INTRODUCTION Welcome to MAIL CALL. (c) Richard Dower 1991 All rights reserved. Unregistered use for any purpose, other than a 30 day evaluation, is strictly prohibited. If you use it please register! To register send $20.00 per copy to: Richard Dower 13943 West 113th St Lenexa, Ks. 66215-4832 Select Help from the main menu to browse through the various features of MAIL CALL or simply press F1 from anywhere in the program where you need help. The help is context sensitive so you will get different help screens by pressing F1 at different locations in the program. You will only see this screen when MAIL CALL was not previously using a file. After the first use, MAIL CALL will postition you back in the file you were last using, at the last record you were viewing. MAIL CALL This program includes: Mailing List Management Print by Name, Company, ZIP Code, or User Defined Key Choose fields to print and label sizes Print barcode on each label Custom, free form labels (with custom print codes) Disk Labels Video Tape Labels Phone Books Rotary Card Listings ( 2 sizes ) Single Registration: $ 20.00 Send to: Richard Dower 13943 West 113th St Lenexa, Ks. 66215 more.. Up Arrow  Previous record PgUp Back 10 records Down Arrow Next record PgDn Forward 10 records End End of file F1 HELP Home Beginning of file F9 Select output fields F10 Display sample label Whenever you use MAIL CALL you will be positioned exactly where you were when you last used last used the program. This allows you to quickly resume an interrupted session with the least amount of work. EDITING Home  Beginning of line End  End of line Ins  Insert/Overwrite toggle Ctrl+End  Delete to end of field Tab Down Arrow Next field Shift Tab  Up Arrow  Previous field Esc  Quit without saving F2  Save FIND You may locate a record by Last Name, Company/Department, ZIP Code, or the User Defined Key. If an exact match is not found, you will be placed at the closest next match. Whenever you search by one of the above fields, the file ordering is changed to that index. If you search by Company, after the search the file will be in alphabetical order by company name. If you search by User Defined Key, the file will be in order by the User Defined Key field. The active index is displayed on the line above the current record. This is also the ordering used when printing, so make sure you have the correct index active before you start printing. OPEN A MAIL CALL DATABASE Use Up Arrow, Down Arrow to select the file you wish to use. If there are more than one page worth of files, use PgUp and PgDn to move between pages. When the desired file is highlighted, press Enter to open that file for use. You can move quickly to a filename on the list by typing the first letter of the name. MAIL CALL will go to the next file down whose first letter matches the one you pressed. All the MAIL CALL databases displayed during the OPEN operation are located in either your PRIVATE directory or the PUBLIC directory. Refer to the documentation for setting these up. If you haven't set PUBLIC or PRIVATE directories, you will open and create files in the directory where you installed MAIL CALL. Press Esc if you wish to create a new file. All newly created databases will be written to the PRIVATE directory, if it is defined, or the directory where MAIL CALL was installed. PRINT LABELS If you choose to print the entire database, the labels will be ordered by the currently selected index order. If the current index order is by Company/Department, the labels will be ordered alphabetically by Company/Department. If the index is User Defined Key, the labels will be printed in order by User Defined Key. You may start printing with the currently displayed record. This allows for easy re-starts if there is a printer problem. Simply Find the record where the problem occured and start printing again. You may print all the records for one Company/Department, one ZIP code, or one User Defined Key. These options require an exact match to be included in the printing. The Company/Department field is matched on the first 15 characters only, not the full 30 characters in the field. CUSTOM LABELS Custom labels allow you to print labels with any text on any line. It also allows for custom print codes on each individual line. This is great for video tape labels, disk labels, 3 x 5 cars, etc. The size of the custom label is determined initially by the label design settings under Design on the Main Menu. You can change these from the Custom Label Menu if you wish. You can make several different size free form labels and not effect the size of the labels you normally print from the main database. You may add up to 8 different printer codes to each line of your custom label. The first line may be compressed, the second double strike, the third expanded, italics, underline, emphasized, the fourth subscript, etc. Simply enter the number of the code you wish to use for that line. The print codes are preset to the most common Epson print codes. To modify the print codes select, Codes from the menu. Now you can customize or change the codes displayed. You will need to consult your printer manual. The custom codes allow you to combine several codes or add things such as tiny line spacing. To input a code, use [ for Escape and ^ for Control. These are the most common ways that printers accept their codes. This will be clear once you look at your printer manual and see that most codes are preceeded with Escape. When you Save a Custom Label, all the