the state of the Num Lock key. So I just write a small batch file for each DOS launcher, including the KEY.COM NUML- command in the batch file, and no more Num Lock problems.

--Information provided by NC LAW (a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0342
Updated 06/26/93
Graphics: What is CLP format?

CLP is actually a catch-all format that is basically a dump of whatever is in the Windows Clipboard. It can contain bit maps, vectors, or even text. GeoDraw will only import CLP files that contain bit maps with 256 or fewer colors.

--Information provided by GWRepBobby

Article#0343
Updated 06/26/93
Printers: Star NX-2420 Rainbow, color printing

For color printing with Ensemble 2.0, use the Epson LQ-860 Color driver (see page 39 of the NX-2420 manual).
Medium quality printing may give you brighter colors.

--Information provided by ChuckT8473 (a Geoworks customer)

Article#0344
Updated 06/26/93
GeoDraw: Round and square line ends

Lines created with the single straight line tool have squared-off ends. Polylines have curved ends. You can draw a single curved-end line with the polyline tool, but you can't draw a multi-section polyline with squared ends.

--Information provided by YumaLamb1

Article#0345
Updated 06/26/93
Hardware: Math Coprocessors

If your coprocessor doesn't work, make sure that it's compatible with your system. Some systems require Intel or Wytek coprocessors and will not work with Cyrix brand chips.

If GeoCalc, GeoFile, and Calculator will not work for you in Ensemble 2.0, it could be a sign that your coprocessor is either incompatible with your system or with GEOS, or is otherwise not operating correctly.

You can force GEOS to ignore your coprocessor by adding or modifying these lines in your GEOS.INI file:

 [math]
 coprocessor = none

Article#0346
Updated 06/26/93
GeoManager: Deleting icon files

There is an easy way to "expose" GeoManager to only the icons you want in your launcher icon bar. For Doc Icon's icons, look at the pictures of the icons in Doc Icon's guide (DOCGUIDE.ZIP) and GWRepLinda's upload, (ICONPICS.ZIP). Write down the names of the ones you want to use.

Download the icons and unzip without returning to the folder the file was in. This is done automatically by AOL 1.5, which creates folders to contain all files that are unZIPed. Or, you can unZIP the files from the DOS command line. What I'm trying to say is, don't unZIP in a folder by double-clicking in version 2.0, because the icons will display when you return from DOS. (You can double-click in version 1.2 to unzip icon files for version 2.0, as they won't display in the earlier version.)

Pick out the icons you want by name, using version 1.2 or from DOS and put them in folders or delete them. When you have the ones you want, just open these folders from the disk and let GeoManager in version 2.0 see them. They can stay on a floppy for storage and wont clutter up your HD. And, you wont have so many unwanted icons to scroll through.

Another way to delete icon files without adding them to your Token Database is this. Before you view them, select Names Only or Names And Details in the View menu in GeoManager then Save Options under the Options menu before you open the directory that the icons are in. This will list the icon files in a names/tree type listing only. Delete those that you do not want and then switch back over to Icons mode for viewing. Again use Save Options to go back to using the Icons view mode as before.

Files listed by name only can be selected and dragged down to the trash can the same way as icons. Hold the CTRL key down while clicking to select more than one at a time, then just drag one of the selected ones.

--Information provided by GWRepLinda and YumaLamb1

Article#0347
Updated 06/26/93
GEOS: Using GEOS with Windows

Using COM3 or COM4 can cause problems for Windows. Preferably, use COM1 (IRQ4) for your mouse and COM2 (IRQ3) for your modem or vice versa.

In Window's Program Manager window, select RUN from the File menu and enter SYSEDIT (System Files Editor). Click on OK. Four overlapping windows will pop up. Click on the SYSTEM.INI title bar.

Look in the [386Enh] section and delete all lines with 'COMxAutoAssign' (x=1,2,3 or4). Add the following lines for the COM ports you are using, if they are not already present. Delete any entries for COM ports that are not in use, even if they are physically present in your system. Here's an example:

  COM1Irq=4
  COM1Base=03F8
  COM2Irq=3
  COM2Base=02F8

The above example assumes that you have and are using COM1 and 2. If you must use COM3 or COM4 the lines would read as follows:

  COM3Irq=4
  COM3Base=03E8
  COM4Irq=3
  COM4Base=02E8

Make sure that your Modem Preferences in GEOS are the same as in Windows.

Printing from GEOS while running under Windows will be slower than normal. To improve printing speed for Lasers's, increase the amount of Printer memory and select Fast Printing To Port for Laser and Dot Matrix printers.

--Information provided by GWRepJohn

Article#0348
Updated 06/26/93
Errors: KR-09 Errors in Ensemble 2.0

KR-09 errors may be due to a number of possible causes, such as the ones listed below.

1. A one-in-a-million fluke
2. Problems in your AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS file
3. Bad sectors on your hard drive
4. Damaged document files
5. A conflict with other software
6. The GEOS Handles setting is too low
7. Low on hard disk space
8. Low on memory (RAM)
9. A virus

A detailed file with suggested solutions can be found in the GeoWorks Files section of the GeoWorks library on America Online. Download the file GeoFax 212 KR-09/07 System Errors, or call GeoWorks Fax-on-Demand (510-644-0883, extension 720) and request document number 212.

The first thing to do is run CHKDSK /F on all your drives. In fact, I place a CHKDSK /F command, for each drive, in my AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Make sure that each of the partitions on your hard drive, or each different hard drive, has a different volume name. This will avoid a potential problem with GEOS.

Re-install 2.0 before trying the following suggestions. If it turns out that your installation diskettes are damaged or defective, you can send email to GW Service on America Online or call 510-644-0883, extension 404 to request a new disk set.

Here are some further suggestions:

CONFIG.SYS
----------
1. Don't load Stacker with the /EMS switch.

2. Increase your environment space to 1024 bytes if you set a good number of variables.

3. Load your cache in EXTended memory and reduce the size to 1MB, if it's larger than that.

4. Temporarily disable non-essential TSR's such as scanner drivers, or fax drivers. This is a likely cause for launchers not working.

5. Reduce your BUFFERS to 10 if you have a cache installed.

6. Use DOS=HIGH,UMB if you are using a third party (QEMM386) memory manager.

AUTOEXEC.BAT
-------------
1. Reduce the length of your PATH statement. Use batch files to launch any utilities in the directories that you eliminate.

2. Once again, rem out all TSR's initially and see if that helps. Restore each TSR one at a time and retest to see if the TSR causes a problem.

3. If launchers are crashing or not working, try going to the \GEOS20 directory to run GEOS, instead of depending on the PATH statement. Also, run LOADER.EXE instead of GEOS20.BAT.

--Information provided by GWRepJohn

Article#0349
Updated 06/26/93
DOS: Tips for increasing conventional memory with DR DOS

Here are a few suggestions.

1. If you have an AMI BIOS or compatible, you can probably add the following switches to the EMM386.SYS command line :

1. /I=B000-B7FF

This will add 32k to the UMB pool. Don't use it if you are using a monochrome adapter, since this is where the adapter code resides.

2. Use /F=C800 for the 64k page frame starting address. It will start after the C000-C7FF block which is normally used by the VGA adapter code.

3. Add the following address range to the UMB pool:

  /I=D800-EFFF

About 96k will be added to the UMB's.

4. Change the order in which the TSR's /device drivers are loaded. Use the MEM command to see how much RAM each memory resident program uses and load the largest ones first. Some TSR's or device drivers need more room in which to load before settling down to their installed size.

5. Use HILOAD with your TSRs. The TSRs will load low if there is no upper memory available.

6. Add MEMMAX -U -L to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file after loading your TSRs. This will disable access to upper memory.

7. Alternatively, load EMM386.SYS with the /L parameter. This creates an extra 24k of upper memory. The tradeoff is that the same amount of conventional memory will be used up. The benefit of using this switch is that a much larger TSR which previously resided in lower memory, may now be loaded high. The net gain in RAM will be positive.

--Information provided by GWRepJohn

Article#0350
Updated 06/26/93
DOS: DRIVPARM

If your floppy disk drive does not appear to detect when you've changed disks, it might indicate a problem with the disk drive change-line support. When it malfunctions, the drive cannot sense when a disk has been changed (the drive door is open).

If you run into the same problem again, use the following command in your CONFIG.SYS file:

DRIVPARM=/D:0 /T:80 /S:18 /H:2 /C /F:7

 (That's for a 1.44M 3.5" high density disk drive)

The advantage of using the DRIVPARM command over DRIVER.SYS is that it uses less memory and does not reasssign your drive letters. That is, Drive A is still A, drive B is still B etc. .The disadvantage is that it is an undocumented feature, so be aware of that.

--Information provided by GWRepJohn

Article#0351
Updated 06/26/93
DOS: Speedram

There is a program available on America Online called SpeedRam. I downloaded it and used it on my Packard Bell 286 and it made a 30% improvement in speed according to Norton's overall index.

I also tried it on my Compaq 386sx/20 at work and it improved performance on that machine by 22%.

--Information provided by RJ 33186 and ClemensKo (GeoWorks Customers)

Article#0352
Updated 06/26/93
GeoWrite: Graphic won't print

QUESTION: I set the Draw Mode of a graphic to AND. Now when I print, the graphic is not included in my hard copy. What should I do?

ANSWER: Before you print, select the graphic and change the Draw Mode attribute from AND to OR, the last option on the list. The graphic will turn invisible on screen. Don't worry about that. It will then print just fine.

Article#0353
Updated 06/26/93
Fax: Ensemble 2.0 and The Complete Communicator

To get GeoDex to launch from the Fax dialog box in Ensemble 2.0, you must type in some "search criteria" where you would normally enter the phone number, then click the "Get from GeoDex" button.

Do not use the Autodial feature of GeoDex, but instead drag and drop the phone number for GeoDex into the phone number field in the Fax dialog box.

Article#0354
Updated 06/28/93
GeoComm: Doesn't remember my settings in Ensemble 2.0

If you're having trouble with the GeoComm Protocol box (the one with the BPS rate, COM port settings, etc.) popping up each time GeoComm is opened, try this fix:

1) Run Preferences, Computer

2) Check your COM port setting on the first box, then click Speed and Format Options

3) If, after checking Speed and Format option in Preferences, you have no changes to make, make one anyhow. Change Handshake from None to Hardware and back, for insance. This will make the Apply button active at the bottom of the Speed/Format box.

4) Click Apply and click OK on the original box.

5) That should solve the problem (and any difficulties you may be having with GeoDex not dialing as well)

If that doesn't work, make a fresh copy of GEOS.INI from installation disk number one and configure your modem in Preferences, Modem before launching GeoComm.

--Information provided by GWRepDave

Article#0355
Updated 06/28/93
GeoManager: Launchers not working

If launchers in Ensemble 2.0 do not function properly, try these suggestions:

1. Use a different mouse driver.

2. Load your mouse driver in AUTOEXEC.BAT instead of CONFIG.SYS or vice versa.

3. Add the /Y parameter to the command line, if you are using a Microsoft mouse driver.

4. Load the mouse driver in conventional memory as opposed to loading it high.

5. Select a launcher and run it by pressing Enter or the spacebar instead of double clicking with the mouse.

6. Increase the Number of Handles in the GEOS section of Preferences to 3000 or more.

7. Increase DOS FILES to 130 or more. This will use up some additional RAM but it is worth getting the launchers to run.

8. Start with CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files as clean as possible. REM out each TSR in turn and test the launchers. The lockups could be TSR related.

9. Increase the size of your environment to 1k byte by adding or editing the following line your Config.sys file to read as follows:

SHELL=C:\COMMAND.COM /P /E:1024

10. Make sure there is a copy of COMMAND.COM in your Root directory.

11. Run Ensemble 2.0 by going to the \GEOS20 directory and running LOADER.EXE, instead of GEOS20.BAT.

--Information provided by GWRepJohn

Article#0356
Updated 06/26/93
GEOS: Tips for the visually handicapped

QUESTION: My mom's in a wheel chair and partially blind. She has GeoWorks Pro, but she cannot see the mouse pointer to use the program. I have enlarged the type, but that's not good enough. Can anyone out there help me?

ANSWER: I've used GeoWorks for over 2 years and computers in general for about 10 years. I'm "legally blind" with vision of about 20/400 in one eye (3 meters in the other). I'd enjoy helping to come up with some ideas for your mom that would make using the computer a bit easier.

I'm assuming that you already ran Preferences and set the system font size to large in the Look and Feel section. Within America Online, you can change text to large using the Member menu, Preferences as well.

There's no method that I know of for changing the size or appearance of the mouse pointer. However, there is something you can do that will help your mom to predict where the mouse will be, based on the "feel" of it. This might sound a bit ridiculous but it DOES work. Run GeoDraw. Create a medium sized solid box of a bright color. Choose the select tool and click on the square so that the handles are showing. Point your mouse at the center handle. Click and hold the LEFT button. As long as the button is held, the square will move with the mouse, acting as a marker for the mouse's position on the screen. This is where your mom comes in. Get her to grab the mouse and move it around on the screen. Using Preferences, Mouse select the mouse speed and acceleration that your mom is most comfortable with. Have her practice with the square until she's bored with it. Whenever the mouse is at rest, have her leave it in the upper righthand corner of the current window. This way she always has a place to go back and "find" it. Remember--this is an exercise, not a solution. But it really does help to give a person a "feel" for where the mouse cursor is. 

Aside from size, color can be very important for seeing things. I use Certified Software's "Colorizer" with GeoWorks version 1.x. In a nutshell, it will let you adjust colors for text, background, windows, menu bars, and the mouse pointer. You may be able to find a high contrast color combo that will work well for your mom. Another very simple thing that can help is to go to a stationary store and get one of those see-through yellow plastic report covers. Place that on the monitor and look through it at text. Sometimes the white background with black text is too high-glare and this helps. 

Finally, there are some costly screen magnifiers for use in DOS and with DOS programs such as Wordperfect, Lotus 123, etc. There's also a public domain counterpart called MAGNIFY.ZIP. If your mom does anything at the DOS prompt or uses any text-based DOS programs, it might help. It is truly terrific as it will magnify any portion of your screen. Unfortunately it will not work within graphical environments such as GeoWorks or Windows. 

--Information provided by PC Robin

Article#0357
Updated 06/29/93
GEOS: Saving your defaults in Ensemble 2.0

QUESTION: I'd like the Area Attributes for my graphics objects to default to Unfilled each time I open a new document. How can I do this?

ANSWER: To change your default to Unfilled, for each application in question, open a new, blank document.  Don't draw anything, but select the draw tool for which you want to change the default.  Set it the way you want it.  Do the same for any other tools you wish to modify.  Then select the File menu, Other, Blank Document, and save the document as the new Blank Document.  After that, anytime you create a new document, you'll get the defaults you want!

--Information provided by SilntObsvr (a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0358
Updated 06/29/93
DOS: GEOS and MS DOS 6.0

GENERAL INFORMATION

All GeoWorks products are compatible with MS DOS 6.0 with the single exception of Ensemble 1.0. We cannot guarantee or support running GeoWorks Ensemble 1.0 with MS DOS 6.0. If you are still using Ensemble version 1.0, call 800-824-4558 (US) or 800-465-7999 (Canada) to ask about an upgrade.

CONFIG.SYS

Make sure that your CONFIG.SYS file has the following lines:

 FILES=30
 BUFFERS=30
 DEVICE = C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE

Note: Files and buffers can be greater than 30, but not less than 30.

DOUBLE SPACE

If you are using the DoubleSpace disk compression program, you may notice that GEOS runs very slowly. Other common DoubleSpace problems are hanging at the "Loading PC/GEOS" screen, or seeing a distorted yellow or grey screen when you try to load GeoWorks. If so, you need to edit your GEOS.INI file, located in the C:\GEOWORKS (or C:\GEOS20, if you are using Ensemble 2.0) directory.

Find the section where the GEOS.INI file reads:
 [diskswap]
 file = \GEOWORKS\SYSTEM\SWAP
 (or: \GEOS20\PRIVDATA\SWAP for Ensemble 2.0)

Change the second line to read:

 file = H:\SWAP

If your DoubleSpace host drive (also called the non-compressed host drive) is a drive other than drive H:\, substitute that drive letter for the H:\.

If you cannot find the [diskswap] section in your GEOS.INI file, add these lines to the end of the file.
  [diskswap]
  file = H:\SWAP

If you get the message, "Cannot find GEOWORKS/WORLD directory", you need to change your drive volume names. Use the DOS "LABEL" command to do this from the DOS prompt.

If you have a CD drive and you see the message, "Incorrect DOS version," enter this from any DOS prompt:

COPY C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE C:\GEOWORKS\CDROM

Re-boot your computer to load the new MSCDEX driver.

If the SETUP program hangs at Initializing Drive Module, exit setup and go to a DOS prompt. Enter:

  SETVER SETUP.EXE 5.0

You will get a warning message, then a message that the version table has been successfully updated. Reboot your computer and run SETUP again.

MS-DOS 6 includes a program called DOSSHELL. You can use this program to launch any other programs and even to task-switch between several programs all running at once. To task-switch with a GeoWorks program, you need to do the following:

1. In your system's CONFIG.SYS file, raise the FILES parameter to at least 80 (we recommend 100).

2. Run DOSSHELL and launch KERNEL.EXE or LOADER.EXE from it. Typically, this means you must double-click on the GEOWORKS directory in the upper left window of DOSSHELL and then double click on the executable file, which should appear in the upper right window.

3. To switch out of your GeoWorks program, hold down your CTRL and ESC keys at the same time. You will not be allowed to task-switch if you are in the middle of certain disk operations (such as formatting) or if you are running a program such as America Online or GeoComm, which has a serial port open. If you are in the middle of a print job, it will be suspended when you task-switch out of your GeoWorks program.

On some systems, task-swapping will run better if you turn off your GEOS extended memory driver. To do this, run Preferences (in Ensemble, run Preferences from the Professional area; in Desktop, Writer, or Designer, click on the Express menu and choose System Preferences). In Preferences, click on Computer. Under Extra Memory Type, click on the square next to Extended Memory to de-select it, then click OK and follow instructions.

MEMORY MANAGEMENT: DOS 6.0's EMM386.EXE

If you are using EMM386.EXE (if you are, there's a line that reads DEVICE = C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE in your CONFIG.SYS file), you may need to turn off Expanded memory in GEOS.

From a DOS prompt, enter GEOS /nomem (that's a forward slash, and "nomem" must be in lower case) to enter GeoWorks. The /nomem switch tells GeoWorks to ignore the high memory area, which is where EMM386.EXE is causing conflicts.

Launch Preferences and click on the Computer button. Under Extra Memory Type, turn OFF Expanded (LIM EMS). You can turn on Extended and XMS/HIMEM.SYS, if they aren't already selected. Click on the OK button. When GeoWorks tells you it needs to be restarted, click on OK, then Yes. The next time you want to enter GeoWorks, you can just type GEOS at the DOS prompt.

GEOWORKS ENSEMBLE VERSION 1.0

If you have GeoWorks Ensemble version 1.0, go to a DOS prompt and enter:

 SETVER GEOS.EXE 4.0

Reboot your computer, and try to run Ensemble 1.0. You won't need to enter the SETVER GEOS.EXE 4.0 command again. If Ensemble 1.0 still won't run, you will need to upgrade to a more recent version of GeoWorks software.

Article#0359
Updated 7/4/93
DOS: DR DOS 6's Interesting Prompt Parameter

The DR DOS 6.0 PROMPT command has a very interesting parameter and its use is left up to your imagination.

The PROMPT string 'x' instructs DR DOS to run the command specified by the PEXEC environment variable, every time you return to the DOS prompt. You will need two new entries in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

1. PROMPT $P$G$x

2. SET PEXEC= <parm>

Let's use an example. Change to the root directory on the C: drive and create a text file called GREAT.TXT, containing the line:

YOU ARE THE GREATEST!

Save the file. The PEXEC parameter will now be:

SET PEXEC=TYPE C:GREAT.TXT

Whenever you return to the DOS prompt, the message 'YOU ARE THE GREATEST' will be displayed. Does a lot for your ego, eh?

Actually, you could put it to better use. When you run DISKMAP from your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, it makes a copy of your FAT (File Allocation Table) only at the time of booting up. Consequently, when you use the UNDELETE command, to attempt recovery of files deleted after booting up, they will be marked as 'unaided' and successful file recovery will not always be guaranteed.

In order to have an up to date 'index' of your files, add the line:

SET PEXEC=DISKMAP C:

to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Every time you return to the DOS prompt, DISKMAP will be run. You can add more drive letters, separated by a space, if you have more than one drive.

Downside: If you have a slower PC, DISKMAP will take a little longer to create the 'map'.

--Information provided by GWRep John (John Ezike, GeoRep)

Article#0360
Updated 06/28/93
Printers: HP LaserJet II, Copies

To make lots of copies of GeoWorks documents on a Hewlett Packard LaserJet II without waiting hours, do this:

On the LaserJet control panel:

1. Press the MENU Button

2. Use the plus and minus keys to set the number of copies you want

3. Press the ENTER RESET MENU Button

4. Press the MENU Button repeatedly to scroll to "00 READY"

5. Press the CONTINUE RESET Button and hold until you see "07 RESET"

Now whatever image is sent to the printer's memory will be printed as many times as you want. This works because the GeoWorks printer driver doesn't tell the Laser Jet how many copies to print, so it doesn't override the "Number of Copies" setting when it prints. 

Note: Remember to reset the number of copies to "one" when you are finished, because the printer retains the settings even when it's powered down.

Article#0361
Updated 06/28/93
GEOS: Common Questions, Ensemble 2.0

Q. Can I use my Pro and Ensemble 1.0 & 1.2 documents with Ensemble 2.0?

A. Yes, all of your old documents can easily be converted to Ensemble 2.0 format. You can have this done automatically when you install Ensemble 2.0, or you can upgrade files manually in Ensemble 2.0's GeoManager. Just select the file by clicking on it once, then choose Upgrade 1.x document from the Tools menu. You can also use this procedure to upgrade your 1.2 GeoWrite, GeoDraw, GeoDex, GeoPlanner, Scrapbook, and background files.

Q. When I try to upgrade my documents, I get the message, "Error Converting File."

A. You need to turn off the Read-Only attribute for files you want to convert. In Geo Manager, select the file, then choose File Information/Change Attributes from the File menu. If you assigned icons other than the normal ones to your GEOS documents, you will have to reverse that process and return the icon to the original one before you upgrade the document.

Q. Can I use my Ensemble 2.0 documents with GeoWorks Pro or Ensemble 1.2?

A. No. The format for Ensemble 2.0 documents is much more complex than the format of GeoWorks Pro and Ensemble 1.2 documents. For GeoWrite 2.0 documents, you can save them as ASCII text files using the Ensemble 2.0 GeoWrite export feature, then import them into GeoWorks Pro or Ensemble 1.2's GeoWrite using the Insert from Text File option on the File menu. You can also export graphics from Ensemble 2.0's GeoDraw as 4 bit PCX files and import them into the earlier versions' Scrapbook or GeoDraw as bit mapped graphics.

