------------------------ Welcome to Label--Design ------------------------ Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 1992 Alan Scully and Struan Bartlett. Program written by Alan Scully and Struan Bartlett. Manual written by Alan Scully. All rights reserved. It is illegal to reproduce or transmit either this manual or the accompanying computer program in any form without written permission of the copyright holders. Copying of the original disc is permitted only to make a security backup copy. Software piracy is theft. The only exceptions to this are the following files which are public domain. No charge was made for these files: All .FNT files, All .CUT files, PRINT.BIN (written by David Wild), CUTOUT.BIN Before You Start! The above copyright notice allows purchasers of this program to keep a security backup. It is advisable to make this backup before using the program for the first time. Backups can be made from CP/M, see the user guide for details. Once a backup has been made, store the original in a safe place. Use the backup, making sure the disc is not write protected. Label-Design can be run from drive B if required. Using The Program 3" Labels Take a look at the screen after the loading screen has disappeared. The left hand side of the screen shows a rectangle, this is the blank label to design on. The black square at the top left hand corner is the cursor. The right hand side of the screen shows the menu for designing the labels. This is the design screen for 3" labels. Moving The Cursor The first option is ARROWS - Move Cursor. This means that to move the cursor you press the keys with arrows marked on them. There should be four of them at the right hand side of the keyboard (do not include the arrow key next to the CLR button). Since 3" discs have two sides, the bottom half of the label is upside down. Therefore, when working with 3" labels, each half of the label has 10 lines plus half of the spine line. For reference purposes imagine the lines numbered 1 to 10, with the half spine called SPINE A. To edit the bottom half of the label use the: I - INVERT LABEL, command (see later). So, each side of the label is made up from 10 lines and half a spine. The 10 lines can have 38 text characters on them, however since the spine for each side shares the same line, each spine can only have 18 text characters. You'll notice that when you press the UP arrow key on line one, the cursor will move to the spine. Similarly when you press then DOWN arrow key while on the spine, the cursor will move to line one. This is called wraparound. Notice also that if the cursor is on line 10 and you press the DOWN arrow key then the cursor will move to SPINE A. If you then press the UP arrow key the cursor will move back to line 10. You will see there is a gap between line 10 and the spine line, this is to allow the label to be easily folded around the disc. Wraparound is also used when moving the cursor left and right. When you press the left arrow and the cursor is at the left hand side of the label then cursor appears at the right hand side of the label (if on the spine, the cursor appears in the middle of the label, where the spine line ends for that side). Similarly if you press the right arrow when the cursor is at the right hand side of the label (if on the spine, then at the end of the spine line for that side), the cursor appears at the left hand side of the label. Finally, holding the SHIFT key while pressing the arrow key moves the cursor to the extreme of the key pressed. eg. Pressing SHIFT and the UP arrow takes the cursor to the top of the label, ie line one (notice wraparound will occur if the UP arrow is then pressed). Adding Text The next menu option is <T> - Add Text. This is selected by pressing T (the character in the brackets). You may notice that the <T> has angled brackets around it, and all the other options (except ARROWS which is more of a reminder than an option) have circular () brackets around them. This means that T is the default option and can be selected by pressing ENTER (default options are common practise on 16-bit and 32-bit machines). Therefore Add Text can be selected by pressing ENTER or pressing T. Upon selecting Add Text, you are presented with a request to enter your text. On screen this appears at the bottom right. The : . and ! characters directly below the words Enter your text are used to tell you how many text characters you can type. If the black square passes the last : . or ! then your text will be shortened to fit. If you are going to place the text at the cursor position, the ! character tells you how many text characters you can type. If the black square passes the ! and you place text at the cursor position then the text will be shortened to fit. If you decide you don't wish to add text after all then pressing ENTER without typing anything else cancels the Add Text option. If however you type something, say Let Metal Men Rust, then you are asked whether the text should be added as (D)ouble Height or <S>ingle Height. Here S is in angled brackets and so is default (can be chosen by pressing ENTER). On lines 10 and the spine line, only an option for single height is given (so the text doesn't overflow onto the other side of the label or the spine). After selecting the text size you are then asked where the text should be placed. (M)iddle automatically centres the text on the label line the cursor is on. (L)eft places the text starting at the left of the label