print codes as well as the lines/label and label width are retained with the saved label. You can save several templates or commonly used labels for reuse latter. After retrieving a previously saved Custom Label, you may edit the contents and print out different versions. As long as you don't save it again under the same name, the originally saved format is not effected. When you Retrieve a Custom Label, its original print codes, lines/label, and width are also restored. Once retrieved, you may edit it and print out different versions without effecting the originally saved format. You may also save the edited version under another name. This allows you to quickly build several templates for video tapes, recipe cards, disk labels, meeting badges, etc. DESIGN OF LABELS You may have from 1 to 18 lines/label, 1 to 3 labels across, and a label width of from 2 1/2 inches to 5 inches. F2 saves the sizes so that the next time the file is opened, these values will automatically take effect. If you leave the Design screen by pressing Esc the changes to the sizes will be in effect only for the current session. The label formats chosen (width, labels across, lines/label, and output fields) are stored with the individual file. This allows you to have custom label formats for each file, if you wish. You may wish to keep a separate Rotary Card file, for example, as well as one for mailing labels. more..  The 2" x 4" Rotary card format is 12 lines/label and 4" wide. The 3" x 5" Rotary card format is 18 lines/label and 5" wide. The Advertising Line is a line of text that you may have printed on the top of each label. You enter under the Design screen but you must select the Advertising Line field under Field Selection to make it print on the label. The Advertising Line will print on the top line of the label except when User Defined Key is chosen. User Defined Key always prints on the top line if it is selected. If you choose a label width that is too narrow for some fields, those fields will be truncated to fit on the label. If you choose 6 fields to print but select a 5 line label, only the top 5 fields chosen will be printed. If you select 3 fields to print and choose a 5 line label, the bottom two lines will be left blank. You may change the comment describing the curren file. Comments allow you to give a description of the contents of the file instead of relying on just the 8 character file name. LINE TERMINATOR Some printers require the program to send both a carriage return and a line feed after each line. For those printers, if you don't send both these codes, each line of the label will start where the last one left off but on the line below. Select just Carriage Return for most printers. Simply run Test off the Print menu to see if you need a line feed with you carriage return. The Diablo 630 in certain modes, for example, needs both carriage return and line feed. FIELD SELECTION FOR LABELS To select/deselect a field for printing, use the space bar. Use F10 to display a sample label. The sample will show you exactly how the label will be printed. In this way you can tell which fields may be truncated and if all the fields will fit on the format you have selected. If you select User Defined Key, it will appear as the top field on the label. If Advertising Line is selected, it will also appear as the top line except when it is selected with User Defined Key. In that case, User Defined Key will be on top and Advertising Line will be second. If you select Bar Code, a barcode that is readable by U S Postal Service equipment will be placed on the label. The barcode can be placed on the very top line or below the address. If you want the barcode placed below the label, the label must be at least 3 1/2" wide and there needs to be at least 3 free lines at the bottom of the label. If there aren't enough lines available or a smaller label size is chosen, the barcode won't be printed. Check with the Postal Service for information on where the barcode needs to be positioned on the letter and for postage savings on barcoded mail. Enter or Esc ends the field selection process. EXPORT OF MAIL CALL FILES The exported files are stored in SDF format. That is, one record per line, with all the fields written in a continuous stream. The field sizes and field order follow. This is only needed if you are exporting all the fields. Field Name Length Offset ---------------------------- LAST NAME 16 1 USER DEFINE KEY 7 17 FIRST NAME 11 24 COMPANY 31 35 ADDRESS #1 26 66 ADDRESS #2 26 92 CITY 21 118 STATE 3 139 ZIP CODE 11 148 PHONE #2 15 153 EXTENSION 5 168 PHONE #1 15 173 NOTES 41 188 Each line should be 228 characters long with a carriage return, line feed at the end. Short fields will be padded with spaces to fill out the Length. EXAMPLE: This is how the first part of an exported file should look if you were to TYPE it to the screen or look at it with a text editor. The heading shows the name of each field. The last field, NOTES, is out to the right at the very end of the line. Each line is 228 characters long. <------16------><--7--><---11----><---------31------------------><- LAST NAME KEY FIRST COMPANY AD ------------------------------------------------------------------- Dower 1204 Richard Midwest Solutions 13 Smith 402 C. 10 Williams 1237 John IBM 12 Jones 1501 Robert Digital Equipment Corporation 12 PARTIAL EXPORT You can export selected fields. When you export, you are prompted to use all the fields or only the currently selected output fields. If you