Q. What happened to the Welcome Screen?

A. The Welcome Screen has been replaced by a "splash screen" which you see briefly when you enter Ensemble. GeoManager is the focus of the Ensemble 2.0 upgrade instead of the Welcome Screen.

Q. How can I find my GeoWorks serial number?

A. GeoWorks is no longer using the Serial Number system. Instead, you can give us your name, customer number, city, state, or phone number to locate you in our customer database.

Q. What happened to the Beginner and Intermediate workspaces?

A. Because the Beginner and Intermediate workspaces were completely different from the main GeoManager screen, most users were confused when they switched to the Advanced workspace. Since GeoManager offers access to complete file management functions, the Ensemble 2.0 upgrade no longer includes the Beginner and Intermediate workspaces.

Q. Without a Welcome screen, how do I get to the DOS Programs screen?

A. From the main GeoManager screen, click on the button labeled DOS.

Q. How can I start a DOS Program from within Ensemble 2.0?

A. You can simply double click on the program's icon in GeoManager or you can select Create Launcher from the Utilities menu to make a launcher for the program.

Q. Can I use my old GeoWorks fonts in Ensemble 2.0?

A. Copy the fonts from the GEOWORKS\FONT directory to the GEOS20\USERDATA\FONTS directory. If the font already exists in Ensemble 2.0, do not overwrite it. You may need to exit and re-enter Ensemble before the fonts are recognized.

Q. What is the Desk Accessories folder for? It looks empty.

A. Applications you place in this folder are "always on top" of other open applications. You might find this useful behavior for the Calculator, GeoDex, or other apps you frequently use. Simply drag the application's icon into this folder to make it an "always on top" application. If you decide you don't like this behavior, drag the icon out of the Desk Accessories folder and back into the World directory.

Q. What are these User Levels? Why do they keep changing back after I set them?

A. The User Levels are designed to ease the "learning curve" for beginning and intermediate users. Say you're a beginning spreadsheet user but an advanced word processor, you can set user level 2 in GeoCalc, and user level 4 in GeoWrite. When you change a user level, it doesn't remain permanent. If you want the new user level to be permanent, you need to choose Save Configuration from the Options menu in each application.

Q. How do I use my fax modem with Ensemble 2.0?

A. Ensemble 2.0 offers direct support for the Complete Communicator fax modem. If you have another brand of fax modem, the Print-to-File feature may be able to generate files in a format you can fax using your fax software.

Q. How can I dial into America Online from Ensemble 2.0?

A. America Online is still developing their software for Ensemble 2.0. When it is available, the following people will have it shipped to them free of charge:
1. all existing AOL users (including Canadian users)
2. everyone who indicated that they own a modem when they ordered Ensemble 2.0.
If you are not in these categories and you would like a copy of AOL, call 510-644-0883, extension 404. Don't call if you are an existing AOL user or if you indicated you own a modem when you purchased Ensemble 2.0.

Article#0362
Updated 07/04/93
Telecom: Running America Online under OS/2

I'm using AOL under OS/2. The important points to remember are:

1-If you have your mouse on COM1 and your modem on COM2, GEOS will not see COM2 and you can't use the modem. Either exchange the mouse and modem, or set the second serial port to COM4.

2-Set IDLE_SENSITIVITY to 100 (disable the idle detection) for GeoWorks in the DOS settings. This will speed up AOL. (If you don't do this, OS/2 will think GEOS is looking for keyboard input and not doing anything else and AOL will slow to a crawl.)

--Information provided by AaronB6 (a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0363
Updated 06/28/93
Spreadsheets: Importing to GEOS with Enable 4.5

To import into GEOS, you can use Enable 4.5. It is an integrated program with word processor, spreadsheet, and database. With it you can import several different spreadsheet formats, several database formats (including ASCII files as databases), and word processing formats. Then you can move the data to the spreadsheet module and export it in Lotus 1-2-3 r2.2 format, which the GeoWorks Pro Spreadsheet Viewer can read, or Ensemble 2.0 can import.

Article#0364
Updated 06/28/93
Hardware: How to set your printer interrupts

Here are the instructions for changing and testing the interrupt settings for a GeoWorks Ensemble V1.0 or V1.2 or GeoWorks Pro (America Online stand-alone users see below).

Setting the interrupt level for GEOS is pretty simple. Refer to your Users Manual, starting on page 396, for instructions for running the Preferences application. To set the interrupt to a new level, do the following:

1. Start the Preferences application by double clicking on the Preferences application icon in the WORLD directory.

2. Select the COMPUTER button from the Preferences window (page 411 of manual). The parallel port interrupt levels are located on the right side of the Computer window.

3. Click on the radio button corresponding to the interrupt level you wish the port to use.

4. Click OK at the bottom of the window. The computer will provide you with a message box informing you that GEOS will need to be restarted in order for the change to take effect. Click OK in the message box and wait for GEOS to restart.

5. After GEOS restarts, you will be presented once again with the Preferences window. Now select the PRINTER button.

6. When the Printer window comes up, select your printer from the list of Printers Installed. The TEST button will now be available.

7. Ready your printer for printing.

8. Select TEST to print the test page to your printer. If the printer doesn't work, and you have set interrupt levels 5, 7 or BIOS, then exit the Printer window by selecting CANCEL and return to item number 2 above to set the parallel port to a new interrupt level.

AMERICA ONLINE STAND-ALONE

Here are the instructions for setting the interrupt levels for parallel ports in the America Online stand-alone software:

Setting the interrupts for the parallel port for AOL is fairly easy. All steps should be done off-line (not dialed onto AOL) since the computer will need to restart in order for the changes to take effect.

If you have AOL version 1.3 or later, you can reach System Preferences by clicking on the Express menu button (the blue 'flying' E button at the top left section of the screen) and then select System Preferences from the drop down menu. If not, do the following:

1. Start AOL application, but don't sign on.

2. From the 'Welcome to American On Line' window, select the SETUP button.

3. From the 'Modem & Network Setup' window, select the Advanced Setup button.

4. From the Advanced Setup window, select the System Preferences button.

5. Start the Preferences application by double clicking on the Preferences application icon in the WORLD directory.

6. Select the COMPUTER button from the Preferences window. The parallel port interrupt levels are located on the right side of the Computer window.

7. Click on the radio button corresponding to the interrupt level you wish the port to be on.

8. Click OK at the bottom of the window. The computer will provide you with a message box informing you that GEOS will need to be restarted in order for the change to take effect. Click OK in the message box and wait for the computer to restart.

9. After the computer restarts, you will be presented once again with the Preferences window. Now select the PRINTER button.

10. When the Printer window comes up, select your printer from the list of Printers Installed. The TEST button will now be available.

11. Ready your printer for printing.

12. Select TEST to print the test page to your printer. If the printer doesn't work, and you have set interrupt levels 5, 7 or BIOS, then exit the Printer window by selecting CANCEL and return to item number 2 above to set the parallel port to a new interrupt level.

13. When finished changing the interrupt levels, close all the windows to return to the 'Welcome to American On Line' window to sign on.

General Information about Interrupts

When you use the BIOS setting for your parallel port in Preferences, Computer, GEOS uses the printing routines built into your computer. The advantage of using BIOS is its compatibility. 

Selecting the DOS setting uses the DOS printing routines. The advantage of the DOS setting is that if you use a TSR such as VPRINT to capture printing DOS will redirect the output to the file. If you print over a network, you need to use the DOS setting.

Using 7 is the fastest because GEOS bypasses both BIOS and DOS and sends the output to the printer directly. 

Interrupt levels 7 and 5 are part of the 'assigned' interrupt levels by IBM and point to I/O addresses used by hardware. For normal operation, interrupt 7 is the printer interrupt. This includes the Print Screen function (althought GEOS doesn't support it directly). Interrupt 5 is one of two things: On an AT system (286, 386, etc.), interrupt 5 is normally used as a second printer interrupt. On an XT system, interrupt 5 is the interrupt for the hard disk drive. If you have an XT, this would explain the reason it hung up when you set the printer interrupt to 5. 

For Your Information--other interrupts of interest are:

IRQ 1 -- Keyboard
IRQ 3 -- Serial interface 2 (COM2)
IRQ 4 -- Serial interface 1 (COM1)
IRQ 6 -- Floppy Disk I/O

--Information provided by GWRep Don

Article#0365
Updated 06/28/93
Printers: Panasonic KXP 2123

First, you need to check your manual and printer dip switches to see which emulation or mode you are using. The choices here are Standard (Epson) mode and IBM mode.

If you have the Standard mode selected, then select the "Epson LQ-1050 (early version)" driver. Please note this is the early version driver, not the first one in the list (Epson LQ-1050).

If you have the IBM mode selected, select the "IBM ProPrinter X24" driver.

--Information provided by GWRep Don

Article#0366
Updated 06/28/93
Printers: Laser printer prints "strips" of document

The problem of lasers printing only a small strip or band of your document on each page is easy to solve.

Your laser printer has an option called timeout. If no new data is received in a certain time, and the default is usually 10 to 20 seconds, any data in the printers buffer is printed. This problem can be solved in one of two ways:  

1) increase the timeout period, 

2) turn off the timeout.

Check your printer's manual for the method to do this.

-- Information provided by RichardFM (a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0367
Updated 06/28/93
Fax: Using OPTIKS to convert to PCX

To FAX your GEOS documents, you can use use the print-to-file feature of Ensemble 2.0 (or with earlier versions of GEOS, VPRINT or another printer capture program) to capture the output, using the HP LaserJet driver, and then load the capture file into OPTIKS, which is available in the software libraries on America Online (keyword QUICKFIND).

OPTIKS can save to PCX, which should be scaled to 66% with Graphics Workshop (Reduce 300 dots/inch to 200) and then import into your FAX software. If you will be FAXing standard quality, do an additional 50% vertical scaling (200 by 100 dots/inch).

This method is somewhat complicated, but it produces good results.

-- Information provided by AaronB6 (a GeoWorks Customer)

Article#0368
Updated 06/28/93
DOS: Using GEOS v1.2 with OS/2

I think the Boot Manager option makes more sense so I'll explain that one first.

First, BACK UP YOUR ENTIRE HARD DISK. If you do it my way you'll wipe out everything. So Back it Up!

Decide how much space you'll need for DOS and GeoWorks. Start your OS/2 install. When you get to the portion that asks which drive to install OS/2 on pick "Choose another drive." This will start FDISK for you. You must use the OS/2 FDISK for this.

Choose Install Boot Manager at the start of free space. Be sure to add the OS/2 drive to the Boot Manager menu.

Next set your drive C: as a primary partition. Set the rest of your HD as Extended.

Now set about 45 mb as a logical partition at THE END OF FREE SPACE. You can get by with less for this partition if you don't want to use all of the OS/2 APPS and Information, but you should leave 12 to 15 mb free for the swap file. You must set this partition AT THE END OF FREE SPACE as Installable, this is how OS/2 knows where to install itself.

The space between C: (the Primary) and ?: (OS/2's home) you can leave and format it as you want, later. From this point on you just follow the directions on screen to get OS/2 up and running.

After OS/2 is installed, boot your system with a DOS (or DR DOS) floppy and install the system files on drive C:

Now you can use your normal backup program to restore DOS (or DR DOS), GeoWorks, and your favorite memory manager on drive C: You can even do this from within OS/2 if you want. Any programs or data that you want to be able to access must go on a FAT disk and this drive should be formatted as a FAT drive following drive C:.

With this setup, when you start (or reboot) your computer you'll be presented with the choice of starting DOS or OS/2. Either system can access all of your programs and data and there is no problem sith a conflict between the two sets of CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files. DOS won't recognize them anywhere but in the root directory of drive C: and OS/2 is smart enough to know which drive it boots from and will use the files in the root of that drive. You can choose either FAT or HPFS for the OS/2 drive, it can read anything. DOS can read anything on the FAT drives as long as they come before an HPFS drive and there's no need to set any pointers to strange files (such as FSFILTER) on your DOS Drive.

--Information provided by DougDarrow (a GeoWorks customer)

THE MARCUS GROEBER PATCH

The following patch will make Ensemble version 1.2 and GeoWorks Pro work in a DOS session of OS/2 2.0 (doesn't have to be a specific DOS vdm). It disables disk drives A and B and makes GEOS believe it is running on a "diskless workstation with only networked partitions, which comes closest to OS/2 reality.

Before applying the patch, you should backup your KERNEL.EXE, so you can restore it if there are any problems (you will need it anyway for working under native DOS, because the patch seems to be somehow unstable there). Of course, I cannot guarantee that the patch will work properly on any configuration, but it does work fine on my machine.

To apply the patch, you'll have to do the following: Copy the following text between "Cut here" and "Cut here" in a file (say GEOWORKS.PAT), go to the GeoWorks directory and enter the command "PATCH /A GEOWORKS.PAT". This will use OS/2's built-in patch tool to check the version of KERNEL.EXE and make the appropriate modification.

The patch is highly version specific and will only work on the two versions named in the file (release can be determined by looking into the SYSINFO file). These are the current versions in Germany as of this writing.

If the program doesn't recognize the kernel version, you will get two failure messages (one for each try), otherwise one failure and one success. If the program fails on both tries, KERNEL.EXE will not be modified.

> --- Cut here ---
; Patch file by Marcus Groeber
; This patch file changes the kernel.exe file of GEOS to
; make it run in a DOS session under OS/2. The program attempts
; patches for the various version of Geoworks; it will not
; apply a patch if the version is not recognized. It will display
; either a success or a failure message for each version it tries.
; geoworks 1.2: kernel.exe (Release 1.2.5.4, 72688 bytes)

FILE kernel.exe

VER 00010DDD E9CA
VER 00010DED 268B4543F6C43075

CHA 00010DDD EB0B
CHA 00010DED 81FB48027244EB4C

; geoworks Pro: kernel.exe (Release 1.2.8.1, 72736 bytes)

FILE kernel.exe

VER 00010E0D E9CA
VER 00010E1D 268B4543F6C43075

CHA 00010E0D EB0B
CHA 00010E1D 81FB48027244EB4C
> --- Cut here ---

If the patch works, you'll have to change the GeoWorks mouse driver to "MOUSE.COM or MOUSE.SYS" from within GeoWorks. Anyway, you should run GeoWorks only as a full screen session. Printing seems to work, except for the fact that you have to leave GeoWorks to make OS/2 flush its internal spool queue to the printer.

Marcus Groeber

P.S. For diagnosing GeoWorks startup problems, it is a good idea to run it with the "/LOG" option that displays all the initialization steps as they are performed.

ADDITIONAL NOTES

One thing Marcus Groeber neglected to mention about the OS2/2.0 patch is that you must, when setting up the object in the workplace shell, go into the DOS settings and add KERNEL.EXE,255,3,30 to the DOS_VERSION setting. I believe those are the correct values. The intent is to get OS/2 to tell KERNEL.EXE up to 255 times that it's running under DOS 3.30, rather than the DOS 2.0 OS/2 will tell it by default. Without this, GEOS will complain that it needs to run under a DOS between 2.x and 5.0.

1.2.4.3 is the initial 1.2 release, not Pro (which is 1.2.8.1). Anyway, the only other thing of note is that GEOS won't be able to reload itself after running a DOS program, nor will it be able to restart itself after changing something in Preferences with the kernel renamed to be OS2KERN.EXE (of course, you can also patch the KERNEL.EXE string in the Load Image to match, except you'll have to call it OS2KER.EXE, to keep the number of characters the same).

The Groeber patch didn't work for me, as my kernel was a different release. However, I looked through the file and got the right data for my release and added that to the patch file, re-ran the patch, and all went well.

After patching you can rename the patched kernel to OS2KERN.EXE and use an OS/2 DOS window to launch GeoWorks directly. Also, copy the backup kernel back to KERNEL.EXE and you can run GeoWorks under plain DOS with no problem.

Possible problems:

You MUST give the DOS window 100 or more files, as if you were running DR-DOS. GeoWorks cannot dynamically allocate any files under OS/2.

When exiting GEOS I get a "Bad handle passed to system" error. I can then close the window from OS/2, and all is fine.

When I was first testing this config. I had some wierd problems with lockups. Experiment with the OS/2 DOS Settings to get things working.

Here is my addition to the patch info: (the release # is in the SYSINFO file)
------------cut here---------------
; Geoworks Pro: kernel.exe (Release 1.2.4.3, 72720 bytes)
FILE kernel.exe

VER 00010DE2 E9C5
VER 00010DF2 268B4543F6C43075

CHA 00010DE2 EB0B
CHA 00010DF2 81FB48027244EB4C
------------cut here---------------

These are the settings I use with Marcus Groeber's patch to run GeoWorks under OS/2.

Program/Path & filename - Path to patched kernel
Session - DOS/Full Screen (must set AFTER setting above, OS/2 quirk)
DOS Settings:
DOS_FCBS  1
DOS_FCBS_KEEP  0
DOS_FILES  150  (Need at least 100; 150 is better)
DOS_HIGH  On  (gives GeoWorks more memory)
DOS_LASTDRIVE  F  (1 MORE than last drive)
DOS_UMB  On
DOS_VERSION  add OS2KERN.EXE,05,00,255  (so GeoWorks will run)
EMS_FRAME_LOCATION  CC00  (on my computer, AUTO should work)
MEM_INCLUDE_REGIONS  b0000-b7fff,dc000-effff  (on my computer)
 (Mono video page, other free areas for UMB's)
VIDEO_SWITCH_NOTIFICATION  On  (Shouldn't make much difference)

P.S. I'm currently running under OS/2 and the modem is running MUCH slower. I'll have to work on getting the serial port up to speed.

--Information provided by AaronB6 (a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0369
Updated 06/28/93
Printers: Bluechip 9-Pin driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "Bluechip 9-Pin driver" (DOS file name: BCHIP9.GEO).

Blue Chip M120  
BMC BX-80  
C.T.I. CP-80  
Cal Abco Legend 800  
Cal Abco Legend 880  
Mannesmann Talley Spirit 80  

Article#0370
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: Canon BJ-130 48-jet driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "Canon BJ-130 48-jet driver" (DOS file name: CANON48.GEO). The driver has 4 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

Canon BJ-10e (Mode 2)  {bj10e}
Canon BJ-10ex (Mode 2)  {bj10e}
Canon BJ-130e  {gener}
Canon BJ-200 (BJ Mode)  {bj10e}
Canon BJ-300 (Mode 1)  {gener}
Canon BJ-330 (Mode 1)  {generw}
IBM 4070 IJ (IBM Mode)  {bj10e}
IBM ExecJet 4072  {execjet}

Article#0371
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: C.Itoh 9-pin driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "C.Itoh 9-pin driver" (DOS file name: CITOH9.GEO). The driver has 3 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

Apple DMP  {dmp}
C.Itoh 8510  {gener}
C.Itoh 8510A  {dmp}
NEC 8023  {gener}
NEC 8025  {generw}
Toshiba PA 7253  {gener}

Article#0372
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: HP DeskJet driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "HP DeskJet driver" (DOS file name: DESKJET.GEO).

HP DeskJet  
HP DeskJet 500  
HP DeskJet 500C (B/W)  
HP DeskJet 550C (B/W)  
HP DeskJet PLUS  
HP DeskJet Portable  
Olivetti JP 150  
Olivetti JP 350  

Article#0373
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: Diablo Daisy Wheel driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "Diablo Daisy Wheel driver" (DOS file name: DIABLO.GEO).

Daisy Wheel  
Diablo 630  

Article#0374
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: Diconix 9-jet driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "Diconix 9-jet driver" (DOS file name: DICONIX9.GEO). The driver has 2 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

Diconix 150 (Epson Mode)  {d150}
Diconix 150 + (Epson Mode)  {d150}
Diconix 300 (Epson Mode)  {d150}
Diconix 300w (Epson Mode)  {d300w}

Article#0375
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: HP DeskJet CMY driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "HP DeskJet CMY driver" (DOS file name: DJ500C.GEO). The driver has 2 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

HP DeskJet 500C (Color)  {dj500c}
HP DeskJet 550C (Color)  {dj500c}
HP PaintJet XL300 (Color)  {pjx1300}

Article#0376
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: Epson LX 9-pin driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "Epson LX 9-pin driver" (DOS file name: EPLX9.GEO). The driver has 3 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

Epson Action Printer 2000  {lx80}
Epson Action Printer T-1000  {fx80}
Epson Apex 80  {fx80}
Epson FX-100  {fx100}
Epson FX-100+  {fx100}
Epson FX-80  {fx80}
Epson FX-80+  {fx80}
Epson JX-80 (B/W)  {fx80}
Epson JX-80 (Color)  {jx80}
Epson LX-1050  {fx100}
Epson LX-400  {lx80}
Epson LX-80  {lx80}
Epson LX-800  {lx80}
Epson LX-810  {lx80}
Epson LX-850  {lx80}
Epson LX-86  {lx80}
Fujitsu DX2300 (Type F)  {fx80}
Fujitsu DX2400 (Type F)  {fx100}
Panasonic KX-P1092 (Standard Mode)  {fx80}
Panasonic KX-P1092i (Standard Mode)  {fx80}
Panasonic KX-P1093 (Standard Mode)  {fx100}
Panasonic KX-P1592 (Standard Mode)  {fx100}

Article#0377
Updated 07/01/93
DOS: Maximizing your Memory

To utilize the information in this document, your computer must:
1. have at least 1 MB of memory (RAM)
2. be using MS-DOS 5.0, MS-DOS 6.0, DR-DOS 6.0, QEMM, 386Max, or some other memory manager that allows you to use memory above 640K
3. have a 286, 386SX, 386, or higher processor.

Overview

Memory management is not specifically a GeoWorks issue, but it is a common DOS problem we hear frequently in Technical Support. Users will call and say, "When I try to run my DOS program from GEOS, I get Not Enough Memory errors," or, "Ensemble 2.0 keeps giving me a message that says Conventional Memory is Full."

It's important to remember that "memory" means RAM memory, not free hard disk space. The amount of free space on your hard disk is not related to the amount of memory you have in your computer, or how much of that memory is available.

Every software program has "memory requirements," a minimum amount of memory it needs to operate. Most software programs need as much of the base 640K of memory (also called conventional memory) as possible. When you boot your computer, memory is taken up by DOS, device drivers, and TSRs, programs that load into memory from your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files. The key to good memory management is twofold: first, load as few of these programs as possible; second, load as many of these programs as possible into "upper" memory-the memory between the base 640K and the first 1 MB.

How Much Conventional Memory Do I Have?

