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FAQS!
FACTS! FAX! 175 (19/08/99)
PERPLEXING
PRINT
Using a PC with Windows 95 and another with Windows 98,
neither I nor the owner of the other PC can work out how to get a print out of
what's on the screen. The Windows Help on both PCs say 'To copy an image of the
window that is currently active, press Alt + Print Screen… to copy an image of
the entire screen press Print Screen'.
I tried this on both PCs with no response, not even a warning bell or
slapped wrist. As Print Screen shares a key with 'SysRq' I presume one is used
with the Shift key but I have tried every permutation of Print Screen, Alt and
Shift without success, and yes the printer was connected, loaded and switched
on.
G.
S. Birtles, Elloughton
A
The
Print Screen command key is a hangover from days gone by and a little
misleading, however if you look closely at those Help file instructions you'll
notice the word 'copy'. When you press Print Screen or Alt + Print Screen keys
the image on the screen is 'grabbed' or copied to the Windows Clipboard. From
there it can be pasted into an application and printed. For example, after
pressing Print Screen (or Alt + Print Screen) open Windows Paint (Start >
Programs > Accessories), or your chosen graphics/paint program, go to Paste
on the Edit menu (or press Ctrl + V) and the image will appear. The Clipboard
is available to all Windows applications, so after copying the screen you could
paste the image into an open word processor document using the Paste icon or
the use the Ctrl + V keyboard shortcut.
CONFIG
CONFUSION
Re 'Go to Run on Start Menu and type msconfig' (Tip of the week, Boot Camp
Thursday August 5th). Help! I have no msconfig file on my PC. How do I go about
finding where it may be? My Defrag and Scandisk both 'hang' when they get to 10 or 40 per cent.
Jenny Crawley
A
We
should have mentioned that the msconfig is a Windows 98 troubleshooting utility
and is not included in earlier versions of Windows, apologies for the
confusion. When Defrag and Scandisk hang it's usually because there's a program
running in the background, like a screensaver or virus scanner. Use the Close
Program menu (press Ctrl + Alt + Delete once) to exit all programs except
Windows Explorer and try again. Alternatively start your PC in Safe Mode (press
F8 after the boot-up message) and try running Defrag or Scandisk from there.
Scandisk will also run from an MS DOS prompt, you can get to it from the Safe
Mode menu or restart your PC in MS DOS mode from the Windows shut down menu.
It
is possible to manually configure Windows 95 for a 'clean boot' like Win 98
msconfig but it involves a lot of messing around, editing start up files and
the Registry. If you want to know more there's a detailed how-to-do-it guide on
the Microsoft web site at the following address: http://support.microsoft.com/support/
kb/articles/q177/6/04.asp
EASY
INDEX
Can
you tell me where I can find a concordance macro for Word 97? I have searched
for a long time for one but with no success. I read reports in user groups that
Word Perfect users have something similar available, but
that doesn't help me.
Alan Crease, High Wycombe
A
Word
97 has a facility to create a concordance file, for the purposes of indexing a
document. You will find full instructions in Word Help, type 'concordance' in
the search field on the Find or Index tabs and follow the links.
DATE
DELETE
Our
office uses MS Word 97. My query is how do I get rid of the infuriating date
and time boxes that appear on screen anytime you use a number, day, date etc,
or to stop the system immediately inserting 'th','st', after said numbers?
I've checked the Help directory but cannot find anything relating to this.
S.Y
A
Those
little boxes are called AutoComplete Tips, they can be switched off by going to
the Tools menu and clicking on AutoCorrect, select the AutoText tab and uncheck
the box at the top 'Show AutoComplete tip for AutoText and Dates'. You can stop word inserting superscript date
ordinals (th, st etc.) by deselecting the option on the AutoFormat as you Type
tab.
BREAKING
THE RECORD
I
have a tape recording of an interview that my wife gave some years before she died and I wish to incorporate this in a Family history that I am preparing
using the Family Tree program. I have had some success using Windows Sound
Recorder, picking up the sound via a microphone placed in front of the tape
recorder. The sound quality is very good but I find that I am limited to a
one-minute recording onto the computer. Is there any way that I can increase
this time or is there another method that I can use?
Edward Charleson
A
There
is a way of increasing the duration of a Sound Recorder file. Disconnect the
microphone and make a blank 60-second recording. When it has finished go to the
File menu, choose Save As and call the file 'blank.wav' then go to the Edit
menu, click on Insert File and select 'blank.wav'; repeat as often as necessary
to build up the size of the file in on minute increments. You can improve the
quality of your recordings by using the 'line in' connection on your soundcard,
connecting it to the 'line out' (or headphone socket) on your tape recorder via
a suitable cable. Adjust the levels from Volume Control on the View menu on the
CD Player utility in Accessories. As you have discovered Sound Recorder is
quite basic; if you would like to try something a little more sophisticated
have a look at what's available from shareware libraries like www.tucows.com and www.download.com using the search keywords
'sound recorders'.
WELSH
ACCENTS
I
know that the Boot Camp article (August 5th) was supposed to stem the tide of
letters to F!F!F! about symbols and accents in Word, but it didn't really
address one query dear to the hearts of many of those living to the West of
Offa's Dyke, and that is the question of the W and Y circumflexes used in the
Welsh language. Microsoft has provided a solution for the two most common
fonts. Accented characters can be found in the Times New Roman Special G2 and
Arial Special G2 fonts, but is there a way of getting these accents in other
fonts? It used to be easy with WordPerfect for DOS (before the days of True
Type fonts), using the Compose facility (where any accent could be added to any
letter, whether it made sense or not), but Word seems a backward step in this
respect.
Mike Winson
A
The
Welsh Language Board web site has some useful information about fonts that
include the W and Y circumflex and links for downloading updated fonts:
http://www.netwales.co.uk/byig/word8s.htm
There's
a big site devoted to Celtic and Gaelic fonts at McGill University (Canada):
http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/5a1b4c/celtic.html
The
problem of using Welsh accented characters in Internet documents and email is
dealt with on a Cardiff University site:
http://www.caerdydd.ac.uk/uwcc/comp/
cormack/welsh/example/characters.html
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