on the current line. (R)ight places the text as far right as it will fit on the current line (ie the last character is at the right of the label). <C>ursor is the default option and places the text at the cursor position. Pressing the letter in the brackets selects the required option, or you can press ENTER to select cursor. Notice that when entering your text, whatever you type will appear on the label, and while you type it, in the current font. When the program is loaded this is the standard Amstrad font, however others are supplied on the disc (see later for loading details). Erasing There are three ways to erase from the label. The most drastic is (CTRL/E) - Erase Upper Half. To select this, hold the CONTROL key (or CTRL on some keyboards) and press E. Basically this erases lines 1 to 10 and the spine for the side, that is, the top half of the label. Upon selecting this you are given a warning prompt: Are you sure? (Y) <N>. If you want to erase the top half then press Y, otherwise press N or press ENTER (here N is the default). Slightly less drastic is: (E) - Erase Line. As you may have guessed this erases the line that the cursor is on. Again you are given a warning prompt, as above. Finally: (SPACE) - Erase Under Cursor, erases whatever is under the cursor and moves the cursor one character position to the right. No warning prompt is given with this option. Outline Toggle Selecting this (press O) for the first time removes the box around the label. Selecting again redraws the box. This may seem useless but the outline can help when designing a label and aligning the printer, but you may not want it on the finished label. Changing Side Since there is two sides to a 3" disc, the bottom half of the label will be upside down on screen. Therefore to edit the lower part of the label use the option (I) - Invert Label. This rotates the label by 180 degrees and so side B can be edited. Mirror Image There may be some instances where you want both sides of a 3" disc to have exactly the same, or similar, designs. The option (M) - Mirror provides a way of doing this. Basically, the top half of the label is mirrored onto the bottom half. A warning prompt is given. Graphics This is where Label--Design really scores, especially since Label--Design is the only program of its kind to offer import of clip art. Label--Design is compatible with two DTP clip-art standards. The first and most popular is: (A) - Load Stop Press Art. Selecting this provides a list of the Stop Press art on the disc (several pieces of art are supplied as standard). Type the name of the art you require, or press TAB to load the indicated file, usually the last piece of art loaded. (Note that when first run, TAB will select UNTITLED.CUT which is not supplied on the disc). See notes on disc accessing. After typing the name of art required, it will be loaded from disc and placed on the label with the top left corner at the cursor position. At this stage, don't worry if the image looks slightly corrupt. You will then be asked whether you are sure. If not the art is removed (this was the reason for the initial corruption, so the art could be removed), otherwise the art is redrawn without corruption. Note that if the art is too wide and goes off the right hand side of the label it will be cut to size. Similarly if the art tries to draw past line 10 then it will be cut to size. The other clip art option is: (C) - Load PMD Clips. Again when you select this you are given a list of the Pagemaker Deluxe (PMD) clips on the disc. Type the name of the one you want. Because the routine for loading PMD clips is slower than for Stop Press art, the clips are loaded in a slightly different way. Firstly a box is drawn indicating the size of the clip (if any part of the box is outside the label or on the bottom half of the label then this indicated how much of the clip will be lost). You are then asked if the position is ok. If not then the command is cancelled and you return to the menu. If you decide to continue then you are asked whether you want to import the clip by: <X>or or (T)ransparent. Don't worry if you do not understand what either of these mean. (T)ransparent produces the same result as importing Stop Press art would, and looks best. <X>or is the default option because it allows the art to be removed. To do so reload the art again in the same position. If the <X>or clip looks corrupt, but is in the correct position, then reload the same art again using (T)ransparent (to remove corruption). Although the procedure for PMD clips is sounds more complicated, it isn't really, and will probably be rarely used. One PMD clip is provide on the disc to practise with. Changing Font There will be many circumstances where you want a different font from the Amstrad one on your labels. No problem! Over 20 are supplied on the disc and any designed in the Advanced Art Studio can be used. To load a font use the option (F) - Load Font. Selecting it gives a list of fonts on the disc and requests the name of a font to load. Again ENTER quits, while pressing TAB reloads the current font (ie. the last font loaded). After loading a font it may appear that the font loaded is still the Amstrad font. This is because the menu and prompts etc are always shown on screen in the Amstrad font (some fonts can look good when printed but are almost unreadable on screen). However when you add text to the label it will appear as you type it in the loaded font, and will be printed to