You can find out how much conventional memory is available by entering MEM at any DOS prompt.
MS DOS 5.0 will give you a result similar to this:

655360 bytes total conventional memory
655360 bytes available to MS DOS
468000 largest executable program size
1048576 bytes total contiguous extended memory
0  bytes available contiguous extended memory
983040  bytes available XMS memory
MS-DOS resident in High Memory Area

In this case, MS DOS is reporting 468,000 bytes (457k) of your 640k is available to your DOS programs.

DR DOS 6.0 will give you a result similar to this:

Memory Type  Total Bytes  (Kbytes)  Available  (Kbytes)
Conventional  655,360  (640K)  541,424  (528K)
Extended  3,145,728  (3,072K)  3,145,728  (3,072K)

In this case, DR-DOS reports that out of the 640K of conventional memory, 528K is free for use by your DOS programs.

How Much Conventional Memory do I Need?

It's a good idea to free up as much of the base 640K as you can. The best source for information on how much base memory is needed to run a certain program is the documentation that came with the program. Often the box that the software is packaged in will indicate how much memory the program requires. Generally, the more conventional memory you have available, the faster all of your programs will run.

Maximizing your Conventional Memory

In order to free conventional memory, you use a memory manager, which is a program that allows you to load the TSRs and device drivers in AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS into upper memory (the memory between the base 640K and the first 1 MB of memory). You can use virtually any memory manager, HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.SYS are provided with DOS, but you can also use Quarterdeck's QEMM386.SYS or any other commercial memory manager. Any of them will make the memory above 640K available for your TSRs and device drivers. Loading TSRs and device drivers into upper memory frees up conventional memory.

How to make more Conventional Memory available

The simplest way to free up conventional memory is to use a memory management program that automates the process. These programs will install the memory manager and insert command into your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files to load your programs above the base 640K. Some of the many memory management programs available include MS-DOS 6.0's Mem-Maker, Quarterdeck's QEMM386, and Qualitas' 386Max. Please be aware that mentioning these products in this document does not constitute an endorsement on the part of GeoWorks. A computer consultant or retailer will be able to advise you on the best program to suit your needs. Follow the instructions with the product you choose to free up your conventional memory. If you elect to do the process yourself, you will need to use a text editor to edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files. Add a line to CONFIG.SYS for your memory manager (following the instructions in your DOS manual), then add the appropriate commands to load drivers and TSRs into upper memory.

Temporarily disabling some programs

You can't load programs into the memory above 1 MB, you can only load programs into conventional memory, or into the memory between 640K and 1 MB. This upper memory area has only 384K of memory and some of it is used to control your computer's hardware, such as your monitor. Because there is a limited amount of space in the upper memory area, all of the programs loading in your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT file may not fit.

If you can't figure out how to use your memory manager, or if you still don't have enough conventional memory available, you can temporarily disable some of your drivers and TSRs. To do this, use a text editor to edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files. Put the command REM in front of any device driver you don't want or need. In other words, put REM at the beginning of the line that refers to the program you don't want to load. If you put REM in front of a line, then realize you need to load that program after all, simply delete the REM, save the file, and reboot your computer. If you have compressed your hard drive, be careful not to put REM in front of any disk compression drivers such as Stacker, DblSpace, DoubleDisk or SuperSTOR.

The last resort

If you want to free up as much memory as possible, you can boot from a floppy disk. To accomplish this simply put a blank disk in your A: drive and enter:

 FORMAT A: /S

at any DOS prompt.

Then turn your machine off, wait 15 seconds and turn it back on again, leaving the newly formatted disk in the drive. Your machine may prompt for the time and date, and it will bring you to an A: prompt. You can then type C: to get to the hard drive where you can run your programs. None of the device drivers or TSRs in the CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT files on your hard drive will be in memory.

Memory and GEOS

GEOS will use any available memory-both conventional memory and memory over 1 MB. To tell GEOS you have extra memory, launch Preferences, click on the GEOS button, and turn on the memory types that you have available. If in doubt, select all three options: Expanded (LIM/EMS), XMS/HIMEM.SYS, and Extended (over 1 MB). Click OK, then Yes when prompted that the system software needs to be restarted. GEOS will check for the types of memory available. Memory types that are not available to GEOS will become grayed out again in Preferences/Computer in Ensemble 2.0. The Extended (over 1 MB) option will only be selected if you are not loading any memory managers at all.

If only one memory type stays selected, that probably means that all of your memory is configured as one type. For example, if HIMEM.SYS is the only memory manager you are using, the only Extra Memory Type that will stay selected is XMS/HIMEM.SYS.

Also, if you only have 1 MB total memory, and you have a lot of TSRs and other programs taking up memory, there may be no extra memory available by the time GEOS loads. If you are using DR-DOS 6.0 and TaskMax, you may be using DR DOS options that "rope off" blocks of memory for use by DR DOS. This can limit the amount of extra memory available to GEOS.

Managed Extended memory (XMS) vs. Expanded memory (LIM/EMS)

Managed Extended memory (XMS) is basically extended memory plus a memory manager like HIMEM.SYS.

Expanded memory (LIM/EMS) is memory that is being managed by an expanded memory manager, usually a proprietary memory manager that came with your memory chips and board.

With some memory managers, you can configure some memory as Expanded and some as XMS. As far as GEOS is concerned, there is no significant advantage to doing this, but your other DOS programs might benefit from it. See the manual for your particular memory manager for more information.

When you have a choice between setting up your computer to use either XMS or Expanded memory, you have to evaluate which would be best for your particular needs. Some DOS programs can only use Expanded memory; Windows is one of the few programs that works best with Extended memory. What GEOS prefers

When your primary concern is using the best memory for GEOS, XMS is generally best because it presents fewer compatibility problems. Some TSR programs will load themselves into upper memory without notifying the operating system that they are there, and if you're not using an XMS manager, GEOS can't tell that the TSR is there and might try to use the same memory. XMS is particularly nice if the XMS memory manager can provide GEOS with upper memory blocks--blocks that lie between 640K and 1 Mb--as GEOS can then use that memory, provided it isn't being taken up by TSRs and device drivers. An example is QEMM386 with its "RAM" option.

RAM Drives

Swapping to a RAM drive is less effective than allowing GEOS to swap to free expanded or extended memory, but is still preferable to swapping to the hard drive. Obviously, when GEOS runs out of RAM, it will have to swap to the hard drive and this will slow down performance. To make sure GEOS is running as efficiently as possible, give it as much extended or expanded RAM as you can and avoid using RAM drives.

Handles

In the GEOS section of Preferences, there is a setting for the number of "handles" available to GEOS. A handle is basically a pointer to a place where GEOS has stored information. Typically, the number initially assigned (2500) will be enough and you will not need to change this setting. If, however, you get error messages like "Low on system resource handles" or "KR-09" or "Bad handle passed to system," you might try increasing the number of handles available according to the chart below. If you increase the number of handles and notice that GEOS is running slower, change this setting back.

Total RAM  -  Handles
  1 MB  -  2500
  1 MB to 2 MB  -  3000
  2 MB or more  -  3500

For More Help

Entire books have been written on memory management, but we have tried to give you just the essentials in this document. If you need more information, check your DOS manual for a section on memory management or optimization, or consider using a program like Quarterdeck's QEMM, Qualitas' 386Max, or Microsoft's Mem-Maker, which handle the configuration for you.

Definitions

Conventional memory - the first 640K of RAM in your computer, also called the base 640K.

Upper Memory - the 384K of memory above 640K and below the first 1 MB. Some of this memory is used by your computer for various functions, including controlling the monitor.

High Memory Area - the first 64K of memory above the first MB. You can load DOS into this area if you have DOS=HIGH in your CONFIG.SYS.

Extended or XMS memory - memory above the first 1 MB that is being managed by an extended memory manager, such as HIMEM.SYS.

Expanded or LIM/EMS memory - memory above the first 1 MB that is being managed by an expanded memory manager. A few extended memory managers will allow you to configure both expanded and extended memory.

Handle - in GEOS, a handle is a pointer to a memory block where GEOS has stored information.

Article#0378
Updated 07/04/93
Printers: Late Model Epson 24-pin driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "Late Model Epson 24-pin driver" (DOS file name: EPSHI24.GEO). The driver has 7 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

C.Itoh C-610+ (Epson Mode)(B/W)  {lq850}
C.Itoh C-610+ (Epson Mode)(Color)  {lq860}
Citizen GSX-130 (Epson Mode)  {lq850}
Citizen GSX-140 (Epson Mode)(B/W)  {lq850}
Citizen GSX-140 (Epson Mode)(Color)  {lq860}
Citizen GSX-145 (Epson Mode)(B/W)  {lq1050}
Citizen GSX-145 (Epson Mode)(Color)  {lq2550}
Citizen PN-48 (Epson Mode)  {lq850}
Epson Action Printer 3250  {lq510}
Epson Action Printer 4000  {lq510}
Epson Action Printer 4500  {lq1010}
Epson Action Printer 5000  {lq510}
Epson Action Printer 5000+  {lq510}
Epson Action Printer 5500  {lq1010}
Epson DLQ-2000  {lq1010}
Epson LQ-1010  {lq1010}
Epson LQ-1050  {lq1050}
Epson LQ-1050+  {lq1050}
Epson LQ-1060  {lq1050}
Epson LQ-1060+  {lq1050}
Epson LQ-1070  {lq1010}
Epson LQ-1170  {lq1010}
Epson LQ-510  {lq510}
Epson LQ-550  {lq510}
Epson LQ-570  {lq510}
Epson LQ-570+  {lq510}
Epson LQ-850  {lq850}
Epson LQ-850+  {lq850}
Epson LQ-860 (B/W)  {lq850}
Epson LQ-860 (Color)  {lq860}
Epson LQ-860+ (B/W)  {lq850}
Epson LQ-860+ (Color)  {lq860}
Epson LQ-870  {lq510}
Epson LQ-950  {lq950}
Epson SQ-2500  {lq850}
Epson SQ-2550  {lq1050}
Epson SQ-850  {lq850}
IBM 4070 IJ (Epson Mode)  {lq850}
IBM Portable 5183 (Epson Mode)  {lq850}
Laser 2410  {lq850}
Olivetti DM 124 (Epson Mode)  {lq850}
Olivetti DM 124C (Epson Mode)(B/W)  {lq850}
Olivetti DM 124C (Epson Mode)(Color)  {lq860}
Olivetti DM 124L (Epson Mode)  {lq1050}
Olivetti DM 324 (Epson Mode)  {lq850}
Olivetti DM 324L (Epson Mode)  {lq1050}
Olivetti DM 624 (Epson Mode)  {lq1050}
Panasonic KX-P1123 (Epson Mode)  {lq850}
Panasonic KX-P1124 (Standard Mode)  {lq850}
Panasonic KX-P1124i (Epson Mode)  {lq850}
Panasonic KX-P1654 (Epson Mode)  {lq1050}
Panasonic KX-P2123 (Epson Mode)(B/W)  {lq850}
Panasonic KX-P2123 (Epson Mode)(Color)  {lq860}
Panasonic KX-P2624 (Epson Mode)  {lq1050}
Philips NMS 1453  {lq850}
Seikosha SL-90  {lq850}
Star NX-2420 (Standard Mode)  {lq850}
Star XB-2410 (Standard Mode)  {lq850}
Star XB-2415 (Standard Mode)  {lq1050}
Star XB-2420 (Standard Mode)(B/W)  {lq850}
Star XB-2420 (Standard Mode)(Color)  {lq860}
Tandy DMP 240 (Epson Mode)(B/W)  {lq850}
Tandy DMP 240 (Epson Mode)(Color)  {lq860}

Article#0379
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: Epson 24-pin driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "Epson 24-pin driver" (DOS file name: EPSON24.GEO). The driver has 8 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

AEG Olympia NP 136-24 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
AEG Olympia NP 80-24 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
ALPS Allegro 24  {generw}
ALPS ALQ200 24-pin  {gener}
ALPS ALQ300 24-pin  {generw}
ALPS P2400C  {generw}
ALPS P2424C  {generw}
Amstrad LQ 3500 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
AMT Accel-500 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
AT&T 580 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
AT&T 581 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
AT&T 583 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Brother 2024L  {gener}
Brother M-1724L (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Brother M-1824L (Epson Mode)  {gener}
C.Itoh C-610 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
C.Itoh C-715A  {generw}
Citizen Tribute 124 (LQ interface  Epson Mode)  {gener}
Copal Writehand 6730 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Dataproducts 9044 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Epson Action Printer L-1000  {lq500}
Epson Action Printer L-3000  {lq500}
Epson Action Printer L-750  {lq1000}
Epson LQ-1000  {lq1000}
Epson LQ-1050 (Early Version)  {lq1000}
Epson LQ-1500  {lq1500}
Epson LQ-200  {lq800}
Epson LQ-2500 (B/W)  {generw}
Epson LQ-2500 (Color)  {lq2500}
Epson LQ-2500+ (B/W)  {generw}
Epson LQ-2500+ (Color)  {lq2500}
Epson LQ-400  {lq500}
Epson LQ-450  {lq500}
Epson LQ-500  {lq500}
Epson LQ-800  {lq800}
Epson LQ-850 (Early Version)  {lq800}
Epson LQ-950 (Early Version)  {lq900}
Epson P-80X  {lq800}
Epson SQ-2000  {lq1000}
Facit B2400 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Fortis DQ 4110 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Fortis DQ 4210 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Fortis DQ 4215 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Fujitsu DL4400 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Genicom 1040 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
HP RuggedWriter 480 (LQ-1000 Mode)  {lq1000}
Mannesmann Tally 222 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Mannesmann Tally 230/24 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Mannesmann Tally 330  {generw}
Nissho NP-2405 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Okidata ML 390 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Okidata ML 391 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Okidata ML 393  {generw}
Okidata ML 393C  {generw}
Panasonic KX-P1524 (Standard Mode)  {generw}
Panasonic KX-P1624 (Standard Mode)  {generw}
Philips NMS 1461 (Epson Mode)  {lq800}
Philips NMS 1467 (Epson Mode)  {lq1000}
Sanyo PR-241 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Sears SR-5000  {gener}
Seikosha SBP-10AI (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Seikosha SL-130AI (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Seikosha SL-230AI (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Seikosha SL-80AI (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Star NB-15  {lq1500}
Star NB-24-10 (Standard Mode)  {lq800}
Star NB-24-15 (Standard Mode)  {lq1000}
Star NX-2400 (Standard Mode)  {gener}
Texas Instr. Omni 875  {gener}
Texas Instr. Omni 877  {gener}
Toshiba ExpressWriter 301 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Toshiba ExpressWriter 311 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Unisys AP 1324  {generw}

Article#0380
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: Epson 48-jet driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "Epson 48-jet driver" (DOS file name: EPSON48.GEO). The driver has 5 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

Canon BJC-800 (B/W)  {bjc800M}
Canon BJC-800 (Color)  {bjc800}
Canon BJC-820 (B/W)  {bjc800M}
Canon BJC-820 (Color)  {bjc800}
Epson SQ-1170  {sq1170}
Epson SQ-870  {sq870}
Epson Stylus 800  {stylus800}

Article#0381
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: Epson 9-pin driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "Epson 9-pin driver" (DOS file name: EPSON9.GEO). The driver has 10 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

ALPS ALQ200 18-pin  {gener}
ALPS ALQ300 18-pin  {generw}
ALPS ASP1000 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
ALPS P2000G  {gener}
Amstrad DMP3000 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
AT&T 570 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
AT&T 571 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Axonix LiteWrite (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Axonix ThinWrite 100 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Blue Chip M200/NLQ (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Brother M-1109 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Brother M-1509  {gener}
Brother M-1709 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Brother M-1809 (Epson Mode)  {m1809}
Brother M-1909  {gener}
Brother M-2518 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Brother M-4018 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Brother Twinriter 6 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
C.Itoh 5000 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
C.Itoh ProWriter C-310 CXP (Epson Mode)  {gener}
C.Itoh ProWriter Jr. Plus  {gener}
Citizen 120-D  {gener}
Citizen 180-D  {gener}
Citizen 200GX (B/W)  {gener}
Citizen 200GX (Color)  {ex800}
Citizen 200GX/15 (B/W)  {generw}
Citizen 200GX/15 (Color)  {ex1000}
Citizen 5200  {gener}
Citizen 5800  {gener}
Citizen HSP-500 (Epson Mode)(B/W)  {gener}
Citizen HSP-500 (Epson Mode)(Color)  {ex800}
Citizen HSP-550 (Epson Mode)(B/W)  {generw}
Citizen HSP-550 (Epson Mode)(Color)  {ex1000}
Citizen MSP-10  {gener}
Citizen MSP-15  {gener}
Citizen MSP-20  {gener}
Citizen MSP-25  {gener}
Citizen MSP-40 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Citizen MSP-55 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Citizen Tribute 124 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Citizen Tribute 224 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Copal Writehand 5930 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Epson Action Printer 2250  {gener}
Epson Action Printer 2500  {generw}
Epson Action Printer T-750  {fx286e}
Epson DFX-5000  {dfx5000}
Epson DFX-8000 (Epson Mode)  {dfx5000}
Epson EX-1000 (Epson Mode)(B/W)  {generw}
Epson EX-1000 (Epson Mode)(Color)  {ex1000}
Epson EX-800 (Epson Mode)(B/W)  {gener}
Epson EX-800 (Epson Mode)(Color)  {ex800}
Epson FX-1000 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Epson FX-1050 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Epson FX-185 (Epson Mode)  {fx185}
Epson FX-286 (Epson Mode)  {fx185}
Epson FX-286e (Epson Mode)  {fx286e}
Epson FX-800 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Epson FX-85 (Epson Mode)  {fx85}
Epson FX-850 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Epson FX-86e (Epson Mode)  {fx86e}
Epson IX-800 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Facit B3100 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Facit B3150 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Facit B3350 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Facit B3550 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Fortis DM 1310 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Fortis DM 2210 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Fortis DM 2215 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Fujitsu DL2600 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Fujitsu DL3400 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Fujitsu DL5600 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Genicom 3820 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Genicom Printstation 220 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Honeywell Bull 4/66 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Hyundai HDP-1810 (Epson Card)  {gener}
Hyundai HDP-1820 (Epson Card)  {generw}
Hyundai HDP-910 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Hyundai HDP-920 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Laser 145  {gener}
Laser 190E (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Laser 240 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Mannesmann Tally 340 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Mannesmann Tally 81 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Mannesmann Tally 87 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Mannesmann Tally 90 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Okidata ML 320 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Okidata ML 321 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Olivetti DM 109 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Olivetti DM 309 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Olivetti DM 309L (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Olivetti DM 99 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Olympia NP136 (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Olympia NP30 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Olympia NP80 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
OTC TriMatrix 850XL (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Output Technology 560DL (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Output Technology 850SE (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Panasonic KX-P1180 (Standard Mode)  {fx86e}
Panasonic KX-P1180i (Standard Mode)  {fx86e}
Panasonic KX-P1191 (Standard Mode)  {fx86e}
Panasonic KX-P1595 (Standard Mode)  {fx185}
Panasonic KX-P1695 (Standard Mode)  {generw}
Panasonic KX-P2180 (Standard Mode)(B/W)  {gener}
Panasonic KX-P2180 (StandardMode)(Color)  {ex800}
Philips NMS 1433 (Epson Mode)  {fx85}
Relisys RP1814 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Relisys RP2410 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Sakata SP-1500  {gener}
Sears SR-2000 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Sears SR-3000 (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Seikosha BP-5460  {generw}
Seikosha MP-5300AI (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Seikosha SK-3000AI (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Seikosha SK-3005AI (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Seikosha SL-130AI (Epson Mode)  {generw}
Seikosha SP-1000A  {gener}
Seikosha SP-1200AI (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Seikosha SP-1600AI (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Seikosha SP-180AI (Epson Mode)  {gener}
Star ND-15  {generw}
Star NP-10  {gener}
Star NR-10 (Standard Mode)  {gener}
Star NR-15 (Standard Mode)  {generw}
Star NX-10 (Standard Mode)  {gener}
Star NX-1000 (Standard Mode)(B/W)  {gener}
Star NX-1000 (Standard Mode)(Color)  {ex800}
Star NX-1001  {gener}
Star NX-1020 (Standard Mode)(B/W)  {gener}
Star NX-1020 (Standard Mode)(Color)  {ex800}
Star NX-15 (Standard Mode)  {generw}
Star XR-1000 (Standard Mode)(B/W)  {gener}
Star XR-1000 (Standard Mode)(Color)  {ex800}
Star XR-1020 (Standard Mode)(B/W)  {gener}
Star XR-1020 (Standard Mode)(Color)  {ex800}
Star XR-1500 (Standard Mode)(B/W)  {generw}
Star XR-1500 (Standard Mode)(Color)  {ex1000}
Star XR-1520 (Standard Mode)(B/W)  {generw}
Star XR-1520 (Standard Mode)(Color)  {ex1000}
Unisys AP 1327 (Epson Mode)  {gener}

Article#0382
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: IBM Graphics 9-pin driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "IBM Graphics 9-pin driver" (DOS file name: GRPR9.GEO). The driver has 2 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

IBM Graphics Printer  {grpr}
IBM Pageprinter 3812  {grpr}
IBM Proprinter  {pp1}
Infoscribe 1100 (IBM Mode)  {grpr}
Infoscribe 1400 (IBM Mode)  {grpr}
Olivetti DM 109 (IBM Mode)  {pp1}
Olivetti DM 99 (IBM Mode)  {pp1}
Panasonic KX-P1080i (IBM Mode)  {grpr}
Panasonic KX-P1091 (IBM Mode)  {grpr}
Panasonic KX-P1091i (IBM Mode)  {grpr}
Panasonic KX-P1092i (IBM Mode)  {pp1}
Tandy DMP 106 (IBM Mode)  {grpr}
Tandy DMP 107 (IBM Mode)  {grpr}
Tandy DMP 133 (IBM Mode)  {grpr}
Tandy DMP 2120 (IBM Mode)  {grpr}
Tandy DMP 440 (IBM Mode)  {grpr}
Tandy DMP 442 (IBM Mode)  {grpr}

Article#0383
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: Canon LBP driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "Canon LBP driver" (DOS file name: LBP.GEO). The driver has 2 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

Canon LBP-4 (1.5Mbyte Memory)  {caps13}
Canon LBP-8 Mark II (1.5Mbyte Memory)  {caps12}
Canon LBP-8 Mark III  {caps13}
Canon LBP-8 Mark III Plus  {caps13}
Canon LBP-8 Mark III R  {caps13}
Canon LBP-8 Mark III T  {caps13}

Article#0384
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: HP DeskJet KCMY driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printer uses the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "HP DeskJet KCMY driver" (DOS file name: MERCURY.GEO).

