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OvationPro

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Specification: 3 Word Processing

3.1 Typing Text

Ovation Pro provides responsive WYSIWYG word-processing, with word wrap, auto page insertion and auto page deletion. Caret movement is provided using the standard keys, and a keypress is provided to transpose mis-typed character pairs.

The link tool on the toolbox allows the order that text flows from frame to frame, to be defined.

The Insert menu allows the following special characters to be inserted at the caret. Most of these characters may also be inserted using special key presses.

Chapter number - Insert current chapter number.
Page number - Insert current page number.
Date - Insert the current date (format may be specified).
Active date - Insert the current date, which is automatically updated each time the document is loaded.
Time - Insert the current time (format may be specified).
New page - Start a new page.
New line - Start a new line.
Hard space - Insert a non-breaking space. Words separate by a hard space are not split over lines and the space is not expanded during justification.
Hard hyphen - Insert a non-breaking hyphen. Words separated by a hard hyphen are not split over lines.
Soft hyphen - Insert a soft hyphen that doesn't appear until it is neded to split a word at the end of a line. A soft hyphen at the start of a word prevents the words from being hyphenated by the automatic hyphenator.
Merge tag - Inserts the number of the field to be merged by the mail merge faciltity.

The Characters dialogue box allows characters normally not accessible from the keyboard, to be easily inserted. It displays all the characters in the current font, and clicking over any character inserts it at the caret. Characters from other fonts may easily be inserted, without changing the current font i.e. after inserting a character in a special font, further typing will be in the original font. The pointer shows the ASCII code for the character beneath the pointer. This allows the codes for commonly chosen symbols to be easily remembered so that they can be inserted directly from the numeric keypad using Alt.

The Single Shift Font facility allows you to switch to a pre-determined font for the insertion of a single character, and then return to the previous font. Typically the single shift font will be a dingbats-type font, which allows bullet symbols to be easily inserted into text.

3.2 Selecting Text

Text is selected by clicking and dragging over the required area. Alternatively, click Select at the start of the text, and then click Adjust at the end.

Single click - De-select text.
Double-click - Select word.
Triple-click - Select line.
4 clicks Select - Select paragraph.
5 clicks Select - Select entire story.

Options are also provided to select all the text in the text story or clear the selection from the text.

Ovation Pro supports overtyping, where selected text is overwritten by any text that is typed. This feature may be disabled if required.

3.3 Cut, Copy and Paste

You can move or copy selected text using the Cut, Copy and Paste options.

Cut - Delete the text and places it on the clipboard.
Copy - Copy the selected text to the clipboard.
Paste - Paste the text on the clipboard to the caret position.
Delete - Delete the selected text.

The contents of the clipboard may be viewed.

Note that if there is no selected text, Cut, Copy, Paste and Delete apply to other selected objects such as frames or pictures.

3.4 Drag & Drop

Instead of using Cut, Copy and Paste to move or copy selected text via the clipboard, you can use the drag and drop facility to do this directly. Using this facility, text can be moved or moved to another position in the same story, to another story, or even to another document. You can also drag and drop to another application such as Edit. In this case the text is exported as a plain ASCII file.

3.5 Find & Replace

The Find facility allows you to search a story or document for a string, and optionally replace it with another string. Options provided include:

Case sensitive - Control whether the search will match occurrences of the search string irrespective of it's upper/lower case format.
Whole word/ - Control whether the search will match occurrences of the search string bounded by other letters.
All stories - Determine whether the current story or all stories are searched.
Find from start - Enable the search to commence from the start of the story, ignoring the caret position.
Count - Count the number of occurrences of the search string.
Previous - Restore the previous search string.
Continue - Find the next occurrence of the search string without taking any other action.
Replace - Replace the found string with the replace string.
End of file - Replace all occurrences of the search string without further instructions.
Wildcards - Allows you to include the following wildcards and special characters in the find/replace strings: Any char, Any digit, Any alpha, Any string, Found string, New line, New para, Tab.



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