the label in the loaded font. Loading and Saving Saving is performed by (S) - Save Label. Labels are saved in standard mode 2 17K format to allow loading into art packages. The label size (eg 3", 3.5", etc) is automatically saved with the label (in screen byte &FFFF, which doesn't actually appear on screen!). Selecting save presents you with a list of files on the disc, and requests a filename. As ever when a filename is requested, pressing ENTER quits. Pressing TAB saves the label under the filename last used for loading or saving. (L) - Load Label, as you've probably guessed, loads a label. Again you are presented with a list of files on the disc and a filename is requested. Any 17K screen file can be specified, whether designed using Label--Design or not, & so labels can be designed in an art package and printed in Label--Design. The screen for the label is then loaded. If the label was previously saved in Label--Design then the program will automatically work out the label size and switch editing to that label size. If the label was not designed in Label-- Design then you will be asked what size the label is (notice that ENTER cannot be used to quit). If you do wish to use an art package to design a label then it is best to save a template (ie blank label) & use that to design the label. This has two advantages. Firstly the program can determine the size of the label automatically. Secondly you'll know the boundaries of the label and can stay within them. The program only clears enough of the screen for the menu, so assumes that the label stays within its boundary. If it doesn't then the screen can look terrible, and the label not print properly. Printing Once you've finished editing the label, you'll probably want to print it. The option: (CTRL/P) - Print, is selected by holding the CONTROL key (or CTRL on some keyboards) and pressing P. Upon selection you are requested to type the number of copies. You have three choices. Firstly you can press the TAB key if you only want one copy (you are reminded of this on screen). Or you may decide you no longer want to print, in this case press ENTER. Finally, you can type the number of copies you require, anything from one copy to hundreds. Next you are asked the question: <D>raft or (Q)uality?. Here draft is the default option. Draft print is faster than quality and should be adequate for most needs (it is interesting to note that the only other commercial label maker provides only a draft option). Quality takes exactly twice a long to print, but the result is twice as good. On some printers, Quality print may not work. This is due to such printers not being fully Epson compatible. Most printers, however, should work properly. It is a good idea, when lining up the labels, to use a blank label with the outline showing, thus not wasting printer ribbon. There is no hard and fast rule for lining up labels but although diffucult at first, it should become easier after a while. Other Label Sizes Other than 3" labels, three other sizes are available, 3.5", 5.25" and address labels. Actually the labels for 5.25" and address are exactly the same. (CTRL/S) - Size Change changes the size as required. A warning prompt is given since changing the label size erases the current label. Most options for the other label sizes are exactly the same. Specifically, the following options do not change whatever the label size: (SPACE) - Erase Under Cursor (O) - Outline Toggle (apart from the size of the box!) (CTRL/P)- Print (F) - Load Font (L) - Load Label (S) - Save Label (CTRL/S)- Size Change The: (M) - Mirror, and: (I) - Invert Label, options are unique to 3" labels. Because of the spine line the options not listed above have minor differences. For example, on 3" labels: (CTRL/E), erases the upper half of the label only, but on all other sizes it erases the full label! Similarly: (C) - Load PMD Clips, and: (A) - Load Stop Press Art, cuts to size at the spine line on 3" labels, but on all other label sizes, it cuts the art/clips to size at the bottom of the label. Finally: (E) - Erase Line, and: <T> - Add Text, do not have to take account of the spine line on sizes other than 3". On Add Text, double height is available on all lines except for the last line on the label. Also: ARROWS - Move Cursor, need not take account of any spine line on sizes other than 3" and so wraparound when pressing the DOWN arrow key occurs when the cursor is at the bottom of the label, and not just above the spine line (as on 3" labels). Notes on Disc Accessing The program tries its best to catch disc errors before the program crashes, but be careful! To change disc drive or catalogue a disc type A: or B: for the drive you require. To change user area (only areas 0 to 9 are supported) type #: where # is a number 0 to 9, eg 9: Since only half the screen is available to list files on a disc, it is best to make use of the different user areas to prevent files scrolling off screen. BLANK LABELS 3" and 3.5" labels for printers: 50 for £1.40 plus stamped addressed reasonably sized jiffy bag 100 for £2.60 plus stamped addressed reasonable sized jiffy bag 1000 for £23.00 plus stamped addressed reasonably sized jiffy bag 5.25" and Address labels for printers: 50 for £0.80 plus stamped addressed reasonably sized jiffy bag 100 for £1.45 plus stamped addressed reasonably sized jiffy bag 1000 for £13.50 plus stamped addressed reasonably sized jiffy bag Send all orders to Alan Scully, 119 Laurel Drive, Glasgow G75 9JG