HP DeskJet 550C (4 Color)

Article#0385
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: Late Model NEC 24-pin driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "Late Model NEC 24-pin driver" (DOS file name: NEC24.GEO). The driver has 6 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

NEC P2200  {p2200}
NEC P2200XE  {p2200}
NEC P3200  {p2200}
NEC P3300  {p3300}
NEC P5200 (B/W)  {p6mono}
NEC P5200 (Color)  {p6}
NEC P5300 (B/W)  {p7mono}
NEC P5300 (Color)  {p7}
NEC P6 (B/W)  {p6mono}
NEC P6 (Color)  {p6}
NEC P6200 (B/W)  {p6mono}
NEC P6200 (Color)  {p6}
NEC P6300 (B/W)  {p7mono}
NEC P6300 (Color)  {p7}
NEC P7 (B/W)  {p7mono}
NEC P7 (Color)  {p7}
NEC P9300 (B/W)  {p7mono}
NEC P9300 (Color)  {p7}
NEC P9XL (B/W)  {p6mono}
NEC P9XL (Color)  {p6}
Philips NMS 1461 (NEC Mode)  {p2200}
Philips NMS 1467 (NEC Mode)  {p3300}

Article#0386
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: Oki9 driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "Oki9 driver" (DOS file name: OKI9.GEO). The driver has 2 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

Okidata ML 92  {oki92}
Okidata ML 93  {oki93}

Article#0387
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: HP PCL Level 4 driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "HP PCL Level 4 driver" (DOS file name: PCL4.GEO). The driver has 12 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

Blazer Star II  {internal}
Brother HL-4 (HP Mode)  {internal}
Brother HL-8e (HP Mode)  {internal}
Brother HL-8PS (HP Mode)  {internal}
Canon LBP-4SX (HP Mode)  {download}
Canon LBP-8SX (HP Mode)  {download}
Epson ActionLaser 1000 (HP Mode)  {download}
Epson ActionLaser 1500 (HP Mode)  {download}
Epson EPL-7000 (HP Mode)  {download}
HP LaserJet 4 (PCL Mode)  {laserjet4}
HP LaserJet 4L  {download}
HP LaserJet 500 PLUS  {internal}
HP LaserJet II  {laserjet2}
HP LaserJet II Compatible  {laserjet2}
HP LaserJet IID  {downloadDuplex}
HP LaserJet III  {download}
HP LaserJet IIID  {laserjet3D}
HP LaserJet IIIP  {download}
HP LaserJet IIISi  {laserjet#Si}
HP LaserJet IIP  {download}
HP LaserJet IIP Plus  {download}
HP LaserJet PLUS  {download}
HP PaintJet XL300 (B/W)  {paintjetx1300}
HP PCL Download Font Driver  {download}
IBM 4019 LaserPrinter (PCL Mode)  {ibm4019}
IBM 4019 LaserPrinter (PPDS Mode)  {ppds}
IBM 4029 LaserPrinter (PCL Mode)  {ibm4019}
IBM 4029 LaserPrinter (PPDS Mode)  {ppds}
IBM 4039 LaserPrinter (PCL Mode)  {ibm4039}
Kyocera F-Series  {download}
Mannesmann Tally 905  {internal}
Okidata OL830 (HP Mode)  {laserjet2}
Olivetti PG 306 (HP Mode)  {download}
Olivetti PG 308 (HP Mode)  {download}
Panasonic KX-P4410  {download}
Panasonic KX-P4420  {laserjet2Comp}
Panasonic KX-P4430  {download}
Panasonic KX-P4450  {internal}
Panasonic KX-P4450i  {internal}
Panasonic KX-P4451  {download}
Philips NMS 1481 (HP Mode)  {laserjet2}
Star LaserPrinter 4 (HP Mode)  {download}
Star LaserPrinter 8 (HP Mode)  {internal}
Star LaserPrinter 8 II (HP Mode)  {download}
Toshiba PageLaser6 (HP Mode)  {laserjet2}

Article#0388
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: IBM PPDS 24-pin driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "IBM PPDS 24-pin driver" (DOS file name: PPDS24.GEO). The driver has 2 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

IBM Personal Printer Series II 2390  {gener}
IBM Personal Printer Series II 2391  {generw}

Article#0389
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: IBM Proprinter 9-pin driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "IBM Proprinter 9-pin driver" (DOS file name: PROP9.GEO). The driver has 5 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

ALPS ASP1000 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Amstrad DMP3000 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
AT&T 570 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
AT&T 571 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Axonix LiteWrite (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Axonix ThinWrite 100 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Blue Chip M200/NLQ (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Brother M-1109 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Brother M-1709 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Brother M-1724L (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Brother M-1809 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Brother M-2518 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Brother M-4018 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Brother Twinriter 6 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
C.Itoh 5000 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
C.Itoh C-610 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
C.Itoh CI-2500 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
C.Itoh ProWriter C-310 CXP (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
C.Itoh TriPrinter CI-3500  {x1}
C.Itoh TriPrinter CI-5000  {x1}
Canon BJ-130  {bj}
Citizen HSP-500 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Citizen HSP-550 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Citizen MSP-40 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Citizen MSP-55 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Citizen Tribute 124 (LQ interface  IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Copal Writehand 5930 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Copal Writehand 6730 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Dataproducts 8070 Plus (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Dataproducts SI 480 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Diconix 150 + (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Diconix 300 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Diconix 300w (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Epson DFX-8000 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Epson EX-1000 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Epson EX-800 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Epson FX-1050 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Epson FX-850 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Facit B3100 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Facit B3150 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Facit B3350 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Facit B3550 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Fortis DM 1310 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Fortis DM 2210 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Fortis DM 2215 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Fortis DQ 4110 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Fortis DQ 4210 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Fortis DQ 4215 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Fujitsu DL2600 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Fujitsu DL3400 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Fujitsu DL5600 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Fujitsu DX2300 (Type I)  {pp2}
Fujitsu DX2400 (Type I)  {x1}
Genicom 3410XLQ (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Genicom 3820 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Genicom Printstation 220 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Honeywell Bull 4/66 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Hyundai HDP-1810 (IBM Card)  {pp2}
Hyundai HDP-1820 (IBM Card)  {x1}
Hyundai HDP-910 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Hyundai HDP-920 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
IBM Personal Printer Series II 2380  {pp2380}
IBM Personal Printer Series II 2381  {pp2381}
IBM Proprinter II  {pp2}
IBM Proprinter III  {pp2}
IBM Proprinter III XL  {x1}
IBM Proprinter XL  {x1}
Laser 190E (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Laser 240 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Mannesmann Tally 222 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Mannesmann Tally 230/24 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Mannesmann Tally 340 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Mannesmann Tally 81 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Mannesmann Tally 87 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Mannesmann Tally 90 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Okidata ML 172  {pp2}
Okidata ML 182  {pp2}
Okidata ML 192 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Okidata ML 193 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Okidata ML 320 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Okidata ML 321 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Okidata ML 390 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Okidata ML 391 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Olivetti DM 309 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Olivetti DM 309L (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Olympia NP136 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Olympia NP30 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Olympia NP80 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
OTC TriMatrix 850XL (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Output Technology 560DL (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Output Technology 850SE (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Panasonic KX-P1093 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Panasonic KX-P1180 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Panasonic KX-P1180i (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Panasonic KX-P1191 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Panasonic KX-P1524 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Panasonic KX-P1592 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Panasonic KX-P1595 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Panasonic KX-P1695 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Philips NMS 1433 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Printronix S-7024  {x1}
Relisys RP1814 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Relisys RP2410 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Sanyo PR-241 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Seikosha MP-5300AI (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Seikosha SBP-10AI (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Seikosha SK-3000AI (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Seikosha SK-3005AI (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Seikosha SL-80AI (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Seikosha SP-1200AI (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Seikosha SP-1600AI (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Seikosha SP-180AI (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Star NR-10 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Star NR-15 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Star NX-10 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Star NX-1000 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Star NX-1020 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Star NX-15 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Star NX-2400 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Star XB-2410 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Star XB-2415 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Star XR-1000 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Star XR-1500 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Star XR-1520 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Toshiba ExpressWriter 311 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Toshiba P321 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Toshiba P321SL (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Toshiba P321SLC (IBM Mode)  {pp2}
Toshiba P341SL (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Toshiba P351 (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Toshiba P351C (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Toshiba P351SX (IBM Mode)  {x1}
Unisys AP 1327 (IBM Mode)  {pp2}

Article#0390
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: IBM Proprinter X24 24-pin driver in 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "IBM Proprinter X24 24-pin driver" (DOS file name: PROPX24.GEO). The driver has 4 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

AEG Olympia NP 136-24 (IBM Mode)  {gener}
AEG Olympia NP 80-24 (IBM Mode)  {gener}
Amstrad LQ 3500 (IBM Mode)  {gener}
AMT Accel-500 (IBM Mode)  {generw}
AT&T 580 (IBM Mode)  {gener}
AT&T 581 (IBM Mode)  {generw}
AT&T 583 (IBM Mode)  {generw}
Brother M-1824L (IBM Mode)  {gener}
C.Itoh C-815 (IBM Mode)  {generw}
Citizen GSX-130 (IBM Mode)  {gener}
Citizen GSX-140 (IBM Mode)  {gener}
Citizen GSX-145 (IBM Mode)  {generw}
Citizen PN-48 (IBM Mode)  {gener}
Facit B2400 (IBM Mode)  {gener}
Fujitsu DL4400 (IBM Mode)  {gener}
Genicom 1040 (IBM Mode)  {gener}
IBM Portable 5183 (IBM Mode)  {gener}
IBM Proprinter 24P  {pp24p}
IBM Proprinter X24  {gener}
IBM Proprinter X24E  {gener}
IBM Proprinter XL24  {generw}
IBM Proprinter XL24E  {generw}
IBM PS/1 Printer  {ps1}
IBM Quickwriter  {generw}
Olivetti DM 124 (IBM Mode)  {gener}
Olivetti DM 124C (IBM Mode)  {gener}
Olivetti DM 124L (IBM Mode)  {generw}
Olivetti DM 324 (IBM Mode)  {gener}
Olivetti DM 324L (IBM Mode)  {generw}
Olivetti DM 624 (IBM Mode)  {generw}
Panasonic KX-P1123 (IBM Mode)  {gener}
Panasonic KX-P1124 (IBM Mode)  {gener}
Panasonic KX-P1124i (IBM Mode)  {gener}
Panasonic KX-P1624 (IBM Mode)  {generw}
Panasonic KX-P2624 (IBM Mode)  {generw}
Philips NMS 1461 (IBM Mode)  {gener}
Philips NMS 1467 (IBM Mode)  {generw}
Seikosha SL-130AI (IBM Mode)  {generw}
Seikosha SL-230AI (IBM Mode)  {generw}
Star NB-24-10 (IBM Mode)  {gener}
Star NB-24-15 (IBM Mode)  {generw}
Star NX-2420 (IBM Mode)  {gener}
Tandy DMP 2102 (IBM Mode)  {generw}
Tandy DMP 240 (IBM Mode)  {gener}
Tandy DMP 300 (IBM Mode)  {gener}

Article#0391
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: PostScript driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "PostScript driver" (DOS file name: PSCRIPT.GEO). The driver has 19 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

Adobe LaserJet II Cartridge (PostScript)  {adobeLJ2f35}
Adobe LJ II Cart w/Type Cart 1 (PostScript)  {adobeLJ2fTC1}
Adobe LJ II Cart w/Type Cart 2 (PostScript)  {adobeLJ2fTC2}
Agfa Matrix ChromaScript (PostScript)  {necColor40f17}
Agfa-Compugraphic 9400P (PostScript) v49.3  {generf13}
Apple LaserWriter II NT (PostScript) v47.0  {appleLW2NTf35}
Apple LaserWriter II NTX (PostScript) v47.0  {appleLW2NTf35}
Apple LaserWriter Personal II NT (PostScript) v51.8  {appleLW2NTf35}
Apple LaserWriter Personal NT (PostScript)  {appleLW2NTf35}
Apple LaserWriter Plus v38.0 (PostScript)  {appleLW2NTf35}
Apple LaserWriter Plus v42.2 (PostScript)  {appleLW2NTf35}
Apple LaserWriter v23.0 (PostScript)  {appleLWf13}
APS-PS PIP with APS-6/108 (PostScript)  {generf13}
APS-PS PIP with APS-6/80 (PostScript)  {generf13}
APS-PS PIP with LZR 1200 (PostScript)  {generf13}
APS-PS PIP with LZR 2600 (PostScript)  {generf13}
AST TurboLaser/PS (PostScript) v47.0  {generf35}
Canon LBP-4 ScriptCard PS-2 (PostScript)  {generf35}
Canon LBP-8 Mark III (PostScript)  {generf13}
Canon LBP-8 Mark IIIR (PostScript)  {generf13}
Canon LBP-8 Mark IIIT (PostScript)  {generf13}
Canon LBP-8IIIR ScriptCard PS-1 (PostScript)  {generf35}
Canon PS-IPU Color Laser Copier (PostScript)  {necColorf35}
Dataproducts LZR 1260 (PostScript) v47.0  {generf35}
Dataproducts LZR-2665 (PostScript) v47.0  {generf13}
Epson EPL-7500 (PostScript)  {generf35}
Fujitsu RX7100PS (PostScript)  {generf35}
HP LaserJet 4 (PostScript)  {hpLJ4ps}
HP PostScript Cartridge for LaserJet IID v52.2  {generf35}
HP PostScript Cartridge for LaserJet III v52.2  {generf35}
HP PostScript Cartridge for LaserJet IIID v52.2  {generf35}
HP PostScript Cartridge for LaserJet IIP v52.2  {generf35}
IBM 4019 (17 Fonts) (PostScript) v52.1  {ibm4019f17}
IBM 4019 (39 Fonts) (PostScript) v52.1  {ibm4019f39}
IBM 4029 (17 Fonts) (PostScript) v52.3  {ibm4019f17}
IBM 4029 (39 Fonts) (PostScript) v52.3  {ibm4019f39}
IBM 4039 LaserPrinter (PostScript)  {generf35}
IBM 4216-020 (PostScript) v47.0  {ibm4216f43}
IBM 4216-030 (PostScript) v50.5  {ibm4216f43}
IBM Color Jetprinter PS 4079 (PostScript)  {ibm4079f35}
Kyocera Q-8010 (PS Compat)  {appleLW2NTf35}
Linotronic 100 (PostScript) v42.5  {generf13}
Linotronic 200 (PostScript) v47.1  {generf13}
Linotronic 200 (PostScript) v49.3  {generf13}
Linotronic 300 (PostScript) v47.1  {generf13}
Linotronic 300 (PostScript) v49.3  {generf13}
Linotronic 500 (PostScript) v49.3  {generf13}
Monotype Imagesetter (PostScript) v52.2  {generf13}
NEC Colormate PS (PostScript) v51.9  {necColorf35}
NEC Colormate PS/40 (PostScript) v51.9  {necColor40f17}
NEC Colormate PS/80 (PostScript) v51.9  {necColorf35}
NEC Silentwriter LC 890 (PostScript) v47.0  {generf35}
NEC Silentwriter LC 890XL (PostScript) v50.5  {generf35}
NEC Silentwriter2 290 (PostScript) v52.0  {generf35}
NEC Silentwriter2 Model 90 (PostScript) v52.2  {generf35}
NewGen TurboPS/300 (PS Compat)  {generf35}
NewGen TurboPS/360 (PS Compat)  {generf35}
NewGen TurboPS/400 (PS Compat)  {generf35}
NewGen TurboPS/480 (PS Compat)  {generf35}
OceColor G5242 PostScript Printer  {necColorf35}
OceColor PostScript Printer  {necColorf35}
Oki OL830/PS (PostScript) v51.8  {generf13}
Oki OL840/PS (PostScript) v51.8  {generf35}
PacificPage PE LaserJet Cartridge (PS Compat)  {generf35}
Panasonic KX-P4455 (PostScript)  {generf39cart}
QMS ColorScript 100 (PostScript) v49.3  {qmsColorScriptf35}
QMS ColorScript 100 Model 10 (PostScript)  {generCf35}
QMS ColorScript 100 Model 20/30 (PostScript)  {generCf35}
QMS PS Jet (PostScript) v46.1  {generf13}
QMS PS Jet Plus (PostScript) v46.1  {generf35}
QMS-PS 2200 (PostScript) v51.0  {generf39cart}
QMS-PS 2210 (PostScript) v51.0  {generf39cart}
QMS-PS 2220 (PostScript) v51.0  {generf39cart}
QMS-PS 410 (PostScript)  {qmsPS410f43}
QMS-PS 800 (PostScript) v46.1  {generf35}
QMS-PS 800 Plus (PostScript) v46.1  {generf35}
QMS-PS 810 (PostScript) v47.0  {generf35}
QMS-PS 810 Turbo (PostScript) v51.7  {generf39cart}
QMS-PS 820 (PostScript) v51.7  {generf39cart}
QMS-PS 820 Turbo (PostScript) v51.7  {generf39cart}
Qume ScripTEN (PostScript) v47.0  {generf35}
Ricoh PC Laser 6000/PS (PostScript) v50.5  {generCf35}
Scantext 2030/51 (PostScript)  {generf13}
Schlumberger 5232 Color PostScript Printer  {qmsColorScriptf35}
TI 2115 (13 fonts) (PostScript) v47.0  {generf13}
TI 2115 (35 fonts) (PostScript) v47.0  {generCf35}
TI microLaser PS17 (PostScript) v52.1  {generf17}
TI microLaser PS35 (PostScript) v52.1  {generf35}
TI microLaser XL PS17 (PostScript) v52.1  {generf17}
TI microLaser XL PS35 (PostScript) v52.1  {generf35}
TI OmniLaser 2108 (PostScript) v45.0  {generf13}
Unisys AP9415 (PostScript) v47.0  {generCf35}
Varityper 4200B-P (PostScript)  {generf13}
Varityper 4300P (PostScript)  {generf13}
Varityper Series 4000/5300 (PostScript)  {generf13}
Varityper Series 4000/5330 (PostScript)  {generf13}
Varityper Series 4000/5500 (PostScript) v52.2  {generf13}
Varityper VT-600P (PostScript) v48.0  {generf13}
Varityper VT-600W (PostScript) v48.0  {generf13}

Article#0392
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: HP QuietJet driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "HP QuietJet driver" (DOS file name: QUIETJET.GEO). The driver has 2 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

HP QuietJet (HP Mode)  {qjet}
HP QuietJet Plus (HP Mode)  {qjetp}

Article#0393
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: Star 9-pin driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "Star 9-pin driver" (DOS file name: STAR9.GEO). The driver has 2 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

Star Delta-10  {gener}
Star Delta-15  {generw}
Star Gemini-10x  {gener}
Star Gemini-15x  {generw}
Star Radix-10  {gener}
Star Radix-15  {generw}
Star SD-10  {gener}
Star SD-15  {generw}
Star SG-10  {gener}
Star SG-15  {generw}
Star SR-10  {gener}
Star SR-15  {generw}

Article#0394
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: Toshiba 24-pin driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "Toshiba 24-pin driver" (DOS file name: TOSH24.GEO). The driver has 2 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces. 

Citizen Tribute 124  {p321}
Citizen Tribute 224  {p351}
Toshiba P321  {p321}
Toshiba P341SL  {p351}
Toshiba P351  {p351}
Toshiba P351SX (Tosh/Qume Mode)  {p351}

Article#0395
Updated 07/01/93
DOS: Ensemble 2.0 and OS/2 version 2.x

To run Ensemble 2.0 under OS/2 version 2.x

1. Run Ensemble 2.0 in a regular full-screen DOS box, not a box that boots a specific version of DOS. In other words, the DOS_STARTUP_DRIVE setting on the session page should be clear.

2. Increase the number of DOS_FILES available to that DOS box to at least 80.

3. Make sure the HW_TIMER setting is on.

4. All other values can be left at their defaults.

No special installation of Ensemble 2.0 is necessary.

"SYS Error 0005. Access Denied"

You may get this error while installing under OS/2, because OS/2 thinks there is an extended attribute set for all of the files on the installation disks.
To change this extended attribute:

1. Use the DISKCOPY command to copy each Ensemble 2.0 installation disk to a diskette that is not write protected.

2. Run CHKDSK /f on each diskette. OS/2 will correct what it thinks is an extended attribute error on every single file.

Article#0396
Updated 7/4/93
Errors: KR-09 and KR-07, what to do

What the message means:

System error: KR-09 can be caused by memory (RAM) conflicts, damaged files, or faulty program instructions.

Primary reasons for getting system errors.

1. A one-in-a-million fluke
2. Problems in your AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS file
3. Bad sectors on your hard drive
4. Damaged document files
5. A conflict with other software
6. The GEOS Handles setting is too low
7. Low on hard disk space
8. Low on memory (RAM)
9. A virus

Don't panic. These problems are usually easy to track down and fix.

Diagnosis and treatment.

Go through the following steps, in order, to locate and fix the source of the error. These steps are arranged in order of relative ease. If you've recently installed Quarterdeck's Expanded Memory Manager (QEMM), go to the QEMM section below.

1. A one-in-a-million fluke

Turn off your computer. Wait a few seconds, then turn it on again. Go back into Ensemble. Do exactly what you were doing when the error message appeared. If you don't get another error message, it was probably a fluke. Don't worry about it. If you only get the error in one specific document, skip to section 4, Damaged Documents.

2. Check your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files

Check your configuration files for problems. To edit these files, use a text editor such as the Ensemble Notepad, the MS-DOS Edit or Edlin command, or the DR-DOS Editor.

AUTOEXEC.BAT
If you see a line that includes FASTOPEN, put REM at the beginning of the line. If you see SHARE.EXE, change the /f:4096 (or whatever the number is) to /f:6144. If you don't have a /f in your SHARE line, add /f:6144 at the end of the line.

CONFIG.SYS
First enter VER at a DOS prompt to find out which version of DOS you're using. Then look under the appropriate section below.

For MS-DOS:
FILES=30 (or FILES=100 if you use DOSSHELL)
BUFFERS=30

If you have a line that refers to SHARE.EXE, follow the instructions above under AUTOEXEC.BAT to change the /f:4096 to /f:6144

If you see a line that includes FASTOPEN, delete the line

For DR-DOS 6.0:
FILES=120
BUFFERS=30 (or HIBUFFERS=30)

Save the files, then reboot your computer so the changes take effect. Now try to reproduce the steps that gave you the error.

3. Bad sectors on your hard disk

Over time, it's normal for hard disks to develop small surface defects that result in bad sectors. The best way to check for and fix bad sectors is to use a commercial hard disk utility program, such as Norton Disk Doctor or PC Tools' Disk Fix. The second-best way is to use the DOS CHKDSK command. To run CHKDSK, completely exit any program you're in and type CHKDSK at a DOS prompt. If CHKDSK displays "Errors found, f parameter not specified," you'll need to enter CHKDSK /f (that's a forward slash) to fix the errors.

