From
the editor's desk
Well, the last five months have been a
challenge and an interesting experience. I have to thank Trevor for
giving me the opportunity, and now hand control back to him for at
least the next three months. I traditionally escape the rigours of
winter in Canberra by hibernating in Queensland with family. Life up
there is different and I will certainly not have the computer freedom I
have here, nor access to ADSL that I have become accustomed to. At the
end of that sojourn I will have withdrawal symptoms and be glad to get
back into the routine here. Meanwhile, I will be providing Trevor with
articles, comments and reviews to the best of my ability.
There has been considerable discussion, and many work hours, put into
resolving the issue of a printed version of this magazine. The
resolution is that there will not be an official printed version.
The PDF file in each magazine lends itself to printing, now that I have
mastered some of the irregularities and eliminated excessive borders
and unnecessary headers. PDF is the world de facto standard for
archiving documents. It preserves the fonts, layout, images and colour
of the original document in a substantially smaller file. This takes up
less storage space and is readable on every computer in the world that
has a free PDF reader installed, regardless of make or model. The
current version of this reader is Adobe Reader 7.0 available from here.
In creating the PDF file I have to convert the HTML documents and
append them in a long list within one file. Each document retains its
own page numbering and there is no way to provide continuous page
numbering from beginning to end of the finished file.
You should simply print this file to your printer without changing any
printer settings.
Advanced
users please skip this next paragraph. But I know there are readers out
there who need to have it spelled out.
If, when they are printed in whatever mode the
printer is currently set at, the pages stack up in reverse order
- back to front with first on the bottom, last on top - then you will
need to simply reorder the pages. Printing order will depend on the
default settings of each printer.
To overcome this problem you should set the printer to PRINT IN REVERSE
ORDER through the printer options, which will put page one on top and
the last page on the bottom of the stack. Pick up the stack and staple
or clip it to keep order
If the pages do get out of order then remember that each article has
its
title in the top left corner, and reordering them should be no trouble.
We are a group of Users Helping Users, so if you do not own a
printer please ask your family or friends to help. Failing that, we
have facilities at the PCUG Centre in Holder for printing. It has
FinePrint and PDFfactory drivers installed.
My homepage with its articles on computing has turned full circle and
is back on the PCUG website
where it started. I am not a subscriber to TIP and am therefore on the
E-mail Only Plan, but I had not realised until recently that I am
provided with ample space there to accommodate my homepage. I hope it
serves its purpose.