FAQS! FACTS! FAX! 149 (18/02/99)

IT'S ALL GREEK…

I have two questions relating to Windows 98 and MS Word. The Find and Replace facility would be more useful if it could be used to correct and replace symbols, Greek letters or other characters included in the Symbols tariff. Can this be done?

How can I obtain the soft and hard breathings and other diacritics used in classical Greek, but not included in the Modern Greek alphabet under Symbols?

Dr D. B. Baker, Ewell, Surrey

A

Find and Replace works with any character or symbol. Simply copy and paste the symbol (highlight and press Ctrl + C to copy, Ctrl + V to paste) from your document into the Find field, and type or copy and paste the symbol or character you want to substitute into the Replace With box.

There are several web sites on the Internet dealing with the tricky subject of classical and Modern Greek accents, with downloadable fonts, templates macros try:

http://www.classics.ox.ac.uk/software/

oldgreekmacropage.html

http://www.isr.umd.edu/~kanlis/

Greek/Font/stressin.htm

http://www.doctor-flynn.demon.co.uk/accents.htm

MESSY PETS

Like many PC owners, I have a machine that has grown rather like the woodsman's axe - there are a few original components, but not many.  It started life as a 386 and is now a 200 MHz Pentium with 128Mb of RAM. I can't therefore go to a manufacturer with this little problem.

Several times now, usually when the machine has been running for an hour or more, it has re-booted itself.  I was standing in front of it when it happened last - a brief crackle in the speakers and a re-set.  (That button isn't actually wired up).  It has done this quite arbitrarily, either with a Petz program running, with a screensaver, or with the Windows 95 desktop on the screen and nothing at all running. It has never happened when I have been working at the keyboard.

I have had a good firm prod at all connections and am satisfied that the processor cooling fan and the PSU fan are both working well, so that overheating is not suspected.  Can you throw any light on this, please? 

 R. M. Stephens

A

It doesn't sound like a hardware fault, the fact that the crash and restart doesn't happen when your are working suggests there could be a problem with the screensaver or the Petz program. Remove them from your system or reduce the screensaver's delay time to a minute, and see if that triggers the reset.

MISSING MODEM?

In F!F!F! January 28th you showed how to tell if a PC was fitted with a microphone. Can you do a similar sort of thing; this time to let me know how to check whether or not my PC has a modem? It is a Dell 486 with Windows 95.

Margot Booth, Broxbourne, Herts

A

If your PC has an internal modem you will see one or two American-style phone sockets on the back panel, they're smaller and squarer than the normal BT phone socket and similar to the type used on the back of most fax and telephone answering machines. A modem should also show up in Modems in Control Panel (Start > Settings) or Windows System Properties, right click on My Computer and select Properties, click the Device Properties tab and double click the modem icon, if one is fitted and properly installed it will tell you.  

VULGAR TYPE

I have Windows 98 with MS Word. How do I write vulgar fractions, such as 3/16, etc. or any other figure, but written with a horizontal dividing line, with the enumerator above and the dividend below? According to Help I should key in Ctrl \F, but that gets Find.

T. Rowntree, Soberton, Hants

A

Help isn't very helpful in this case, what it is describing is an equation field code, but it doesn't go into enough detail. There is an easy way however, and that is to go to the Insert drop-down menu and select Field, in the Categories Window click on Equations and Formulas and in the Field Names window highlight EQ. In the Field Code window the letters EQ appear, insert a cursor after the letters and type: '\f(a,b)' (leaving out the inverted commas) where the letters 'a' and 'b' represent the enumerator and dividend respectively, and don't forget the comma. Click OK and the fraction will be inserted into the document. You can reduce the size using the typeface commands on the Formatting toolbar.

SPELL BINDING

With regard to Peter Reiss' problem with spell checking in MS Outlook (F!F!F! February 4th), there is an excellent freeware spell checker in existence called Spell Checker for Edit Boxes.  Although intended primarily for Text Editors, it

works just as well in word processors, PIMs and the like and has the added benefit of being British in design with an excellent English dictionary. I would suggest this as an answer to any spell checking problems as it is completely free to single users.

Clive Allen

A

Thanks for that useful tip, Spell Checker for Edit Boxes is available from a number of shareware sites on the web, including: www.tucows.com and http://clever.net/mqa/spell.htm

TWO OF A KIND

I believe I may have some duplicate files on my hard drive but don't necessarily know the names. Is there an easy way I can search for these files in

order to delete the unwanted duplicates? I am currently using Windows 98.

James Berlis

A

There are hundreds possibly thousands of duplicate files on your PC, most of them taking up valuable hard disc space. The easiest way to hunt them down is with a general housekeeping program such as CleanSweep or a specialist utility like Dupeless. This checks the name, size, date and even the contents of duplicate files to help you decide whether or not to send the copies to the Recycle Bin (leave them there for a few days, just in case!). A fully functioning shareware version is available and this can be downloaded from:

http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/pctech/

content/17/07/ut1707.001.html

BACK IN CONTROL

I aim to make regular back-ups of data files in case of an unexpected disaster on my hard disk. My Internet Explorer Address Book is now quite extensive and to lose the data would be very disruptive but I cannot find the file that is used for the data. I've tried to print the screen to make a paper copy but can't seem to do that either.

Steve Parfitt

A

Address Book files have the extension .wab, you can track yours down using Find in the Start menu. Type *.wab in the Named field, it will either have your user name or be called userMPS.wab. When it appears right-click on the file and use the Send To command to back it up to floppy, or chosen storage media.