If you find errors: Once you've fixed the hard disk problems, you should re-install Ensemble. Use your original installation disks, and choose the New Install option. Incidentally, this process won't delete or copy over your personal documents.

If you don't find hard disk errors: Try installing Ensemble into a new, different directory on the hard drive. Make sure you use the CD command to change to this directory before typing GEOS20 to start Ensemble (otherwise you may enter the original copy). If you don't experience problems, your original copy of Ensemble is either damaged or is written on bad sectors of your hard drive.

4. Damaged documents

If you only get the error message when working on one document, the document is damaged. Use your backup copy to replace the file. If you don't have a backup copy, you'll have to re-create the document from scratch. You should backup any files that you don't want to re-create.

If your damaged document was created in GeoWrite, the SALVAGE program may help you retrieve the text portion of the document. You can get SALVAGE by faxing your name and address to Technical Support at 510-549-0538. Be sure to tell us if you need a specific diskette size. If you have a modem, you can also download SALVAGE.ZIP from our BBS: 510-549-1884, or from the GeoWorks Software Libraries on America Online.

5. Software conflicts

Look in the Ensemble Troubleshooting Guide for a discussion of software that can conflict with GeoWorks. If you've recently installed QEMM, skip to section 10.

Quick and easy test: To do a quick test for software conflicts, exit to the DOS prompt and enter GEOS20 /nomem. This tells Ensemble to ignore any expanded or extended memory, which is usually where conflicting software resides. If you still get the error, do the More thorough test outlined below. If you no longer get the error, you have a software conflict. You can either:

 -  Go into Preferences/Computer and change the Extra Memory option to None, or
 -  Insert REM before each line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files, one at a time, rebooting and entering Ensemble after each change, until you find the software that's conflicting with Ensemble.

More thorough test: Boot from a clean floppy disk. You can make a boot disk (also called a system disk) from the DOS prompt by typing FORMAT A: /S (that's a forward slash). On this floppy, put a CONFIG.SYS file with only the lines you absolutely need to make your computer work (generally that's only FILES and BUFFERS-see Section 2 above for the appropriate numbers). If you have Stacker or SuperStor, you'll need to include any statements from your configuration files that make those programs run. Don't include your mouse driver, expanded memory managers, or disk caching programs (such as SMARTDRV).

If you don't get the errors after booting from the clean floppy disk, you can add lines from your original CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT to the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT on the bootable diskette. Add one line, save the file, reboot and enter GeoWorks. Eventually you'll find the line that's causing the problem.

6. The GEOS Handles setting is too low

Run Preferences and click on the button labeled GEOS. Look at the item called Number of Handles. Ensemble defaults to 2000. Click on the up arrow to raise the number of handles to 3000. Click the OK button. Answer Yes when Ensemble tells you it needs to restart. Then do exactly what you were doing when the error message occurred. If you don't get another error message, then the increased number of handles may have solved the problem.

If Ensemble seems to run more slowly than it did before, then go back into Preferences, GEOS and lower the number of handles by 100 or 200. Repeat this until Ensemble runs at normal speed again. If you start getting the KR-09 error message again, then raise the number of handles by 100 or 200. You may have to choose a setting that compromises between the optimum speed and the error messages.

7. Low on hard disk space

Ensemble requires at least 2MB of free disk space for printing and other file operations. (Note: 1 MB translates into 1,048,576 bytes). You can check the amount of free space on your hard disk by looking at the line under the menu bar in GeoManager, or by exiting to DOS and entering DIR. DIR reports a number as "bytes free" at the end of the DIR listing. If you have less than 1,048,576 free, you'll have to delete some files.

8. Low on memory (RAM)

Ensemble requires a minimum of 512K of free conventional memory to run. If you are loading a lot of device drivers and memory-resident programs before you load Ensemble, you might be running out of memory. The DOS command CHKDSK tells you the amount of free conventional memory. At the very end of the CHKDSK report, you'll see a number labeled "bytes free." This is the amount of free conventional memory. This number should be at least 307,200. If it's lower, you need to disable some of the programs that are loading into your conventional memory. You can do this by inserting REM in the front of the line that loads the program in your AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS file. You'll need to reboot for the changes to take effect.

9. Virus attacks

Check your computer and every floppy in your home or office for viruses. Use a program like McAfee's Pro Scan, Norton Anti-Virus, or any reputable virus-checking software. If you find a virus, "cure" it and re-install Ensemble using the instructions in step 2, Bad Sectors on your hard disk.

10. QEMM-Quarterdeck's Expanded Memory Manager

There is a known conflict with QEMM's "Stealth Mode" and Ensemble 2.0 when Ensemble 2.0 is using Expanded memory. If you are using QEMM, follow this procedure: From a DOS prompt, enter GEOS20 /nomem (that's a forward slash, and the nomem must be in lower case) to enter Ensemble. The /nomem tells Ensemble to ignore the high memory area, which is where QEMM is causing conflicts.

Go into Preferences and click on the Computer button. Under Extra Memory Type, turn OFF Expanded (LIM EMS). You can turn on Extended and XMS/HIMEM.SYS, if they aren't already selected. Click on the OK button. When Ensemble tells you it needs to be restarted, click on OK, then Yes. The next time you want to enter Ensemble, you can just type GEOS20 at the DOS prompt.

Article#0397
Updated 07/04/93
Hardware: Modems and Ensemble 2.0

Setting up a modem can be a complicated procedure, depending on your individual computer's configuration, but these instructions will work for most systems.

Setting up your modem

1. If you have an INTERNAL modem, find out what COM port your modem is set for. Consult your modem manual for help. The COM port is usually set by changing small switches or jumpers on the modem card.

If you have an EXTERNAL modem, find out what COM port your modem is connected to.

2. Start Preferences and select Modem. Choose the COM port setting for your modem.

3. Click on the Speed and Format Options button.
 - Set the baud rate of your modem.
 - Set the parity (usually None), word length (usually 8), and stop bits (usually 1). These settings have to match the settings of the receiving modem. If you're calling a major online service or bulletin board system, these settings should be listed with the modem phone number to call, usually in the format N,8,1 (N for No parity, 8 for word length, and 1 for stop bits).
 - Leave the handshake setting on None.

4. Close Preferences and start GeoComm. To test your modem, enter AT and press Enter. Your modem should respond by answering OK. If it doesn't answer with OK, go to the Troubleshooting section.

5. To dial a number, select Quick Dial from the Dial menu and enter a number. Click the Dial button. Your modem should function normally.

Troubleshooting

If your modem doesn't work, follow these suggestions to try to remedy the problem.

1. Go back to Preferences and click the Computer button. If you previously set COM3 or COM4 and that port is now turned Off, your modem is not set to that COM port.

2. In the Computer section of Preferences, under the COM port for your modem, the interrupt settings are displayed. None of these settings should have the same number. For example, if your COM1 has a 4 underneath it and your COM3 also has a 4, the interrupt signals will conflict with each other. If your mouse is using COM1 and your modem is using COM3, this will cause a problem.

The best solution is to put your mouse on a different COM port, such as COM2, that has a different interrupt setting. If you do this, you'll have to change the settings for your mouse in the Mouse section of Preferences.

3. If you can't move your mouse to COM2, you need to change the interrupt setting on your modem.

For an internal modem, the interrupt is set on the modem itself Look in your modem instructions for the correct way to change it. Sometime the instructions refer to interrupt settings as "IRQ settings."

For an external modem, the best solution is to use a COM port with an interrupt that won't conflict with another device. Not all modems allow you to change the interrupt setting.

4. Once the interrupt setting has been changed on the modem, go back into Preferences and click on Computer. The new interrupt setting should be displayed below the modem's COM port. If the wrong interrupt setting is displayed, change it. Click on OK.

5. Click on Computer again. The interrupt setting you selected should be displayed. If a different interrupt setting is displayed, or you received an error, your modem is not set for the interrupt you selected. You need to change the interrupt setting on the modem itself before GEOS can use that interrupt setting.

Article#0398
Updated 7/4/93
Printing: General Help

Go through the steps below to test printing.

1. Open up Preferences. To launch Preferences, go to GeoManager and double-click the Preferences icon.

2. In Preferences, Click on Printer

What's listed under "Printers Installed"? Does the correct printer listing show up? Are there other (incorrect) printers listed? Is the printer set up for the correct port? Almost all PC's print over LPT1:, the first parallel port.

To change what's listed under "Printers Installed," point and click on the printer you want to change, test, or delete. When its name turns black, click on the appropriate button. Click New to add another printer to the list of Printers Installed. Click Edit to change the port listing. Click Make Default while the printer you most frequently use is selected. Click Delete to delete an erroneous listing. Click Test to print out a test page.
Click Close when you're done.

Delete the names of any printers that you don't actually use. Make changes until only printers you use appear in the list.

3. Test the Printer

Just click once on the "Test" button. If you click more than once, you'll get the error message "Couldn't print because the port is currently in use."

4. Evaluate Printer Test

LOOKS FINE: Then everything is working okay. If you sometimes get "Printer Off Line" or other errors, try the suggestions under "Switch to BIOS" or "Other Printing Questions."

PRINTER OFF LINE/NEEDS ATTENTION: Make sure your printer is online. See the section "Switch to BIOS."

PRINTOUT WRONG SIZE: See "Try Another Driver" and "Confirm Port" below.

PRINTS GARBAGE or BLANK SHEETS: See "Try Another Driver."

NOTHING PRINTS: See "Switch to BIOS."

PRINTER TEST GARBLED, BUT RECOGNIZABLE: may indicate poor connection between printer and PC or incorrect driver selected. See sections "Bad Cable" and "Try Another Driver" below.

HORIZONTAL WHITE LINES ON PRINTOUT: See "Automatic Linefeed" and "Known Problems" sections.

Confirm Port

This will help make sure that you know what port your printer is on and that the printer itself is working. NOTE: this test will not work correctly on a Postscript laser printer, which requires Postscript input.

Exit Ensemble Make sure your printer is online and has paper in it. At the DOS prompt, type DIR>LPT1: and press ENTER. (If your printer is not on LPT1 , substitute the correct port name.)

Your printer should print out a list of the files in your current directory. To see what it should print out, type the command DIR by itself and the directory will print out on the screen. If misprints occur in the printout, you probably have a bad printer cable or loose connection.

If nothing prints, then it means the printer is not set up correctly. It's either not connected correctly, is defective, or there is some software function that is re-directing printer output. You should check your printer and computer manual to solve this problem.

Bad Cable

A bad printer cable that causes slight errors in data transmission may cause only occasional misprints in a standard text document, but may wreak havoc in a GEOS document.

To see why, consider how Ensemble prints. Ensemble prints in "graphics mode," which means that it paints the page with dots to form a printed image. A standard text-based word processor simply sends a single number to the printer corresponding to a particular character (an ASCII code), which the printer then prints using its own built-in character set. The printer does the work of painting this character on the page.

So, where a text-based word-processor sends a simple instruction to the printer to tell it to print a particular character, Ensemble actually sends a picture of the whole character, in the form of black and white dots. This is why Ensemble can print in so many different fonts and sizes irrespective of what fonts are built into your printer.

This is also why a data transmission error is so critical in Ensemble printing. If there's an error, it can throw off the printing on the whole rest of the page.

The simplest way to test for a bad cable is to borrow a cable from someone to try out. Shorter cables (six feet or less) are usually more reliable than long ones. Avoid sharp bends in printer cables. Avoid running the cable near high-current electrical equipment, such as motors or transformers.

Automatic Linefeed

Most dot-matrix printers have an option called "auto-linefeed" which causes the paper to move up one line every time the printhead reaches the end of a line.

For Ensemble, this setting should be turned off. Since Ensemble typically makes several passes over each line while printing, the auto-linefeed setting will make printouts appear with evenly-spaced blank lines, as shown here for the word GEOS.

You can normally disable the auto-linefeed setting with a DIP switch or control on the printer itself. Check your printer's manual under DIP switches, auto-linefeed, or carriage returns.

If you're not sure whether auto-linefeeds are the problem, try this: Exit Ensemble. At the DOS
prompt, type this command: DIR > LPT1: and press ENTER. (If your printer's not attached to LPT1, substitute the correct printer port.) If the resulting printout appears double-spaced, then auto-linefeed is turned on and needs to be disabled. If the printout does not appear double-spaced, see the "Known Problems" section.

Switch to BIOS

This step is worth trying for almost any type of printer problem, including garbled printouts, error messages, and printers that don't print anything. To switch to BIOS: Launch Preferences. Click on Computer. Look at the section labeled Parallel Ports. For each port, you have several options: 5, 7, BIOS, and DOS.

Click on the circle next to BIOS for the port you're using, then click OK. This may fix your problem.

If switching to BIOS does not work, try switching to DOS. This is not normally necessary except when printing over a network or when using certain printer-redirection utilities. The DOS setting has the disadvantage that if the printer is off-line, Ensemble will report some error message like "no or unformatted disk in drive." This is due to the way DOS reports this error, and there is currently no workaround other than to make sure your printer is always online.

WHAT DO THESE SETTINGS MEAN? The 5 and 7 settings are hardware interrupts. BIOS is a program built into your computer that handles basic input-output functions. DOS, of course, is your operating system, which has its own printing routines built in. So if you're set to 5 or 7, Ensemble is printing directly to your hardware, all by itself. If you are set to BIOS, then Ensemble is calling BIOS functions to print. If you're set to DOS, Ensemble is sending printing instructions to DOS. Interrupt-driven (direct to hardware) is usually the fastest, if it works; DOS is the slowest.

Try Another Driver

If at first you don't succeed... Ensemble supports several hundred printers, but it supports them all with just a few printer drivers, and so it's not impractical to find the right one by trial and error. Check your printer manual to see if your printer emulates another printer on the Ensemble list. Here is a list of printers you can select to try out most available drivers.

Epson MX-80, RX-80, FX-80, LQ-500, and LQ-850, Star Gemini 10, IBM Proprinter and Proprinter X24, C. Itoh 8510, NEC P6, HP Laserjet II (512K of Memory), Okidata 92, HP Laserjet II (1.5 MB of Memory), Toshiba P351, HP Deskjet, Canon LBP-4 and BJ-130, HP Quietjet

If you've selected the wrong printer driver, your printout may be blank, distorted (larger, smaller, chopped up with white space), or the page may be filled with random characters.

Try Medium Quality

Ensemble 2.0 prints at higher resolutions than previous versions. If you could print in Pro or Ensemble 1.2, but you can't print in 2.0, it may be because Ensemble 2.0 is trying to print at a resolution your printer can't support. To test this, try selecting Medium Quality when you print a document in Ensemble 2.0.

Other Printing Questions

BI-DIRECTIONAL PRINTING: You may notice that your dot-matrix printer only prints when the printhead travels from left to right while in Ensemble, and doesn't print anything while it's moving back from right to left. In other programs, printers often print in both directions, thus speeding things up a bit. The reason for the difference is that Ensemble prints in "graphics mode," actually painting each character on the page, rather than relying on the printer's built-in character set. The only way to guarantee proper alignment of the printhead in high-resolution graphics mode printing is to start each pass at the left side of the paper. Otherwise, some printers will produce an odd rippling
effect down the page.

PRINTING TO A FILE: You can print a file to your hard disk. The resulting file will include all commands and formatting codes for the specified printer. You can take the file to most duplication quick-print service bureaus to have it printed out on a high-quality laser printer. Please note that the print file created is large, so you must have several megabytes of free hard disk space.

To print to a file, use Preferences to install the printer you will print the file on. Open the document and choose Print from the File menu. Click on the listed printer and select the printer you want to use for Print to File. Click on Options. In the Print to: section, select File. A Print to File button will appear in the Print box, next to Cancel. If you plan to print to file a lot , you can set up a printer to always print to file. To do this, launch Preferences and click on the Printer button. Click on the New button. Choose the printer you want the resulting print file formatted for. Under the Port section, scroll down until you see the "To File" selection. Click on To File. This sets Ensemble to always print to a file when you select this printer.

To print out the file, just copy it to the printer port. For example, if you take the file OUTPUT.PS to be printed on a computer that has a printer attached to LPT2:, you would type this command at the DOS prompt:

 COPY OUTPUT.PS LPT2:

Star NX-2420: One model of this printer had a defective ROM chip that caused it to leave blank horizontal lines about 1/4" high at a couple of places down the page. Call Star technical support or a local Star dealer for the Firmware EPROM Upgrade that fixes it.

Article#0399
Updated 7/4/93
Printing: Printing Speed in Ensemble 2.0

Tips for increasing printing speed in Ensemble 2.0

Graphics Printing

GEOS normally prints in graphics mode. That is, it sends all output to the printer in the form of ones and zeroes (bits), each corresponding to a black or white dot on the page. Laser printers generally print at 300 dots per inch (300 dpi), so this is a lot of dots! A page may require 8 million bits of data.

More conventional programs print in text mode. They send one number to specify each character (65 for "A," 66 for "B," etc.). The printer then uses its built-in character set to figure out how to paint the character on the page. So in text mode, the computer sends just one number, taking up 8 bits of data, which tells the printer to print dozens or even hundreds of dots. A page sent this way typically requires transmitting just 32,000 bits.

Therefore, GEOS's graphics-mode printing can be considerably slower than more conventional text-mode printing. A single GeoWrite page printed in high quality mode, can take from 2 to 15 minutes to print, depending on the speed of the printer (8MHz is a slow printer, 16 MHz is fast), the speed of the computer, and other factors.

The advantage, of course, is that since GEOS is taking complete charge of "painting" the whole page, you are not limited to the printer's built-in fonts (or added font cartridges). You can choose from all different sizes, orientations, and patterns, you can combine text and graphics, you can get printouts that look exactly like the screen.

Print Quality in Ensemble 2.0

Ensemble 2.0 has increased print resolutions for most supported printers. For many printers, the High Quality resolution in earlier versions was 150 dpi (dots per inch), while in Ensemble 2.0 the HighQuality resolution is 300 dpi. Because you're getting better print quality in Ensemble 2.0, printing will take longer because more information is being sent to the printer. Try printing in Medium Quality mode-it will print faster, and the print quality may be adequate for you.

Text Mode

Sometimes you may just want a printout of your text, and may not want to wait for something snazzier. To get a fast printout of your document, use the "text mode only" option. This simply dumps the characters in your document to the printer, more like a conventional word processor. Choose "text mode only," in the Printer Control box that appears when you print a document. Text mode is not an option in GeoDraw.

Spacing may come out strangely on printouts using text-mode only. If it does, change your document to the font URW Mono. This is a non-proportionally spaced font (that is, small letters like "i" take up the same amount of space as large letters like "m") that is most similar to the Courier font that is often the default built-in font on printers.

Laser Printers

The "HP PCL Download Font Driver" will actually try to download accurate representations of your document's multi-size fonts to the printer, using HP's "Printer Control Language" (PCL), when you select text mode only. This gives you nice-looking documents and fast printing from HP-compatible laser printers.

RAM on Laser Printers

In order to print the most complex document you can design in GEOS you will need at least 1.5 megabytes of RAM on the printer itself. The amount of RAM on the printer will not affect the speed of the print job from GEOS-it will only affect the size and complexity of the document you can print. Keep in mind that some models of laser printers, such as the HP LaserJet III, come with 1 megabyte of RAM on the printer but 300K of that 1 megabyte is used by the printer itself for processing. Therefore, only 700K is available to GEOS for printing and that may not be enough to print more complex documents.

Other Tips for Speeding Up Printing

1. Always print from a parallel port. Printing on a parallel (LPT) port is several times faster than printing over a serial (COM) port.

2. Have several megabytes of space free on your hard drive, if possible. GEOS spools everything to be printed onto the hard drive, and hard disk access is considerably faster if there are at least a few megabytes free.

3. Don't work on other things while a document is printing. There is a lot of background processing going on while GEOS prints, and it can go much faster if you are not trying to run some application in the foreground.

4. Use interrupt-driven parallel port interface. Double click on Preferences, click on Computer, and look at how the LPT port you are using is set. For most efficient printing, LPT1: should be set to 7. LPT2: works fastest set to 5. The BIOS setting is about 8% slower than 5 or 7, and the DOS setting is slower still. However, the BIOS setting may be needed to prevent spurious "Printer off-line" errors, and DOS may be needed on some networks. You will have to see what works.

5. Avoid rotated or re-sized bitmaps in your documents. If you've got a logo that you've scanned in and then re-sized, for example, your document printing can slow down considerably. The best solutions would be 1) try to re-create the logo in GeoDraw instead of scanning it in, 2) scan it in from an original that is the correct size and orientation, or 3) print all but the final copies of your document in text mode only.

Font Cartridges, Third-Party Download Fonts, and Other Add-On Fonts

GEOS does not support add-on font cartridges or third-party download fonts. You may add fonts to GEOS itself, however. GeoWorks has several font packs available (call the numbers given above for info), and several other manufacturers (Zsoft, MicroLogic), sell fonts compatible with GEOS At this time, the lowest-price fonts we know of for GEOS are those sold directly by GeoWorks.

The Best Speed Solution: Postscript

Postscript printers have a computer on board the printer that does the hard work of turning a page description into a pattern of black and white dots. They will print from GEOS up to five or ten times faster than a standard laser printer.

Unfortunately, Postscript printers cost quite a bit more than standard laser printers. Add-on Postscript cartridges are available for many laser printers for several hundred dollars, and as with most electronics, prices are coming down. If you are doing a lot of printing, or are sharing a laser printer over a network, we highly recommend adding Postscript capability.

Article#0400
Updated 7/4/93
Fax: The Complete Communicator and Ensemble 2.0

How to setup and use your Complete Communicator with Ensemble 2.0

General information

 - You must run CCBACK before entering Ensemble 2.0. The most convenient way to do this is to add the line C:\CC\CCBACK to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

 - The Complete Communicator driver in Ensemble 2.0 is installed in the same way a printer is.

 - You won't be able to view or print faxes you receive from within Ensemble 2.0. You can, however, create a launcher that runs the DOS-based CFAX program, which came with your Complete Communicator, to view and print faxes, or to check on the status of an outgoing fax.

Setting up your Complete Communicator

1. Run CCBACK, either from a DOS prompt or in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

2. Launch Preferences. Click on the Modem button. Select the COM port your Complete Communicator is set for.

3. Click on the Speed and Format Options button. Select 2400 for the baud rate. Click on OK.

4. Click on OK to close the Modem dialog box.

5. Click on the Printer button. Click on New.

6. In the Install New Printer dialog box, select FAX for Type of Device. A new list of devices appears. Click once on the Complete Communicator Fax Modem. Note that the name of the device is "Complete Communicator Fax Modem on Unknown." The Unknown simply means that any output will be sent to the port you selected for your modem during step 2. Click on OK.