export just the currently selected output fields, the export file will only contain those fields, not all the fields. The field orders and lengths follow: Output Field Includes Length --------------------------------------------------- Name LAST NAME+FIRST NAME 27 (16 + 11) Company 31 Primary Address 26 Secondary Address 26 City,State,ZIP CITY+STATE+ZIP 35 (21 + 3 + 11) City,State CITY+STATE 24 (21 + 3) ZIP CODE 11 Phone 1 PHONE 1 + EXTEN 20 (15+5) Phone 2 15 Notes 41 USER DEFINED KEY 7 EXAMPLE: To export Name and Company, you should have selected only Name and Company from the Field Selection under the Design menu option. The file should look like this: <------16------><---11----><---------31------------------> Dower Richard Midwest Solutions Smith C. Williams John IBM Jones Robert Digital Equipment Corporation Penney Bud Hallmark Cards <------16------><---11----><---------31------------------> IMPORT File Type Extension Source ----------------------------------------------------------------- Mail Call SDF Exported from Mail Call ASCII TXT Text editor, Other programs dBASE DBF dBASE, FoxBase, DBXL, etc. You will be shown a list of all the files that match the type you select. When importing from a dBASE type file, first, position the cursor on the Mail Call field you wish to fill. Next, press F3 to move to the window with the list of the fields in the currently selected dBASE file. Move the cursor to the field you wish imported and press Enter. The field length and offset will be filled in for you. Simply move back and forth between the Mail Call form and the dBASE field list and select all the fields you need. Experiment a few times and you will see how easy it is. more... Mail Call files will be checked for correct record lengths before importing. For ASCII files, you will need to enter the length of each field and the offset of the field in each line of the file. In this manner, you can skip information that is of no use to you. The field lengths don't need to match the field lengths in the Mail Call file. Mail Call will check the file to be sure all the lines are of the same length. EXAMPLE: LAST FIRST ADDRESS 1 PHONE 1 <---- 15 ---><--9 ---> <---- 13 ----><--- 13 ----> DOWER RICHARD ##### *&^*%$ 13943 W 113 (913)339-9348 Penney Bud garbage 12 School St Jones Robert ********-22222 (816)555-1212 123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456 10 20 30 40 50 60 On the import file structure form for the example above, you would fill in only LAST, FIRST, ADDRESS 1, and PHONE 1. Length Offset --------------- LAST 15 1 FIRST 9 16 ADDRESS 1 13 40 PHONE 1 13 54 PHONE BOOK You have the option of printing a phone book in Last Name order or in Company/Department order. The Last Name phone book prints the last name first, followed by the first name, notes, and finally the Phone #1 field. If there is a second phone number, it is printed below the first. The Company/Department phone book has the Company/Department field first, followed by the last name, first name, and phone number. If the Company name repeats, it is only listed once with all the names of the people in that Company/Department listed below. Again, if there is more than one phone number for any one person, it is listed below the first one. In either type phone book, you are prompted for two heading lines and a Common Phone Prefix. You may enter anything you wish for the headings. The Common Phone Prefix is optional. If you enter one, whenever that prefix is found in one of the phone numbers, it is not printed. The book shows just the 4 digits of the number that are unique. This is especially good for books where almost all the numbers have the same 3 digit prefix. ZIP+4 SERVICE The U S Postal Service offers a free service that will add ZIP+4 information to a mailing list. The service will also standardize the address and add the Postal Carrier Route information if desired. These changes to a mailing list can lead to considerable savings in postage if the required discounts are applied for at the Post Office. To take advantage of this service, you must submit a file in a standard format and also supply the locations of the fields within the file. The Postal Coding selection on the Print menu will print a sheet with all the required information. Simply export the file, which will give it a SDF extension, and copy it to a floppy disk. Submit the disk with the information sheet to the Post Office. When you get the processed disk back, copy it back over the old file with the SDF extension and import it into a new file name. Refer to the sections on Import and Export for more information. TINY TYPE Under Custom Labels, you can select Tiny Type. This option sets the print style to compressed, subscript and changes from 6 lines per inch to 12 lines per inch. This allows twice as many lines on a label and also allows for half again as many characters on a line. Selecting Tiny Type off the menu again will switch back to normal mode. When you are in Tiny Type mode, you aren't allowed to enter any other print codes for that label (the code window is even available). On a 5 line label that is 3 inches wide, you could enter 10 lines of information and have 45 characters on each line instead of the normal 30. This is especially valuable for making disk labels or VCR tape labels. If you save a label while Tiny Type is in effect, it will be saved in Tiny Type format. If you select Load off the menu while in Tiny Type, only the labels saved under Tiny Type will be displayed. END