Date   : Wed, 11 Sep 1985 21:00:06 GMT
From   : "Richard L. Klappal" <rlk%chinet.uucp@BRL.ARPA>
Subject: Re: NEWS PAPER STUFF

In article <1383@brl-tgr.ARPA> Webb Mike@LLL-MFE.ARPA writes:
>
>DEAR NETLANDIANS
>
>   MY WIFE IS PUTTING OUT A LITTLE (5-10 PAGE) NEWSPAPER TO THE PARENTS
>OF THE SCHOOL MY KIDS GOTO TO PROVIDE INFO,BEG FOR HELP ETC. MY QUESTION IS
>'DOES ANYONE KNOW OF A TEXT PROC. PROGRAM WHICH WILL ALLOW TEXT TO BE
FORMATTED
>INTO SEVERAL COLUMNS ON THE SAME PAGE???'. THIS PROGRAM WOULD IDEALY BE
FREE AS THE SCHOOL HAS 0-DOLLARS TO SPEND ON THIS "SORT OF STUFF"!
>
>
>                           MIKE WEBB
>                           WEBB@LLL-MFE.ARPA
>                           

Assuming you have access to CPM/[MS|PC]DOS machines, the current versions
of Wordstar(tm) support a "column move" capability.  Not very convenient,
but it can be made to work.

1:     Format the text to the width of a column.
2:     Change to Column move mode -- ^K^N
3:     mark the top left corner of the text that is to go in the second
       column.         ^K^B
4:     mark the bottom right corner of the '2nd' column text.  ^K^K
       (The block of text should now be highlighted (or have ^B down
       the left and ^K down the right, depending on your hardware.)
5:     place the cursor at the top left corner of the 2nd column
       destination area
6:     execute the move        ^K^V

7:     delete the blank lines left in the source area.

8:     repeat steps 3..7 as needed for additional columns.
9:     Save your stuff regularly.  This procedure crashes WS with some
       regularity on my Kaypro (WS Ver 3.something); problem may be
       resolved if later releases are out.
10:    DO NOT USE JUSTIFIED PRINTING IF YOUR PRINTER ATTEMPTS TO
       MICRO-JUSTIFY THE LINES.

Off hand, the only other solution (inexpensive!) might be to find
a second hand dedicated word processor someone might be willing to
donate.  (I know Phillips Micom 2000's supportted automatic
multicolumn formatting, and XEROX 860s are (were) supposed to but
I never used it there.  The other 10-15 dedicated wp's I used to
have access to couldn't do it.)

I'm not familiar with any of the other WP programs in the cpm/ms/pcdos
area.  I never found any of them to have enough improvement, if any,
over WS to be worth the cost/effort to learn another.

In the UN*X area, Fortune's FORTUNE:WORD (tm) has auto multicolumn
capability, but from what you indicated, it would be too expensive,
unless you could get a donation.
PS:    the ^K^B^N stuff is <CTRL>k , etc. in case your not familiar
       with this notation.


-- 

Richard Klappal

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