7. Click on Close to close the Printer dialog box. Close Preferences.

Sending faxes

1. Open the document you want to fax.

2. Under the File menu, choose Fax. A Print dialog box appears.

3. Under Printer options, click on the listed printer. A list of installed printers will drop down. Click on the Complete Communicator Fax Modem.

4. A new section appears in the dialog box with the title "Complete Communicator Options."

5. Enter the phone number you want to send the fax to. If you want to look up the fax number using GeoDex, you must put the last name of the person in the phone number section, then click on the Use GeoDex button.

6. If you want to fax a cover sheet, click on the Yes button. Click on the Show Cover Sheet button to fill out the cover sheet.

7. To send the fax, click on the Print button.

Article#0401
Updated 7/4/93
Hardware: Mouse Trouble

What to do if your mouse does not work properly.

This document is primarily about how to choose and install the correct mouse driver. We will assume that your mouse is in good working order and not does not need mechanical repair. Sometimes a mouse will malfunction due to being dirty. Dust and dirt which has accumulated on the ball or rollers can usually be cleaned off. Check the documentation for your mouse for the correct cleaning procedures. Some symptoms of a dirty mouse include erratic (jumpy) movement of the mouse pointer or the mouse pointer only moving in one direction, either only horizontally or only vertically.

We have been able to get any mouse to work properly on any machine we've tried by finding the right combination of mouse drivers--sometimes it involves a "trial and error" procedure.

The most common "fix" for mouse trouble is to install the mouse driver that came with your mouse (usually something like MOUSE.COM in your autoexec.bat file or MOUSE.SYS in your config.sys file) and then choose the driver in GEOS that is named "MOUSE.COM or MOUSE.SYS". Many mouses come with a floppy disk that will install the mouse driver automatically. Some of them come with TSR or menu programs that potentially could cause a conflict with GEOS. If you're having trouble, choose not to install those TSR's, if possible, or remove or disable them.

If you are loading a MOUSE.COM in your AUTOEXEC.BAT, try using MOUSE.SYS in your CONFIG.SYS instead--or vice-versa. If you have extended memory and are loading the mouse driver high (with a devicehigh, hiload, or loadhi command), try loading it normally.

If that doesn't work, try to get the newest version of the mouse driver for your mouse. Sometimes one is available from the manufacturer of the mouse.

Some menu programs interfere with the operation of mouses on some machines. If you use a menu program, try running without it. If that solves the problem, consider eliminating the menu program or try a different one.

If you are loading a MOUSE.COM or MOUSE.SYS, try the "MOUSE.COM or MOUSE.SYS" driver in GEOS. But don't stop there. If that doesn't work, try the "nothing else works" or try the "no idea" or try the driver that is named the same as the brand of mouse that you have or try the one that says it is compatible with the brand you have.

Some machines require the use of HIDECOM. HIDECOM1.COM and HIDECOM2.COM are installed into the root \GEOWORKS directory in GeoWorks ENSEMBLE. Hidecom is a tiny program that, when run *once* from your AUTOEXEC.BAT (after loading your MOUSE.COM or MOUSE.SYS driver) should prevent your mouse from freezing in GEOS when you launch Preferences, GeoDex, or GeoComm. HIDECOM1.COM will only help if your mouse is on COM1. HIDECOM2.COM will only help if your mouse is on COM2. They will effectively hide the COM port from everyone, but could confuse other software. Programs that talk directly to the COM ports will likely not have any trouble with this, but they might.

To test whether HIDECOM will work, run it from the DOS prompt before launching GEOS. If it solves your problem, then consider adding it to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

With a little patience and experimentation, you can probably find a combination that works.

Article#0402
Updated 7/4/93
Fax: Fax Support Alternatives in Ensemble 2.0

How to use Ensemble 2.0's Print to File feature to generate files you can fax over any fax board, using DOS-based fax software.

Although Ensemble 20 offers direct support for only the Complete Communicator fax board, many other fax boards can be used with Ensemble 2.0. If your fax software can fax files that are in a specific printer's format, you can use Ensemble 2.0 to generate and save a file formatted for that printer. Then you can use your fax software to fax that file.

Setting up Ensemble 2.0 to Print to File

1. Find out if your fax software can send files formatted for a specific printer. The manual for your fax software will tell you what file formats are supported.

2. In Ensemble, launch Preferences and click on the Printer button. Click on the New button. Choose the printer whose format your fax software supports. Under the Port section, scroll down until you see the "To File" selection. Click on To File. This sets up Ensemble to always print to a file when you select this printer.

3. Click on OK to install the printer. Click on Close to close the Printer dialog box.

4. Close Preferences by choosing Exit from the File menu, or by double-clicking on the Close Box in the upper left corner.

Generating the Faxable File

1. Open the document you want to fax.

2. Choose Print from the File menu.

3. In the Print Options dialog box, click on the listed Printer. A list of all of the printers you have installed appears. Click on the one you set up as a To File printer.

4. Click on the Print to File button. A file selector box appears. Select the directory and enter a filename for the print-to-file file.

5. Click on the Print to File button. The document on your screen will be saved as a file on your hard disk, formatted for the printer you selected.

Sending the Fax

1. Exit to DOS, and start your fax program. (You may be able to automate this with a Launcher in GeoManager.)

2. Use your fax software to send the file you generated.

Article#0403
Updated 7/4/93
GEOS: Damaged Files and Documents

Preventing damaged files and making recovering damaged documents easier

Nothing you do can provide 100% security against damaged files, but there are steps you can take to reduce the chance of damaged files and to recover the information in damaged documents.

Prevention

 - Use a hard disk utility program to repair minor damage. There are many commercial programs available, such as Norton Utilities' Disk Doctor, or PC Tools' Disk Fix. You can also use the DOS CHKDSK /F command, although CHKDSK isn't 100% effective.

 - Before you turn off your computer, completely exit Ensemble, then wait a few seconds. This gives Ensemble time to save startup information to the hard disk.

 - If you have a line in either your AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS file that refers to FASTOPEN, delete the entire line. Fastopen can interfere with the file operations of Ensemble, causing damage to documents.

Recovery

 - Restore the file from a backup copy in the Backup directory in Ensemble 2.0. To do this:

1. If you can open the document, do so. Then, from the File menu, choose Backup, then Restore from Backup. If you have never used the Make Backup option, the Restore from Backup option will be "grayed out" because there isn't a backup copy to restore from.

2. If you can't open the original document, but you have kept a Backup, you can find the backup file from GeoManager. Backups are kept in the folder GEOWORKS/USERDATA/BACKUP.

 - Restore the file from a backup on a floppy disk. (See the GEOS User's Guide for instructions on how to copy files to and from floppy disks).

 - Use a commercial hard disk utility program to try to repair the damaged file. These programs can't restore data that has been lost, but they might be able to repair the file so that you can at least open the document or recover some of the information in the document.

 - If the damaged document is a GeoWrite document, you can use the SALVAGE program to recover the text portion of the document. For instructions on how to use Salvage, see the section "Damaged Files" in the Ensemble 2.0 Troubleshooting Guide.

Good Habits

 - Use Ensemble's Backup feature to save backup copies of your files. Whenever you make changes to a document, pull down the File menu and choose Backup, then Make Backup.

 - Copy your documents to floppy disks. It's best to use two or three disks and rotate them so that each successive time you save the file you use a different diskette. If you always copy to the same diskette, you might copy a damaged file over an older, undamaged copy of the file. With three copies, you have a better chance of having a backup copy that isn't damaged, even though it might not be the most recent version of the file.

 - Use a hard disk utility program to check the integrity of your hard disk on a regular basis. The DOS CHKDSK command can find errors when damage has already been done, but a good commercial hard disk utility program will repair minor hard disk problems before your files become damaged.

 - Backup your entire hard disk. You can do this with the DOS BACKUP command or any commercial program that backs up your hard disk, like PC Tools' CPBackup. If your hard disk should completely crash, a complete backup will save you the effort of re-installing and reconfiguring all of your programs.

 - Keep your original installation diskettes in a safe place in case you ever need to re-install Ensemble.

Article#0404
Updated 7/4/93
Fonts: All about Fonts

Information about GeoWorks fonts and different font formats.

The world of outline fonts is somewhat complex. There are many companies involved at many different levels. This document will attempt to clarify some of the terms involved and where companies fit into the scheme of things, as well as describing ways to add more fonts to your GeoWorks software.

Overview

There are four different types of companies involved with outline fonts: foundries, rasterizer companies, application companies, and converter companies.

foundry - designs outline fonts. An example of this is URW, which designed typefaces such as URW Roman. Foundries license their typeface designs to other companies.

rasterizer company - creates the software for rendering outline fonts for display. An example of this is Digital Typeface Corporation (DTC), which has a rasterizer known as Nimbus-Q. Companies that create rasterizers make money by either licensing the rasterizer algorithm to other companies, or by creating separate software which adds this capability to existing programs. Traditionally, the fonts used with rasterizing software are licensed from a foundry. For example, many of DTC's fonts were licensed from URW.

application company - licenses rasterizing software for use in a PC application. An example of this is GeoWorks, which licensed the Nimbus-Q rasterizer from DTC for use in GEOS. The fonts for GEOS were also licensed from DTC, who in turn licensed the designs from URW.

converter company - makes software to convert between one or more of the font formats. This market has come into existence because of the large number of (incompatible) font formats. Conversion programs allow application users to use more fonts than might otherwise be available for the font format their application uses. An example of this is MI.EXE from MicroLogic Software, which converts Adobe Type 1 fonts into MicroLogic's MLS font format.

To keep things interesting, a number of companies fall into more than one of the above categories. For example, Adobe has designed some of its own fonts (acting as a foundry), created its own rasterizer (acting as a rasterizer company), and also sells the rasterizer as an add-on product for both Windows and the Macintosh (acting as an application company).

The GEOS font format

GeoWorks licensed its rasterizer and fonts from Digital Typeface Corporation (DTC) which acquired the company that created the Nimbus-Q rasterizer and licensed the designs for its fonts from URW. GEOS uses a derivative of the Nimbus-Q format, not the native Nimbus-Q format.

Ensemble includes outlines for nine typefaces, which are very similar to fonts from other companies. The chart at the top of the next page gives the comparisons. In addition, GeoWorks offers additional typefaces through font packages you can purchase directly from us. Currently, these include Fun Fonts, Newsletter Fonts, and Business Fonts. Purchasing these fonts is the easiest way to add fonts to Ensemble. For more information, or to order, call 800-824-4558.

Here are the original nine GEOS outline fonts along with names of equivalent or near-equivalent fonts from other companies.

GEOS Name = Is Similar To
Cranbrook = Century Schoolbook
Cooperstown = Cooper Black
Sather Gothic = Franklin Gothic
Shattuck Avenue = Park Avenue
Superb = Broadway
URW Mono = Courier
URW Roman = Times Roman
URW Sans = Helvetica
URW Symbol = Postscript Symbol

Besides purchasing our additional font packages, there are a number of other ways Ensemble users can get additional fonts.

 - ATech Software (also known as Ancier Technologies) has a conversion program called AllType which will convert a large number of formats, including Adobe Type 1, True Type, ATech's FastFont format, Nimbus-Q, and GeoWorks into any of the other formats.

 - MicroLogic Software offers fonts in an MLS font format which can be converted into GEOS fonts. MicroLogic has two font packages called Display Faces and Classic Faces. These packages include a program (MT.EXE) which will convert these fonts from MicroLogic's MLS font format into a large number of formats, including native Nimbus-Q and GEOS.

 - MicroLogic also has a rasterizer for Windows, but this package includes a program which will convert Adobe Type 1 fonts into MicroLogic's MLS font format. This program is known as MI.EXE, and used in conjunction with MT.EXE, it can be used to convert Adobe Type 1 fonts into GEOS format. Apparently MicroLogic is also making MT.EXE and MI.EXE available separately from these packages.

Now that they're converted, what do I do?

Once the fonts are converted to the GeoWorks format, simply copy the font files into the GEOS20/USERDATA/FONT directory. Ensemble 2.0 will find the fonts and add them to your font menu in every Ensemble 2.0 application. You may need to exit and re-enter Ensemble before it recognizes that the fonts are in the directory.

Company Addresses & Phone Numbers

Adobe Systems - fonts
(415) 961-4992

MicroLogic - converter (MT, MI) and fonts
6400 Hollis Street, Suite 9
Emeryville, CA 94608
(415) 652-5464

ATech Software - converter (AllType)
5964 La Place Court
Suite 125
Carlsbad, CA 92008
(800) 786-3668

Zenographics - font application (SuperPrint)
4 Executive Circle
Irvine, CA 92714
(714) 851-6352

Digital Typeface Corp. - rasterizer (NimbusQ)
9955 West 69th Street
Eden Prairie, MN 55344
(612) 944-9264

ZSoft Corp. - font application (SoftType)
450 Franklin Road, Suite 100
Marietta, Georgia 30067
(404) 428-0008

Article#0405
Updated 7/4/93
Errors: Error Messages in Ensemble 2.0

In Ensemble 2.0 there are two kinds of error messages. One kind of error appears in a dialog box, and often suggests ways to recover from the problem, with buttons for you to click on.

The second kind of error message appears as a white box in the center of the screen. Unlike the first kind of error, these boxes do not contain any buttons; you must use the keyboard to respond. In most cases, you have no choice but to exit Ensemble by performing one of the following actions:

 - Pressing the E key on the keyboard
 - Holding down the Ctrl and Alt keys, then pressing the Del key
 - Turning your computer off and then back on again

All error messages contain an error code. Write down this code in case you need to contact GeoWorks Technical Support. If you encounter a message not listed here, contact GeoWorks Technical Support.

Some error messages are caused by a temporary condition. In many cases, you can simply repeat the operation without the error reappearing. If the error occurs consistently, you should notify GeoWorks Technical Support. Be prepared to describe exactly what you were doing at the time of the error. Sometimes the error message description is followed by some suggested ways to fix the problem.

Error messages are grouped into the following categories:
 - DE - Program Switching Error Messages
 - FM - File Manager Error Messages
 - KR and KRX - Operating System Error Messages
 - HP - Help System Error Messages
 - PR - Options Error Messages
 - SL - Printer Error Messages
 - UI - User Interface Error Messages

Article#0406
Updated 7/4/93
GEOS: Speeding up Ensemble 2.0

Suggestions to increase the speed performance of Ensemble 2.0 (Upgrade)

Ensemble 2.0 runs relatively fast when compared to other graphical operating systems like OS/2 and Windows. However, there are steps you can take to increase the speed of Ensemble 2.0 on your system.

Extra Memory

Adding additional memory (RAM) to your computer will give you the most dramatic speed improvement. Ensemble will run with only 1 MB of RAM, but since that isn't much memory, it must frequently access your hard disk to store and retrieve information. Hard disks are much slower than memory. Additional memory gives Ensemble more space to hold information, meaning fewer trips to the hard disk. If your computer already has at least 4 MB of RAM, adding more won't make a significant difference.

Streamline your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files

If you don't want to add additional memory, make the most of what you have. Each TSR and device that loads from your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files takes up memory. If you aren't using a program, you can disable it by putting the word REM at the beginning of the line that loads the program.

You can use the Ensemble 2.0 Text Editor, the Pro or Ensemble 1.2 Notepad, the MS-DOS Edit or Edlin command, or the DR-DOS Editor to edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS files. Before you change them, make a bootable floppy disk (also called a system disk) and copy your original CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT to the floppy so you can start your computer from this floppy in case of problems.

If you have a 386 or 486 computer and at least 2 MB of RAM, you should consider using an Expanded Memory Manager to load some of your TSRs and device drivers into upper memory. See your DOS manual or consult a computer software dealer for more information on expanded memory managers.

Tell Ensemble you have additional memory

Ensemble will take advantage of any memory you have. To enable your extra memory, launch Preferences and click on the Computer button. Under the section labeled Extra Memory Type, click on all three memory types: Expanded (LIM/EMS), XMS/HIMEM.SYS, and Extended (above 1 MB). Don't worry about whether or not you have all three types. Click on OK. When told that the software has to shut down, click on Yes. Ensemble will examine your memory setup and retain settings for the types of memory that you have available. If you later add more memory or change your memory configuration, you may need to repeat this process.

NOTE - QEMM users: If you are running QEMM in Stealth Mode, don't select Expanded (LIM/EMS). To see if you're running QEMM in Stealth Mode or not, you can check your CONFIG.SYS file for ST:M or ST:F in one of the QEMM lines. If you don't see ST:M or ST:F, you aren't running QEMM in stealth mode, and you can select Expanded (LIM/EMS). If you are running QEMM and are unable to enter Ensemble after selecting the extra memory types, enter: GEOS20 /nomem to start Ensemble. Then go into Preferences/Computer and de-select Expanded (LIM/EMS).

Increase the number of handles

Ensemble uses "handles," which are pointers to blocks of memory where information is kept. If you have too few handles available, Ensemble may not be using all of the memory you have available. If you have too many handles for the amount of memory you have, Ensemble will write the excess information to your hard disk, resulting in a loss of speed. However, it's better to have too many handles available than too few. To increase the number of handles, launch Preferences and click on the GEOS button. Under the Number of Handles section, increase the number using the guidelines in the chart below. When the dialog box to shutdown the software appears, click on OK, then click on Yes. The additional handles will enable GEOS to hold more in memory than it could before.

This chart is a guideline for how many handles to set in Preferences/GEOS:

 Total RAM = Handles
 1 MB or less = 2500
 1 MB to 2 MB = 3000
 2 MB or more = 3500

Change the Page Size and Max File Size settings

If you have at least 2MB of RAM and 8 MB free disk space, you may want to modify the Page Frame and Max File Size settings in the GEOS area of Preferences. The Page Size is the size of each "chunk" of data GEOS swaps in and out of memory, or to and from your hard disk. Max File Size controls how large the swap file on your hard disk is allowed to become before GEOS runs out of swap space and reports that it's low on memory. The Max File Size is in Kbytes. If you increase this setting, make sure you have enough free space on your hard disk to accomodate the larger swap file.

Some users have found that changing both the Page Size and the Max File Size to 4096 significantly increases the speed with which Ensemble loads applications and documents. To change these settings, launch Preferences and click on the GEOS button. Change the settings for Page Size and Max File Size to 4096 each. Click on OK, then click on Yes when informed that the software needs to shut down.

Keep in mind that changing these settings may not increase performance on your particular system. Whether or not it will help depends on many factors that are specific to your computer and your memory configuration. You will need to try it and see if it increases your performance. If so, great. If not, you can go back into Preferences, GEOS and change them both back to 2048.

Note: If you frequently work with large bitmap files or import/export files larger than 1 MB, and GEOS frequently reports that you're out of memory, you may need to increase the Max File Size even more. Make sure you have enough free space on your hard disk before increasing this setting.

Re-direct the swap file to a non-compressed drive

If you use disk compression software, especially DblSpace, change the section in Preferences/GEOS that reads: Path: C:\GEOS20\PRIVDATA\SWAP to the root directory of the non-compressed, also called "host," drive. For example, most DblSpace users have a host drive of H:\, so they would change the Path section to read, H:\SWAP and delete the words C:\GEOS20\PRIVDATA\SWAP.

De-fragment your hard drive

When you copy files onto your hard disk, DOS uses the fastest method of copying them, with no consideration for retrieval speed. Your hard disk is divided into many different sectors, and DOS doesn't usually copy files onto consecutive sectors. This means that one piece of a file is in one sector, the next piece is in another, the third is in yet another, etc. Since the sections of the file usually aren't on consecutive sectors, your hard disk spends time looking for the next section of the file on the disk. There are utility programs that "defragment" your hard drive, which simply means that the files will be organized into consecutive areas of the disk. This makes the programs on your hard disk load faster.

Some of the most common defragmentation utilities are Norton Utilities' Speed Disk (SD), PC Tools' Compress, MS-DOS 6.0's Defrag, and DR-DOS' Diskopt. There are also "shareware" programs available on electronic bulletin board systems to accomplish the same task. You should use a defragmentation utility at least once a month to keep your hard disk orderly.

WARNING: If you use disk compression, such as SuperStor, DblSpace, or Stacker, make sure that the defragmenting program you use is fully compatible with your compression software. Check your compression software's manual, or call the manufacturer of your compression software, before using a defragmentation program.

Article#0407
Updated 7/4/93
Install: Help for Installing Ensemble 2.0

Before You Install Ensemble 2.0

We've made the installation process as easy as possible. If you choose the first or second installation options, all of your old documents will be automatically upgraded as well as backed up (copied) into a special directory (GEOSBACK) in case there's a problem with the installation process. Therefore, we recommend you do the following before installing your 2.0 Upgrade:

 - Take some time to look through your DOCUMENT directory and delete files you don't need anymore.

 - Back up any important files on your system. The installation process will not proceed normally if you do not have enough free disk space on your hard drive. In some installation options, you will need 10 Megabytes of free disk space for the program, and more disk space for your documents.

To find out how much disk space you have, enter DIR at any DOS prompt. Look on the last line to see how many bytes you have free. If you are low on disk space, you must delete files or programs to make more room.

Installing Your Upgrade

To install Ensemble 2.0, insert disk #1 into the proper drive and enter:

  a:install  (or "b:install" if your disk is in the b: drive)

Option #1 - Install 2.0 and keep old version

This option requires more than 10 Mb of hard disk space to install, and automatically copies and upgrades all of your old documents and fonts. You may choose this option if you use America Online or want to take time to learn 2.0 before deleting your old version.

Recommendation: Move your clip art, scrapbooks, and any additional documents you may have that you won't need right away to floppy disks. Then check how much available hard disk space you have. Once you finish installing your upgrade, you can convert those documents and files you placed on floppies by using the "Utilities" menu in GeoManager and choosing the "Upgrade 1.x document" option to convert the files to 2.0.

Option #2 - Upgrade

This option also requires more than 10 Megabytes of hard disk space to install, and automatically backs-up, copies and upgrades your old Documents and Fonts. THE OLD GEOWORKS DIRECTORY IS DELETED. In other words, it deletes the old version of your GeoWorks software. Choose this option if you have at least 20 Mb of free hard disk space and don't use America Online.

Recommendation: Since the documents that are backed up go into a directory called GEOSBACK, If your documents are not in the DOCUMENT subdirectory, the installation program will not convert them. You will have to convert these after installation. To free up disk space, after installation you can copy the entire GEOSBACK directory onto floppy disks, then delete the GEOSBACK folder off your hard drive after installation. Once you finish installing the upgrade, you can convert the documents and files in GEOSBACK you placed on floppies by selecting the files and choosing "Upgrade 1.x Document" from the Utilities menu in GeoManager. Warning: Once you convert 1.X documents to 2.0 documents, you cannot convert them back to 1.X documents. The process is irreversible.

