| ★ APPLICATIONS ★ BUREAUTIQUE ★ PENDOWN**L'ÉCRIVAIN ★ |
| L'écrivain (Amstrad Magazine) | Pendown (Amstrad Action) | Pendown (Computing with the Amstrad) |
Logotron is probably best known (or its dealings with the BBC Micro supplying schools with the popular Logo graphical language. It has now made a logical step to produce a 'child-centred word-processing environment for junior, middlo and infant schools.' which look set to put Logotron on the map. and provide an invaluable aid a learning both at school and at home. Many word-processors are designed for professional typist intending to create lengthy documents. The printed copy, in generic bears little relation to the text displayed on screen. This happen bccauso control codes are normally embedded within the text powerful tools in expert hands but rather daunting for the beginner Because Pendown dispenses with such problems, making easy to explore possible layouts on screen, it is ideal for both your children and the novice computer user. Pendown is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get system. (TM acronym for that is WYSIWYG, which some people try to pronounce as 'wzzywig.') In other words what you see on screen will be see to the printer. The only unfortunate exception in Pendown is the different fonts - bold, expanded, etc - are not shown on screen Pendown's screen shows 10 detailed pictures - 'icons'- at the bottom. Each icon corresponds to a function key. calling routine for disk management and text handling. The top of the screen reserved for system information; cursor position and page width length and number. Between the information box and the icons is the page are. A page can bo anywhere from 1 to 255 lines in longth: its width can be 1 to 80 characters. You can define up to 255 pages - but if you have 255 pagos. they can have only one line each! A compromised must obviously be made. As most people use A4 paper as sing sheets in their printers, a usoful page length would be 77. Of cours there are not enough lines on the Amstrad monitor to show all the lines of a pago; if you wish to see another area of a page, just move the cursor to the bottom or top of the text window and the new section will flick into view. The first icon, which looks like the nib of a fountain pen represents the writing menu. From hero you can choose page width page lengih. tab stops, mode (that is 40 or 80 columns), search-and-replace and justification. Search-and-replace is restricted to complete words. Parts a word cannot be altered using this system. Otherwise if you wished to alter is to was. for instance, there would be cases where this would turn into thwas. causing confusion to the beginner. A disk is depicted by the next icon: the disk filing menu. Options include cataloguing the disk, switching between drives, saving, loading and erasing files. To choose an option is simple: just move the cursor. When the function you want is highlighted, press the Enter or Return key.
Printing is a joy. All options come under the icon appropriately displaying a printer. You can print a single page or several pages of text, normal or double spaced. The option 'Epson-special'gives a choice of character sets: Moderna, Jumcomp, Jumbo, Horizon, Gothic and Chunky. You must be careful not to try to put too many of these characters on a line, for they are much larger - they also take twice as long to print. The results are good though. The fourth icon gives an interesting and very handy option: the dictionary menu. It is not a spelling checker nor does ii provide definitions of words. It lists words - alphabetically or in groups selected or organised by you. Any number of dictionaries arc possible , each with up to 850 words. Words can bo added or deleted. A child can easily look up a word and go back to his or her text, but has to remember the spelling and type it in himself. For help, choose the icon showing a question-mark. One choice is 'help on help,' which provides a step-by-step guide to producing your own Help file. Or you may want to know how to create a dictionary. When you cut or copy text it is stored in a 'bin' - a part of the computer's memory. The contents of a bin can then bo incorporated into your text at any time. Up to 50 lines of text can bo hold at a time - roughly equivalent to 350 words. Choose the icon displaying a couple of bins to empty the contents. Or you can rummage through their contents. The next icon is a pair of scissors. To cut out (delete) a word or block of words, put the cursor somewhere on the first word. Press the scissors key and the word becomes highlighted. Move the cursor to the right and further words are highlighted. Finally press Delete to delete the highlighted block. Or to copy them to another position, press Return to indicate the end of the block, then move the cursor to where you want it and press Copy. To centre text, place the cursor on the required line. A quick press of the icon showing two arrows facing each other, and it's done. Another fairly useful icon is case change. If a letter is in upper-case (a capital letter), this function key will change it to lower-case - or vice-versa. The final icon is the Planner. Us function is to lay out in tree-structure form a plan of how an article or essay could be written. It's a pre-writing facility. Say you wished to write an article on "People". Using Planner, you begin with the title. From there you branch out. for example, families, friends, personalities. The next branching from families could be immediate family, relatives and so on. Planner is an excellent way to expand your ideas and is an invaluable teaching aid. As if there weren't enough to Pendown already. Logotron has included utility programs on the disk. They include a dictionary editor, help-file editor and font editor. The last of these is of tremendous use if you wish to create new character sets to send to the printer. Pendown is aimed at the young or inexperienced word-processor user and it manages it very well. The manual is a well-written A4 booklet. Many of the 'grown up' programs could learn a thing or two about clear, concise presentation. There is nothing to match Pendown's ease of use. Its features put many standard word-processors to shame. If you have yet to use a word-processor, make it a happy experience and use Pendown. AA, AMSTRAD ACTION #18 |
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