FAQS! FACTS! FAX!  367 (03/06/03)

Q

I sometimes have occasion to write or quote short passages in Arabic and Farsi. Almost all the characters I need are included in the symbols table in Word, and it does not take long to compose a short passage.  However, both languages are read and written from right to left, and it seems ridiculous, to achieve the text one wants, to have to start with a full stop and then spell every word backwards until one reaches the beginning of a sentence! Is there any way in which Word can be made, so to speak, to work backwards?

Landon Barek

A

For short documents and emails the simplest solution is to enable Word’s reverse typing or ‘RTL’ (right to left) mode. To put a pair of RTL and LTR icons on the toolbar right-click into an empty area of the toolbar, select Customize and the Commands tab. Scroll down the Categories list and highlight All Commands then in the right hand Commands window scroll down the list to ‘Ltr para’ and drag and drop it onto the toolbar. Repeat the procedure for Rtl para. Clicking on the RTL button will reverse the direction of text entry, LTR returns it to normal.

For longer documents you should install multi-lingual support for your chosen languages or consider using a specialised word processor, like GlobalWriter, more details at: http://www.zem.co.uk/mlsoft/globwrit.htm

Q

When friends and family send me photos as attachments, the photo nearly always appears in the body of the e-mail when it is opened, even before opening the attachment (where it also exists, of course). They tell me that this often happens to them also but nobody can shed light on it.

David Evans

A

Attached images ‘previewing’ in an email can be prevented by the sender switching Outlook Express to plain text formatting. This can be done on a message-by-message basis by going to the Format menu on a New Message window and selecting Plain Text, or globally, by going to OE’s Tools menu, select Options then the Send tab. Under Mail Sending Format click the HTML Settings button and deselect ‘Send Pictures with messages’, then OK.

Q

After losing all my work due to a faulty hard drive, I now have two hard drives installed. Each hard drive is partitioned so that on hard drive 1 'C' contains Windows and all other installed software, and 'D' contains all my work. Hard drive 2, 'E' is a copy of 'C' (Windows & programs) and 'F' is a copy of 'D' (all my work). I can easily backup my work from 'D' to 'F' by merely copying it across in explorer, however I am stuck as I don't know how to copy Windows and all other software across from 'C' to 'E', presuming that I cannot just copy and paste.  When the two hard drives were installed the engineer used 'Ghost' to copy the image from 'C' to 'E', however this wasn't done in Windows, and looked very complicated. Is there an easy way, or can you recommend simple software to copy the image across, as I now have far more programs installed on 'C' drive, leaving the 'backup on 'E' totally out of date. (I am running Windows 2000 professional)

Cathy Turner

A

You’re right you can’t just copy and paste Windows and your programs from the hard disc to another drive. ‘Mirroring’ is actually quite a tricky business, particularly whilst Windows is running as the data is constantly changing, which is why until recently most drive ‘image’ programs ran in DOS mode. However, the latest version of Norton Ghost and several other programs, including Casper XP (www.fssdev.com/products/casperxp) and Acronis TrueImage (www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/), operate in Windows.

Q

Could please offer some advice concerning the Start Menu in Windows 2000 Professional?  What I want to do is "turn off" the vertical contractions of the menu items, so that they will always be expanded. I don't know what term Microsoft uses for these vertically expandable menu items, but it would be great to get rid of them

Mike Quentel

A

I presume that you’re referring to Win 2k’s ‘Personalized Menus’, which annoy a lot of users. You can switch it off by going to the Start button and selecting Settings then Taskbar & Start Menu, deselect ‘ Use Personalized Menus’ and click OK.

Q

I use Lotus WordPro with Windows XP. Recently, when I type a document, every time I type the word "to" it changes into  "ut".  I then have to go to Edit and Find & Replace Text to replace the entries. I can't find the cause; can you help?

R.A.Everett

A

This is the work of WordPro’s SmartCorrect feature, which at some point – probably during a spell check -- has been inadvertently told to make the change. To view, edit and delete entries go to SmartCorrect on the Edit menu

Q

The previously wonderful Outlook Express is driving me mad ever since I changed my operating system to XP Professional. Every time I receive an email with an attachment OE refuses to let me see it with the following message: - "OE removed access to the following unsafe attachments in your mail".

Mike Scurr

A

This can also happen if you’ve recently upgraded to IE6 or installed XP Service Pack 1. In both cases Outlook Express's defences are automatically upgraded to stop it downloading of potentially dangerous attachments. To get it back to normal go to the Tools menu then Options and select the Security tab. Uncheck the item 'Do not allow Attachments to be saved or opened....' and click OK.

Q

I have played a number of DVDs on my PC over the last 12 months (as have our resident teenagers…) but recently one of us changed the settings to play an American disc and now the player will not convert back to UK settings. When we try, it tells us that we have used up the available 'transfers', and it now seems to be locked.  Is there any way of re-setting it?  It continues to read CD-ROMs and Audio CDs with no problem. The DVD-ROM is a BDV212B according to the device driver.

John Anderson

A

Most DVD-ROM drives made since 2000 allow you to change the Region Code a few times but eventually they lock up and cannot be ‘hacked’ or altered using separate programs. However, if you’re reasonably PC savvy and don’t mind taking a chance then it may be possible to apply a firmware ‘patch’, which alters the drive’s control software. If it goes wrong the drive may be rendered useless, so be warned. You’ll find a link to the patch for your particular drive and some helpful information at: http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_firmware.

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