Option #3 - New Install

This option requires only 10 Megabytes of free hard disk space, and ignores whether or not an older version of the software is installed. Choosing this option will leave the previous version of your GeoWorks software alone and doesn't upgrade any documents or files; it will install the 2.0 upgrade as a brand new product. If you don't want to automatically upgrade your old documents and fonts or if you bought a new computer and want to load Ensemble for the first time, choose this option. This option is recommended if you don't have a lot of free hard disk space available.

If Something Goes Wrong During Installation

Low on Memory (RAM)

If you have less than 520K of free conventional memory, the Install program will tell you that you need to disable some TSRs and try again. TSRs are programs and devices that load into memory in your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files. Each one takes up memory. You can temporarily disable them to give Ensemble enough memory to install.

To disable the TSRs, you can use the Ensemble 2.0 Text Editor, the Pro or Ensemble 1.2 Notepad, the MS-DOS Edit or Edlin command, the DR-DOS Editor, or GeoHelp to edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS files. Before you change them, however, make a bootable floppy disk (also called a system disk) and copy your original CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT to the floppy so you can start your computer from this floppy in case of problems.

To temporarily disable each TSR and give Ensemble 2.0 enough memory to install, type REM and a space at the beginning of the lines that load them. For example, if you have the line
DEVICE = C:\DOS\ANSI.SYS, change it to read: REM DEVICE = C:\DOS\ANSI.SYS.

If you are using disk compression, make sure you don't disable any line that refers to your disk compression software. If you see lines that refer to HIMEM.SYS or DOS=HIGH, don't disable those lines either. Save the revised AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files and reboot your computer, then try to install Ensemble.

If you own a 386 or 486 computer and at least 2 MB of RAM, you should consider using an Expanded Memory Manager to load some of your TSRs and device drivers into upper memory. See your DOS manual or consult a computer software dealer for more information on expanded memory managers.

"Put proper disk in drive C:"

If you get the message "Put proper disk in drive C:" during installation, and you are using DR-DOS 6, you are using an old release of DR-DOS 6.0. Call 1-800-NETWARE and ask for the May 1992 Business Upgrade release of DR-DOS 6.0. There is a March 1993 release, but we have not tested it thoroughly.

Check the Hard Drive

Installation problems are often the result of errors on the hard drive itself. To check the integrity of your hard drive, go to a DOS prompt and enter:

 chkdsk /f

If you are asked to "Convert lost chains to files?", type Y for Yes and press Return. This is an indication that errors were found on the drive and an attempt was made to fix them. You should try to install Ensemble again. If CHKDSK does not find errors, this doesn't necessarily mean that the hard disk is error-free. You may want to run a more sophisticated disk checking utility, such as Norton's Disk Doctor, or PC Tool's Disk Fix. It is a good idea to run a disk checking utility periodically to keep your hard drive in good working order.

Check the Floppy Disk

If you are having trouble with a particular floppy disk, you can use the same procedure you used to check the hard drive. Put the disk in the appropriate drive and enter:

  chkdsk A:  (or chkdsk B: if your diskette is in the B: drive)

If you get an "Errors found" message, you will need replacement disks. Call our customer service department at 510-644-0883, ext. 404 or send email to "GW Service". Canadian and Australian customers should see the International section of the Troubleshooting Guide for information about replacements.

Video Problems or "Error in script line 244"

If you see the message "Error in script Line 244," or if your video display is distorted, or if you see the Ensemble 2.0 logo and nothing else, you're having video trouble. Ensemble provides several LOADER.EXE files - one for each supported video device:

loadermc.exe  for mcga
loaderc.exe  for cga
loadereg.exe  for ega
loadervg.exe  for vga

During installation, Ensemble renames the correct file for your video type to LOADER.EXE. For example, if you have a vga monitor, LOADERVG.EXE would be renamed to LOADER.EXE.

Sometimes installation can't rename the file and there is an error message such as "Error in script line 244 - error renaming file". If this happens, follow these steps:

1. Use the Installation Tools option of the install program to install the correct loaderxx.exe file for your video card per the above list.

2. Rename the file to LOADER.EXE by going to the DOS prompt and entering:

  REN LOADERVG.EXE LOADER.EXE
  (substitute the correct LOADERxx.EXE for your system).

3. Check to make sure the GEOS.INI file has the correct driver lines.

The driver lines for VGA will look like this:
  [screen 0]
  device = VGA 640x480 16 color
  driver = Standard VGA Driver

For a Hercules-compatible adapter, use:
  [screen 0]
  device = Hercules HGC Compatible: 720 x 348 Mono
  driver = Hercules Monochrome Driver

For an EGA-compatible adapter, use:
  [screen 0]
  device = EGA: 640x350 16-color
  driver = EGA Driver

For a CGA-compatible adapter, use:
  [screen 0]
  device = CGA: Compatible: 640x200 Mono
  driver = CGA Driver

For an IBM-MCGA adapter, use:
  [screen 0]
  device = IBM MCGA: 640x480 Mono
  driver = MCGA Driver

Once you are in Ensemble 2.0, you can launch Preferences and use the video module to change your video display type.

Article#0409
Updated 07/04/93
GeoWrite: Mail Merge Basics

How to use Mail Merge in Ensemble 2.0

Ensemble 2.0's Mail Merge feature allows you to print multiple, personalized copies of GeoWrite form letters, or similar documents such as labels, reports, invitations, etc.

Design your document in GeoWrite and insert merge labels where you want to substitute information from your database at print time. A merge label is a field name from your database enclosed in guillemots. A opening guillemot is created with the key press CTRL+ALT+\. A closing guillemot is SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+\ (the backslash key). A typical merge label looks like this: <<F_NAME>>.

Your database of information to substitute (merge data) can come from one of three sources: a GeoDex file, a GeoFile database file, or a GeoCalc spreadsheet file.

In GeoDex, the field names are pre-defined. A list of the field names is available in the Ensemble 2.0 User's Guide, Book 2, page 7.23.

In GeoFile, you create your own field names. To see a list of the field names in your GeoFile document, choose Design mode at User Level 3 or 4.

In GeoCalc, your merge data must be arranged in typical database format. Each cell is a field and each row is a record. The top row of the block you wish to use as merge data must contain the field names without the guillemots.

No matter which type of file you choose for your merge data, be sure to enter your merge labels correctly in your GeoWrite document. Type CTRL+ALT+\, then type the merge label (field name), spelled correctly including underscores, then type the closing guillemot by pressing SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+\. Styles, fonts, and other text attributes which you apply to your merge labels will be applied to the substituted text when you print the merge file.

When your GeoWrite document is complete and you are ready to print your mail merge, you must first open the source file for your merge data and place the data on the clipboard.

 - In GeoDex, you can page to the record and click Copy in the Edit menu if you want to merge just one record. If you want to merge all the records, click the file menu, then Other, Export, Export to Clipboard.

 - In GeoFile, you can limit your data to a subset of your records using the Mark and Show Marked features, then click the File menu, Other, Export, Export to Clipboard.

 - In GeoCalc, simply select (highlight) the block of cells containing the data, then click Copy in the Edit menu. Be sure that the top row of the block contains your merge labels.

Return to your GeoWrite document and choose Print in the File menu. Set all the appropriate print options in the Print dialog box including the Merge option, then Print. If the merge options are unavailable, it means the clipboard does not contain data in the proper format for merging. You can Merge One to print only the first record of your data as a sample to check your work or you can Merge All to print a document for each record in your data.

For additional help and instructions, see the section Using Mail Merge in the GeoWrite chapter of the Ensemble 2.0 User's Guide, Book Two.

Article#0410
Updated 7/4/93
GEOS: Defusing Clip Art in 2.0

Questions and answers about defusing GEOS 1.0 or 1.2 clip art when you upgrade to Ensemble 2.0.

Should I Defuse my clip art before I upgrade to Ensemble 2.0?

Most customers will never need to Defuse any of their clip art images. If you have never defused clip art in Ensemble 1.2 or GeoWorks Pro, chances are you won't need to defuse any clip art in 2.0. If you have Defused clip art while using your previous version of GEOS, or if you expect to do so in Ensemble 2.0, then you will need to Defuse the images using the older version of the software before you update the files to Ensemble 2.0 format.

What does "Defuse" mean?

If you have to ask, then chances are good that you don't need to bother with Defusing your artwork. However, here is a simple explanation.

In GEOS version 1.0 and 1.2, GeoDraw provides a feature called Fuse which joins individual elements of your drawing together so they can be manipulated as if they are all one object. Defuse reverses the process so that the individual elements of the drawing can be modified or used separately. Much of the clip art provided by GeoWorks in its software packages was created using GeoDraw version 1.2 and consists of Fused objects. If you update the clip art to Ensemble 2.0 format without first defusing it, you will not be able to Defuse it in Ensemble 2.0.

Why can't I just upgrade the clip art to 2.0, then Defuse it?

If images are fused together when a document is upgraded to Ensemble 2.0 format, the images are treated as one solid object by Ensemble 2.0. Ensemble 2.0 can not recognize the separate objects that were created in the older version, because one solid object was converted to 2.0 format.

Is there any other work-around besides Defusing the clip art before upgrading it to Ensemble 2.0 format?

In Ensemble 2.0, you can convert images to bit map format and edit them with bit map tools, including an "eraser" and a "pixel editor." While this does not give you the same kind of control over the individual elements of a picture as Defusing would, some users will find it is enough to suit their needs.

Okay, I've decided I want to Defuse some of my clip art images, so that I can access the individual elements in Ensemble 2.0. How should I proceed?

You must use GeoDraw in Ensemble 1.2 or Pro to Defuse clip art. If the clip art is in a Scrapbook document, you must first paste the image into a GeoDraw document, because Scrapbook has no Defuse feature. To save time, you can copy as many clip art images as will fit onto one GeoDraw page to defuse them. You can even use a very large Page Size to hold more images.

How to defuse your Clip Art

Here is a step-by-step procedure for defusing clip art that is stored in Scrapbook documents:

1. Launch Ensemble 1.2 or GeoWorks Pro and open the Scrapbook document containing the clip art you want to defuse. Don't change the View %--if you want to see more of the clip art image, resize the window by dragging one of the corners.

2. Click on the Next button until you find the first piece of clip art that you want to Defuse.

3. From the Edit menu, choose Copy (or Cut). Do not use Copy at View %.

4. Open a GeoDraw document.

5. In GeoDraw, choose Paste from the Edit menu.

6. Use the pointer (arrow) tool to position the clip art on the page.

7. Go back to Scrapbook. Find the next piece of clip art you want to defuse.

8. From the Edit menu, choose Copy (or Cut).

9. Go back to GeoDraw. From the Edit menu, choose Paste. Now you have two pieces of clip art on one GeoDraw page. Use the pointer tool to move the second one so it's not overlapping the first.

10. Continue Copying and Pasting from Scrapbook to GeoDraw until all of the clip art you want to Defuse is on one GeoDraw page, or until the GeoDraw page is full.

11. In GeoDraw, click on an image to select it. Then click on Defuse in the Edit menu.

12. Next, select the various elements of the image that you Defused and check the Edit menu to see if the Defuse item remains gray (unavailable) or if it becomes dark (available). You may wish to pin the Edit menu so you can easily keep an eye on it. If Defuse becomes available when you select an object, then you can defuse that object even further. If you wish, click on Defuse to do so.

13. When the first piece of clip art has been Defused, select the next image and Defuse it. Remember to check the individual elements of the image to see if they can be Defused further. Repeat this process for each clip art image on the page.

14. When all the clip art has been Defused, Save the GeoDraw file. Update this GeoDraw file to Ensemble 2.0. Do not paste the images back into a Scrapbook in Ensemble 1.2 or GeoWorks Pro. If you wish to put them back into a Scrapbook, do so in Ensemble 2.0.

Note: Fuse and Defuse are called Group and Ungroup in Ensemble 2.0, and are found on the Arrange menu instead of the Edit menu.

Article#0411
Updated 07/04/93
Hardware: Disks and Drives and Ensemble 2.0

Tips for solving problems accessing floppy and hard disks and drives

Tell GEOS what drives you have

Most problems reading, writing, copying or formatting floppy or hard drives can be solved by telling GEOS exactly what type of drives you are using. To notify GEOS of what type of disks and drives you have you must edit the GEOS.INI file. Simply add the appropriate lines to the [system] section of the file. For example:

  [system]
  drive a = 360  (Tells GEOS you have a 5.25" Low Density A: drive)
  drive b = 720  (Tells GEOS you have a 3.5" Low Density B: drive)
  drive c = 65535  (Tells GEOS you have a C: Hard drive)

Using the basic format:

  drive <letter> = <number>

you can specify a number of possible drive combinations:
0  =  Ignore the drive
360  =  360K (Double/Low Density) 5.25"
720  =  720K (Double/Low Density) 3.5"
1200  =  1.2M (High Density) 5.25"
1440  =  1.44M (High Density) 3.5"
2880  =  2.88M (High Density) 3.5"
65535  =  Hard drive (compressed or uncompressed)

Wait Post Support

GEOS provides two different methods of accessing drives: Wait Post ON, and Wait Post OFF. A complete description of what the two methods are isn't important. What is important is that some computers require Wait Post ON, and others need Wait Post OFF.

If you're having problems accessing your drives, first follow the procedure above. If that doesn't help your drive access problems, try changing the Wait Post setting. To do this, launch Preferences and click on the GEOS button. Wait Post Support section in the right of the dialog box. Click on the ON button to turn on Wait Post Support. Click on OK, then Yes. GEOS will shut down and restart itself with Wait Post Support turned on.

If you still have problems, go back into Preferences, click on GEOS, and turn Wait Post Support off. Sometimes just the process of turning Wait Post Support ON, then OFF again will solve drive access problems.

Article#0412
Updated 07/04/93
Hardware: CD ROM Manager and Ensemble 2.0

How to upgrade your Sony or NEC CD ROM package to Ensemble 2.0

Compatibility

Any CD ROM player can be used with Ensemble 2.0. The CD player will be accessible in GeoManager just like any other drive.

The CD-ROM drivers

There are drivers (special software programs) that control your CD player. When you initially installed the GeoWorks CD Manager software, these drivers were placed in the GEOWORKS\CDROM directory. If you delete this directory, you delete the CD drivers. If you use the Upgrade option to install Ensemble 2.0, or if you would like to delete the old GEOWORKS directory, you will need to either copy the CD ROM drivers to a new directory or reinstall them to a different directory.

To set up the drivers, you have the following options. If you aren't familiar with DOS, we recommend you find someone who is to assist you with either option.

1. Copy the files from the C:\GEOWORKS\CDROM directory to another directory, such as C:\GEOS20. Then edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files, pointing the MSCDEX and TSLCDR (or SLCD) lines to the GEOS20 directory instead of the GEOWORKS\CDROM directory.

2. Re-install the floppy disk portion of the CD Manager setup. When the setup program prompts you for a directory name, enter C:\GEOS20 (or whatever directory you have installed 2.0 in). Don't run the second portion of setup (the CD portion).

Launchers for the CDs

To create launchers for your CDs in 2.0, use the Create Launcher option on the Utilities menu. There are no plans to upgrade the CD Integrator utility to 2.0, since you can do the same thing with the Create Launcher option in 2.0.

Audio CD Player

The Audio CD Player is not compatible with Ensemble 2.0. We are considering developing an Ensemble 2.0-compatible version of the Audio CD Player. If you are a registered owner, we will notify you if one becomes available.

Article#0413
Updated 07/04/93
Printing: Large page with PostScript

The HP PaintjetXL printer does support 11 x 17 in PostScript, but you have to tell it more things than a "standard" PostScript driver will do.

For anyone who is interested the changes are,
after the bounding box entry add:

currentpagedevice /InputAttributes get 0 get
/Pagesize [842 1190]
/imagingBBox null
setpagedevice

The current GEOS PostScript driver does not add those commands.

--Information provided by SanfordM (a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0414
Updated 7/4/93
Spellchecker: Alternate dictionaries in 2.0

To use an alternate dictionary, exit out of GEOS to DOS and use your favorite DOS editor to modify the GEOS.INI file. (Be sure to back it up first). Find a category called [text]. On one of the lines immediately following that category there should be a line that reads:

  dictionary = IENC9121.DAT
  hyphenationDictionary = HECDP301.DAT

If these lines exist, change the name to the appropriate data file. If they don't exist, try adding them right under the [text] category.

No guarantees here, this is some second hand info.

--Information provided by GW John

Article#0415
Updated 7/4/93
GeoWrite: Tool bars in Ensemble 2.0

There are buttons available for Superscript and Subscript styles in the toolbars, as well as for many other features. To display them, click Options, Customize Toolbars, Show/Hide Tools in Group.

A shortcut is once you've clicked on the Customize Toolbars choice in the menu, click on the tool bar group on the actual tool bar you want to change. The name of the tool bar group will automatically become selected in the Customize dialog boxes

You'll see some choices not currently selected (highlighted). Just highlight them and the rest should be obvious.

When you're through displaying the tools you want, don't forget to select Save Configuration so you won't have to repeat this all the next time you run GeoWrite.

--Information provided by GWRep Neal and Mrett (a GeoWorks customer)

Article#0416
Updated 07/05/93
GeoCalc: Text Overflow

If your text doesn't "spill over" into the next cells, you can "force" text overflow by selecting the empty cells to the right of the one with the text in it and then hitting the delete key.

--Information provided by GW Steve

Article#0417
Updated 7/4/93
Printers: Epson MX 9-pin driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "Epson MX 9-pin driver" (DOS file name: EPMX9.GEO). The driver has 2 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces.

Brother M-1009  {mx80}
Epson MX-100 Type III  {mx100}
Epson MX-80 F/T Type III  {mx80}
Epson MX-80 Type III  {mx80}
Epson MX-82 F/T Type III  {mx80}
Infoscribe 1100 (Epson Mode)  {mx100}
Infoscribe 1400 (Epson Mode)  {mx80}
Panasonic KX-P1090  {mx80}

Article#0418
Updated 07/01/93
Printers: Epson RX 9-pin driver in Ensemble 2.0

The following printers use the Ensemble 2.0 printer driver named "Epson RX 9-pin driver" (DOS file name: EPRX9.GEO). The driver has 2 variations built into it. The name of the variation used by each printer appears in curly braces.

Epson RX-100  {rx100}
Epson RX-80  {rx80}
Epson RX-80 F/T  {rx80}
Panasonic KX-P1080  {rx80}
Panasonic KX-P1080i (Standard Mode)  {rx80}
Panasonic KX-P1091 (Standard Mode)  {rx80}
Panasonic KX-P1091i (Standard Mode)  {rx80}

Article#0419
Updated 07/01/93
Errors: Program Switching Error Messages (DE-xx)

These error messages indicate problems switching to and from DOS programs.

DE-01. Unable to run DOS program.

DE-02. Could not find loader. You may need to re-install your software.

DE-03. Not enough DOS memory to continue. A DOS program may not have released all the memory it used. Restart your computer.

Article#0420
Updated 7/4/93
Errors: File Manager Errors FM-01 to FM-49

File manager error messages often appear when you are working with items on the in GeoManager, such as the Wastebasket. In many cases, you can easily correct the problem and repeat the operation without further error.

The message listed here may differ slightly from the message on your computer screen. If the message includes specific information, such as a file name, this is indicated by a bracketed word. For example:

FM-06. You cannot copy or move [name] to one of its own folders.

On the computer screen, [name] is replaced by the actual name of the file or folder.

FM-01. Could not find the file or folder. It may have been deleted. If using a network, you may not have access to the file or folder. Rescan the drives to see the current view of an open window to determine if the file is really there.

FM-02. Could not find the requested folder. Rescan the drives to see the current view of an open window to determine if the file is really there.

FM-03. [name] cannot be accessed. It may already be in use or be a read-only file. If on a network, you may not have permission to access to this file. Some files can only be opened by one user at a time. Also, this message may appear if you attempt to save a read-only file.

FM-04. Unable to locate this drive. If on a network, the connection may have been lost.
Restart your computer.

FM-05. You cannot copy or move a file to itself. This usually occurs when you accidentally select the wrong file in the file selector dialog box. Select a different destination for the copy or move. This can also occur when dragging a file icon over the icon of the folder which contains it.

FM-06. You cannot copy or move [name] to one of its own folders. This usually occurs when you accidentally select the wrong folder in the file selector dialog box. Select a different destination for the copy or move. This could also occur if you have several windows open and try to move a folder into one of the subfolders it contains.

FM-07. The destination already contains a folder named [name], which cannot be overwritten because it contains the item you are moving or copying. This usually occurs when you accidentally select the wrong folder in the file selector dialog box. Select a different destination for the copy or move. This could also occur if you try to move a folder icon into its own window.

FM-08. You cannot perform this operation with the root folder.

FM-09. Could not open the folder. You already have the maximum number of 32 folders open. Close one or more open folders and try again.

FM-10. Please re-enter the name using a valid name format. For DOS files, use the standard DOS format. For other applications and documents, the name can be up to 32 characters long. The DOS format is eight characters for the file name, followed by an optional period and 3-character extension.

FM-11. [name] is not an application or document that can be opened directly.

FM-12. You cannot format the drive containing the system software. You probably selected the wrong disk drive letter. Pick a different disk drive and try again.

FM-13. There is not enough room on the destination disk to copy this file. Empty the Wastebasket or remove some files from the disk and try again.

FM-14. [name] could not be thrown away because the Wastebasket is full. Empty the Wastebasket and try again. The Wastebasket can only hold a certain number of documents. Empty the Wastebasket from the File menu.

FM-15. There is not enough memory available to perform this operation. Close some windows or applications and try again.

FM-16. Another DOS program is already being launched. [name] cannot be launched at this time. Try launching (starting) the program again later.

FM-17. Could not delete the folder [name]. It may not be empty or you may not have the privilege to delete it. The folder probably contains items which you are not allowed to delete, such as read-only files. Open the folder and try deleting each item inside individually to determine which caused this message.

FM-18. This folder contains too many files. Not all of the filenames can be displayed.
Ensemble can only display about 400 items in a folder window. The remaining items are in the folder, but will not display on the screen.

FM-19. Could not rename the disk. You may not be allowed to change the name of the selected hard disk.

FM-20. Could not create the folder [name]. There may not be enough room on the destination disk. Remove some files and folders to open up some additional space on the disk. If you are trying to create the folder on a floppy disk, try using a different floppy disk.

FM-21. A new folder cannot be created at this level. The path is too long. You can rename higher-level folders to create a shorter path name. DOS has a maximum length for path names. If you have used long names for folders or have many folders within folders, this maximum can be exceeded.

FM-22. Invalid characters in the volume name. Re-enter the volume name using valid characters. You can use the following characters in disk volume names: alphabetic characters, digits, and tilde ! @ # $ % ^ & ( ) _ - { }. You cannot use periods, commas, blanks, colons, asterisks, and any other keyboard characters not included above.

FM-27. An error occurred during this operation. Please try again.

FM-28. Cannot find the application for [name]. Try opening it from within an application. The document was created using a DOS application. You must start the application and then open the document from within it.

FM-29. Unable to open the file. The file may be corrupted. If you tried opening the file by double-clicking, try opening it from within the application. If this is unsuccessful, you may have to use data recovery software to salvage your data.

FM-30. Couldn't find [name]. Unable open the file. The file may have been deleted or moved. Choose Update Open Windows from the Desktop menu, and check again to see if the file is really there.

FM-31. Could not open [name] because a required system file is missing.

FM-32. [name] is not an application or document that can be opened.

FM-33. There is not enough memory available to open the file as requested. Close windows and applications that you are not currently using and try again.

FM-34. The application is too new to work with this version of the system software.

FM-35. The application is too old to work with this version of the system software.

FM-36. The application is already running on this system.

FM-37. The application is incompatible with this version of the system software.

FM-38. Could not locate a required system file.Restart your computer. You may need to re-install the software.

FM-39. Unable to start a driver needed by the application. Restart your computer.

FM-40. Unable to open a system file needed by the application.Restart your computer. You may need to re-install the software.

FM-41. Disk too full to open [name]. Some applications need free disk space to open a document. Either delete unnecessary files or copy the file to another disk before trying to open the file again.

FM-42. You are in the process of exiting the system. You cannot open anything at this time.

FM-43. Unable to find the application that created [name]. If you know where to find the application, open the application first and then try opening the document from there.

FM-44. Cannot open this item. It is no longer available on the network.

FM-45. This folder has been moved or deleted from the file server.

FM-46. The [name] item cannot be placed here.

FM-47. The expected icon could not be found, so another will be substituted.

FM-48. You cannot recover a file to the Wastebasket. Choose another location for the Recover operation.

FM-49. Nothing was selected. You must select an item on which to perform the operation.

Article#0421
Updated 07/04/93
Errors: Help System Error Messages (HP-xx)

These error messages appear when you try to view online help. Usually the problem is only with the online help section of the software, and does not affect the rest of Ensemble.

The message listed here may differ slightly from the message on your computer screen. If the message includes specific information, such as a file name, this is indicated by a bracketed word. For example:

FM-06. You cannot copy or move [name] to one of its own folders.

On the computer screen, [name] is replaced by the actual name of the file or folder

HP-01. Error in help. File [name] not found. You may need to re-install your software.
The online help file shown in the message is missing from Ensemble. You can continue using Ensemble, although you cannot view online help for this portion.

HP-02. Error in help. Unable to find "context" section in help file [file name]. Please note the exact text of this message if it recurs.
A portion of the help file has been damaged. You can continue using Ensemble, although you cannot view online help for this portion.

Article#0422
Updated 7/4/93
Errors: Operating System Errors (KR-xx and KRX-xx)

Operating system error messages have a KR or KRX prefix. Most of these errors have very terse text and an error code, and originate in the Ensemble control software.

For most of these errors, you must restart your computer. Try to exit Ensemble. Sometimes the error message will tell you to press E to exit. In many cases, though, this will not work. In either case, you should then restart your computer by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del, or pressing the Restart button, or switching power off and then back on again, whichever is most appropriate for the situation. Often this will fix a problem. If the error persists, you should re-install the software.

The message listed here may differ slightly from the message on your computer screen. If the message includes specific information, such as a file name, this is indicated by a bracketed word. For example:

FM-06. You cannot copy or move [name] to one of its own folders.

On the computer screen, [name] is replaced by the actual name of the file or folder.

KR-01 to KR-11, and KR-18
Messages KR-01 through KR-11 and KR-18 have no explanation in the error message itself. Often these messages indicate a temporary problem in the computer hardware. Restarting your computer may solve the problem.

KR-01. Divide by zero.

KR-02. Arithmetic overflow.

KR-03. Array index out of bounds.

KR-04. Coprocessor/memory parity error. Make sure you are not running any conflicting TSRs; have your RAM (memory) checked for defective chips.

KR-05. Single-step complete.

KR-06. Breakpoint hit.

KR-07. Illegal instruction executed. See Fax on demand Document #212

KR-08. Non-existent routine called.

KR-09. Bad handle passed to system. See Fax on demand Document #212

KR-10. Illegal segment passed to MoveBlock.

KR-18. Unable to swap in block.

KR-12 to KR-xx
The following error messages do not always require that you restart your computer. However, unless otherwise noted, try restarting your computer to solve the problem.

KR-12. Out of system resource handles. If you consistently get this error, go into Preferences, click on GEOS, and raise the number of handles to 3500.

KR-13. Cannot allocate required local memory.

KR-14. Error in [name]. Operation cannot be completed.

KR-15. Low on system resource handles. Please exit an application. Your computer is almost out of memory. Try exiting some applications and closing documents immediately. If you consistently get this error, go to the GEOS module of Preferences and raise the number of handles to 3500.

KR-16. Conventional memory (below 640KB) is full.

KR-17. Swap space is full. You may be low on disk space. Try exiting some applications and closing documents immediately. To make more disk space, try deleting some old files in your Document folder.

KR-20. GEOS.INI file is damaged. Restore it from a backup or delete it and reinstall the system software.

KR-21. Error restoring state. Please exit and restart the system.

KR-22. Error reading VM file. The document or application data file may be damaged. If you continue to get this error message after restarting your system, you may have to remove the application from your local folder and add it again from a library, or use data recovery software to salvage the data in your document.

KR-23. Cannot load a required system file (kernel). You may need to reinstall the system software.

KR-25. Cannot load a required system file (vidmem). You may need to reinstall the system software.

KR-26. Cannot load a required system file (keyboard). You may need to reinstall the system software.

KR-27. Cannot load a required system file (ui). You may need to reinstall the system software.

KR-28. Cannot find USERDATA\FONT folder. You may need to reinstall the system software.

KR-29. No valid font found in PUBDATA\FONT folder.

KR-30. Cannot load a required system file (sysfont). You may need to reinstall the system software.

KR-31. DOS version too old. You need DOS version 3.0 or higher. Your computer has an old version of DOS installed.

KR-32. Unable to register the disk containing the main system folder.

KR-33. File system driver for drive [name] not loaded.

KR-34. Unable to identify file system in use.

KR-35. The system is unable to exit. Please restart your computer.

KRX-xx. Undefined error in [name]. An error has been detected by this part of the program. The number is passed on from the detecting software.

Article#0423
Updated 07/04/93
Errors: Preference Options Error Messages (PR-xx)

These error messages are related to Preference settings that you have made.

PR-01. Unable to locate the requested video display hardware. Check that the video display hardware is powered on and the cable connections are secure. You may get this message if you are attempting to change the video options to a setting your hardware does not support.

PR-02. Unable to load a driver for the requested video display hardware. The driver is missing or damaged.

PR-03. No dictionaries found. The files may be missing or damaged.

PR-04. The printer is busy. The printer is probably switched off-line. Try switching it on-line.

PR-05. The entered data is incorrect. The form is month (mm) /day (dd) /year (yyyy).

PR-06. The entered data is incorrect. You must use an "am" or "pm" when requesting the 12-hour time format.

Article#0424
Updated 7/4/93
Errors: Printer Error Messages (SL-xx)

The SL error messages occur when you print documents. Often they indicate a temporary condition that you can correct.

The message listed here may differ slightly from the message on your computer screen. If the message includes specific information, such as a file name, this is indicated by a bracketed word. For example:

FM-06. You cannot copy or move [name] to one of its own folders.

On the computer screen, [name] is replaced by the actual name of the file or folder.

SL-01. The printer is not responding. Click OK to try printing again or Cancel to quit.

SL-02. The printer [name] is warming up.

SL-03. The printer is warming up.

SL-04. The printer [name] needs to be serviced.

SL-05. The printer needs to be serviced.

SL-06. Check the paper feed error on the printer [name]. Click OK to continue printing.

SL-07. Check the paper feed error on the printer. Click OK to continue printing.

SL-08. The printer [name] is not responding and may be off-line. Return the printer to on-line status and click OK to try again or Cancel to quit.

SL-09. The printer is not responding and may be off-line. Return the printer to on-line status and click OK to try again or Cancel to quit.

SL-10. The printer [name] is out of paper. Refill the paper tray and click OK to continue.

SL-11. The printer is out of paper. Refill the paper tray and click OK to continue.

SL-12. The printer [name] is out of toner. Replace the toner and click OK to continue.

SL-13. The printer is out of toner. Replace the toner and click OK to continue.

SL-14. The printer [name] is off-line. Switch the printer on-line and click OK to continue, or Cancel to quit.

SL-15. The printer is off-line. Switch the printer on-line and click OK to continue, or Cancel to quit.

SL-16. The printer [name] needs attention. Check the printer connections and make sure it is on-line. You may have to turn the printer off and then on again. When the printer is ready, click OK to resume printing or click Cancel to stop printing this document.

SL-17. The printer needs attention. Check the printer connections and make sure it is on-line. You may have to turn the printer off and then on again. When the printer is ready, click OK to resume printing or click Cancel to stop printing this document.

SL-18. The printer [name] on the [number] port is not responding. Check the printer connections and click OK to try again or Cancel to quit.

SL-19. The printer is not responding. Check the printer connections and click OK to try again or Cancel to quit.

SL-20. The spool file has been deleted. Please print the document again.

SL-21. Couldn't load the driver for printer [name]. Free up some memory by closing windows and applications you're not using. If you're still unable to print, the driver may have been deleted and you should try reinstalling the software.

SL-22. Couldn't load the printer driver. Free up some memory by closing windows and applications you're not using. If you're still unable to print, the driver may have been deleted and you should try reinstalling the software.

SL-23. Couldn't load the printer port driver. Free up some memory by closing windows and applications you're not using. If you're still unable to print, the driver may have been deleted and you should try reinstalling the software.

SL-24. No printers have been installed. Before you can print, you need to install the printer (or printers) you will be using.

SL-25. Printer [name] can't be used to print this type of file. The print mode (graphics or text) doesn't match. Try using another printer.

SL-26. The printer can't be used to print this type of file. The print mode (graphics or text) doesn't match. Try using another printer.

SL-27. There is not enough memory to print. Click OK to try again, or click Cancel to quit. You should close some windows or quit some applications to free up some memory before trying to print again.

SL-28. Couldn't print. The VIDMEM driver was not found and may have been deleted and you should try reinstalling the software.

SL-29. Couldn't print because the port is currently in use. Try again later.

SL-30. The printer is not responding. Check the printer connections and try again. If you're still unable to print, check the printer settings.

SL-31. The communications port for this printer is not working. Please select another port or make sure this port is working.

SL-32. The printer [printer name] needs attention. Your print job has been canceled. Check the printer connections and make sure it is on-line. You may have to turn the printer off and then on again. When the printer is ready, resubmit your job.

SL-33. The printer needs attention. Your print job has been canceled. Check the printer connections and make sure it is on-line. You may have to turn the printer off and then on again. When the printer is ready, resubmit your job.

SL-34. The disk containing the output file is full. You need more room on the disk to which you are trying to print. Try removing old files from your disk to make room, or try printing the file to another disk.

SL-35. A file system error occurred writing the output file. Try printing to a file again. Check that your disk is not full.

SL-36. The output file cannot be opened. You may be trying to overwrite a file that is write protected. Try using another file name, or try placing the file in another folder.

Article#0425
Updated 7/4/93
Errors: User Interface Error Messages (UI-xx)

Like operating system error messages, user interface error messages indicate a problem with the Ensemble control software, and are usually not recoverable. Restart your computer.

UI-01. The disk is too full to create the work area state file. Your hard disk is full. Delete some old files.

UI-02. Could not create state file. DOS or network error encountered.

UI-03. Unable to load the specific UI library file. You may need to re-install the software.

UI-04. Unable to open the clipboard file.

UI-05. Unable to allocate enough memory to collect pen input.

UI-06. Unable to load the Handwriting Recognition Library.

UI-07. Unable to load application.

UI-08. Unable to load print spooler. You may need to re-install the software.

UI-09. Unable to allocate undo space.

UI-12. There is not enough memory available to start this application. Free some memory by closing windows and applications you are not using. Then try again.

UI-13. The application could not be found. The file may be missing, or it may contain errors or be damaged. You may wish to re-install the software. Or, if you are attached to a network, there may be an error in the network configuration.

UI-14. An associated library file could not be found. The file may be missing, or it may contain errors or be damaged. You may wish to re-install the software. Or, if you are attached to a network, there may be an error in the network configuration.

UI-15. Could not read the disk. It may be damaged or unformatted. If this is a floppy drive, the door may not be closed or the disk may not be fully inserted. Or, if you are attached to a network, there may be an error in the network configuration.

UI-16. The application is incompatible with this version of the system software.
Applications written for version 1.x of Ensemble can't be used with version 2.0 of Ensemble.

UI-17. There is not enough room on the disk. You may want to move files not in use to another disk or delete unnecessary files.

UI-18. No working compatible video hardware found on this system. The video hardware on your computer is probably not compatible with Ensemble.

UI-19. Unable to locate the expected disk: The drive in which it was located no longer exists. If you are attached to a network, there may be an error in the network configuration or you may not be logged in properly.

UI-20. Unable to locate the expected disk: There is not enough memory to keep track of the disk. Close some windows or applications to free up memory, then try again.

UI-21. Unable to locate the expected disk: The drive in which the disk is located is otherwise occupied. You may wish to try again later.

UI-22. Unable to locate the expected disk: You are not connected to the appropriate server to which the disk belongs.

UI-23. Unable to locate the expected disk: You do not have permission to use the appropriate network disk volume.

UI-24. Unable to locate the expected disk: There is no free drive letter to which the network disk may be mapped.

UI-25. Unable to open the shared token database file using the path specified in the GEOS.INI. Restart your computer. You may need to re-install your software.

UI-26. Unable to open the local token database file in the PRIVDATA folder. Try deleting the file. Restart your computer. You may need to re-install your software.

UI-27. The shared token database file on the path specified in the GEOS.INI file is out of date and must be replaced. Restart your computer. You may need to re-install your software.

Article#0426
Updated 7/4/93
Scrapbook: Common Questions, Ensemble 2.0

Q. How do I scale graphics and clip art? I used to do that in Scrapbook, but "Copy at View %" isn't there now.

A. You can scale images in either GeoWrite or GeoDraw now. Just paste the Scrapbook page into GeoDraw and use the Scale option under the Transform menu. Or paste it into GeoWrite and resize it by dragging one of the handles on the graphic. If you hold the SHIFT key down while you're dragging, the graphic will scale in proportion.

Article#0427
Updated 07/04/93
GeoDraw: Common Questions, Ensemble 2.0

Q. How do I fuse and defuse objects?

A. Fuse and Defuse have been replaced by Group and Ungroup on the Arrange menu. Group and Ungroup work in ways to Fuse and Defuse. Note that Group and Ungroup are only available if you are at user level 2 or above.

Q. I moved an object off the screen. How do I get it back?

A. In Ensemble 2.0, it is possible to move graphic objects completely off the screen, because you no longer have to click on the object to drag it as you did in earlier versions. Now you can move any selected object by holding down the right mouse button and moving the mouse in any direction. If you drag an object too far in any direction, it will go off the screen and you will have to drag in the opposite direction to get it back. If you've already de-selected the object, choose Select All from the Edit menu. Then de-select all of the objects you can see, one at a time, by clicking on them while pressing the CTRL key. Now drag the mouse while holding the right mouse button. The remaining selected objects (which were off screen) will be moved back into view.

Article#0428
Updated 07/04/93
GeoWrite: Common Questions, Ensemble 2.0

Q. How do I set tabs?

A. Simply click on the ruler with the left mouse button. An arrow for a left-aligned tab will appear at the position you clicked on. To change the tab to a different alignment or to use other advanced tab features, double-click on the tab (or choose Tabs from the Paragraph menu). The Tab Attributes dialog box will appear, where you can set the attributes or position of any tab.

Q. How do I import an ASCII text file?

A. Choose New/Open from the File menu. Click on the Import button. In the Import File dialog box, select ASCII for file type. Select the directory path and filename in the File portion of the box, and click on Import to import the file.

Q. The INSert key isn't working anymore. How do I enable it?

A. Launch Preferences and click on the Look and Feel button. In the section headed Overstrike Mode, click on Via Insert key.

Q. What happened to Save As under the File menu?

A. This option is only available under user levels 3 and 4. Choose Change User Level. To make this the default user level whenever you enter the application, choose Save Configuration from the Options menu.

Article#0429
Updated 07/04/93
Import/Export: Common Questions, Ensemble 2.0

Q. Why does each application have different formats listed for import/export?

A. Some formats are only appropriate for one type of application. For example, GeoWrite is text-based, so it's difficult to export GeoWrite files in spreadsheet or graphics formats. You can always copy information from one application to another to expand your export options.

Q. Why won't some of my files import?

A.
1. The file may not be in a supported format.
2. Try selecting the specific file format instead of choosing Auto Detect.
3. Make sure the file has been saved in the application that generates files of that format (for example, if you think a file is in Word Perfect 5.1 format, open and save the file in Word Perfect 5.1).
4. If the import process seems to start, then just sits there, make sure you're allowing enough time for the import to complete. For large files, it's not unusual for the import to take half an hour.
5. If you receive a KR-09 error message in the middle of an import, launch Preferences, go into the GEOS section, and increase the Number of Handles to 2500 or 3000 and/or increase your Max File Size.

Q. How do I import a file?

A. Under the File menu, choose New/Open. Click on the Import button.

Q. How do I export a file?

A. Under the File menu, choose Other. From the Other menu, choose Export document.

Q. Why won't my Quattro Pro spreadsheets import into GeoCalc?

A. They need to be saved in WK1 or DBF format. This is an easy procedure that is explained in detail in both your Ensemble 2.0 and Quattro Pro manuals. Simply open the file in Quattro Pro and save it again using the WK1 or DBF file name extension. Once the file is in WK1 or DBF format, you can import it into Ensemble 2.0.

Article#0430
Updated 07/04/93
GeoFile: Common Questions

Q. How do I create a new database? All I can do is open an existing file or template.

A. You need to change to user level 3 or 4 before you can start a new GeoFile database.

Article#0431
Updated 07/04/93
Errors: File Manager Errors FM-53 to FM-129

File manager error messages often appear when you are working with items on the in GeoManager, such as the Wastebasket. In many cases, you can easily correct the problem and repeat the operation without further error.

The message listed here may differ slightly from the message on your computer screen. If the message includes specific information, such as a file name, this is indicated by a bracketed word. For example:

FM-06. You cannot copy or move [name] to one of its own folders.

On the computer screen, [name] is replaced by the actual name of the file or folder.

FM-53. The folder [name] is currently open and cannot be deleted. Close the folder and try deleting it again.

FM-54. This disk is write protected. Either remove the write protection tab (5.25-inch disks) or move the tab to the closed position (3.5-inch disks) and try the operation again.

FM-55. The requested drive does not exist. If you are using a network drive, try exiting Ensemble, restarting your computer, and repeating the operation.

FM-56. Could not find a formatted disk in the drive. Check that you have inserted a formatted disk into the drive and have closed the drive door. If the diskette is properly inserted and the disk drive door is closed, then you may need to format the diskette.

FM-57. A file or folder with the same name already exists. Use a different name for the new item.

FM-58. The disk format was unsuccessful. Check the disk and make sure that the drive door is closed.

FM-59, -60, -61, -62. The disk format was unsuccessful. Try again, though this disk may be damaged. If the formatting fails a second time, use another disk. If you often get this type of problem, you may have a set of faulty disks or your disk drive may need service.

FM-63. This disk contains a file or application that is currently in use. These items must be closed before the disk can be reformatted.

FM-64. This disk is write protected. Either remove the write protection tab (5.25-inch disks) or move the tab to the closed position (3.5-inch disks) to reformat the disk.

FM-65. There is not enough memory available to format the disk. Close windows and applications that you are not currently using before trying to format the disk.

FM-66. The disk format was unsuccessful. Try again, though this disk may be damaged.
If the formatting fails a second time, use another diskette. If you get this type of problem repeatedly, you may have a set of faulty disks or your diskette drive may need service.

FM-67. There is not enough memory available to copy the disk. Close windows and applications that you are not currently using before trying to copy the disk.

FM-68. The disk copy was unsuccessful. The source disk could not be read and may be damaged. Try opening the diskette icon to see if the documents and folders within are okay. If they are, try copying the items individually. If this is unsuccessful, your disk drive may be at fault; try repeating the operation on another computer. If the disk is damaged, you may be able to salvage data by using data recovery software.

FM-69. The disk copy was unsuccessful. The destination disk could not be written to. Try again using a different disk. Try again. If you get this type of problem repeatedly, you may have a set of faulty disks or your diskette drive may need service.

FM-70. The disk copy was unsuccessful. The destination disk may be damaged. Try again using a different disk.
Try again. If you get this type of problem repeatedly, you may have a set of faulty disks or your diskette drive may need service.

FM-71. The disk copy was unsuccessful. The destination disk contains a file or application that is currently in use. These items must be closed before you can copy over the disk.

FM-72. The disk copy was unsuccessful. The destination disk is write protected. To copy over this disk you must remove (or move) the write protection tab.

FM-73. The source and destination disks are incompatible. The destination disk cannot be formatted the same as the source disk. Try using the same drive and type of disk for both source and destination disks.

FM-74. The source disk does not appear to be formatted. Please check the disk and try again.

FM-76. First, you must select the item(s) you wish to open.

FM-77. First, you must select the item(s) you wish to remove.

FM-78. First, you must select the item(s) you wish to copy.

FM-79. First, you must select the items(s) you wish to distribute.

FM-80. Sorry, you cannot distribute this type of item. You can only distribute documents and document folders.

FM-85. First you must select the item(s) you wish to remove.

FM-90. You cannot add more than 50 items at one time.

FM-91. You cannot add that type of item to this folder.

FM-106. Could not delete or rename the folder [name]. It is a system folder.
You cannot delete or change the names of system folders.

FM-107. This drive cannot be accessed, there may be no disk in the drive or it may contain an unformatted disk.Place a formatted diskette in the drive, then try again. Or format the diskette in the drive.

FM-108. This name contains no visible characters, please choose again.

FM-109. The disk format has been canceled. This disk must be formatted again before it can be used. Try formatting the disk again.

FM-110. There is not enough memory available to format the disk. To free up some memory, close windows and applications that you are not currently using.

FM-111. The disk copy was unsuccessful. The destination disk may be damaged. Try again using a different disk.

FM-112. The disk copy has been canceled. The destination disk will need to be reformatted before it can be used again. Format the destination disk, then try the disk copy again.

FM-113. You must first select the item(s) you wish to recover. To recover items from the Wastebasket, you must first select the items you want to recover.

FM-129. There is not enough room on the destination disk to copy this file. Remove some files from the destination disk to make room, or try copying to another disk.

Article#0432
Updated 07/04/93

