NewDeal Hot Tip 1529

Bindery Tips

Common questions and answers about Bindery

Can Book Reader files be viewed in DOS?

NewDeal or GEOS system files are required to run Book Reader. Books cannot be made into stand-alone DOS applications.

Does Bindery have any built-in compression capabilities?

Bindery has compression as an option when creating a Book. The compression rates are similar to PKZIP. Compression does not appear to make a significant difference in performance speed for the end-user of a book. Books can use and link among multiple source files.

Is there a limit in how large you can make a Bindery book? Would a large book be too slow?

Theoretically, you could make a book of any size--there's no built-in limit. You may run into difficulties when trying to compile a single source file that is larger than about 700k or contains more than several hundred links. The Find feature will take more time in a larger book, but other features will not be affected.

If I have loaded a file, must I add all the pages manually or why doesn't the Set Destination box display the pages in that particular file?

If the destination is in another file, you must enter the page name by keying it in. Bindery does not automatically build a table of page names in files other than the current file. You can open two or more manuscripts at the same time in Bindery for reference and tile them or toggle between them from the Window menu.

When inserting full page graphic objects, it seems impossible to name these pages properly, and display them in the book. If I insert a graphic, it always adds an empty page at the bottom of the graphic. Why?

What you describe happens if part of the graphic falls outside the bottom limit of the page. One work around is this:

1. Enter the page name on the first line of the page.
2. In Options, Other Options, turn on Show Invisibles.
3. Position the insertion point after the page name and enter a carriage return.
4. Paste the graphic on the second line of the page.
5. Set the line spacing for the second line to manual and make its height such that it overlaps the first line of the page.

When I use the Find feature in Book Reader, it hangs or crashes. What's up with that?

The author of the book has used the same name for two different pages. Even if the pages are in different manuscript files, each page must have a unique name.

Wrap text around graphics

Bindery does not provide automatic text wrap around graphics like NewWrite does. Here is a way to wrap text around graphics in Bindery. You can also use this method in NewWrite or in the older versions of GeoWrite.

When we paste a graphic into Bindery, the height of the line on which we paste it expands to accommodate the height of the graphic. This problem is easily overcome by using Manual Line Spacing (called "leading" by desktop publishers, because early typesetters used little strips of lead between the rows of type to create the extra space they desired). Select (highlight) the text, then click on the Paragraph menu, select Paragraph Spacing, Custom Spacing, and in the dialog box click on Manual for the Line Spacing setting.

Now comes a tricky part. We must make room for the graphic. This may involve a bit of trial and error.

As an example, let's say our text is in 12 point size and our graphic is one inch high. The graphic is six lines high (there are 72 points to an inch) so the graphic needs to be pasted on the sixth line of text. Don't worry about the math, this process can be done visually, it just might mean pasting in the graphic a couple times before getting it right--the bit of trial and error I mentioned.

Back to our example. On each of the first five lines of text, we need to make space for the width of the graphic. Personally, I use non-breaking space characters (ALT+SPACEBAR) to do this. If we use regular space characters, then we must insert a carriage return at the end of each line of text, which messes up the formatting of fully justified text.

Now that we've made space on the first five lines of text, we Paste the graphic as the first character of the sixth line. This process can also be used to create large initial drop caps: instead of pasting a graphic, simply insert the initial cap in a large point size.

At this point if we go back and edit the first five lines of text in our example, portions of the graphic may disappear. That's okay! It is just that the screen display has not been updated yet, a feature that lets you continue to see the text you're editing even when a graphic might otherwise be in the way. Simply press F5 or choose Redraw in menus to restore the screen.

Shipper

SHIPPER.EXE is a program provided by Geoworks for packaging Book Reader files for distribution to owners of the HP OmniGo palmtop device. Here are some notes about packaging your Book Reader document into a GPK file using Shipper.

A Book Reader file consists of one launcher that goes in the \DOCUMENT directory and one or more source files that go somewhere in \USERDATA. Let's say your launcher file is named MYBOOK.000. The path in Shipper would be:

\GEOWORKS\DOCUMENT\MYBOOK.000

Let's say you have two source files named MYSOURC.001 and MYSOURC.002 and you've put them in the \BOOKS directory within \USERDATA. Then the paths in Shipper need to be

\GEOWORKS\USERDATA\BOOKS\MYSOURC.001 \GEOWORKS\USERDATA\BOOKS\MYSOURC.002

Keep in mind that Shipper can't handle the GEOS 32-character directory names, so do NOT create a directory in \USERDATA with lower case letters, spaces, or more than 8 characters. Make sure that the directory containing your source files does not contain an "@dirname.000" file. Look from the DOS prompt or from the Windows File Manager.

If you did create a directory that contains an "@dirname.000" file, you'll need to go back into Bindery and recompile the book using a directory name that is 8 or fewer upper case characters only.

Font Tip

Question:
I want to design a book for the Zoomer or for on-screen display only. The Zoomer is limited to the following fonts: URW Sans, URW Mono, Bison, LED, University, and Berkeley. I can use the vector fonts Sans and Mono in Bindery, but how can I access the four other (bitmap) fonts in Bindery?

Answer:
In Preferences, Fonts, drag at least one font into the Toolbar or Menu area. Then exit Bindery and edit your GEOS.INI file. In this example, I dragged only URW Roman into the Toolbar and Menu areas. URW Roman has the font ID# 1000. You'll see keys in your [system] section like this:

fonttool = 1000
fontmenu = 1000

All you need to do is add the font ID numbers for the bitmap fonts, like this:

fonttool = 100002020a0002010600
fontmenu = 100002020a0002010600

Here are the font ID numbers for the four bitmap fonts:

• LED = 0600
• Bison = 0A00
• Berkeley = 0202
• University = 0201

There are some limitations when using the bitmapped fonts:

1. No bold or italics.
2. Berkeley and Bison are limited to 9, 10, 12, 14, and 18 pt. University adds 24 pt. LED is 18 pt. only.
3. In Bindery and your other applications, zooming the view causes anomalies.
4. In a bitmap font, each character at each point size is defined as a specific pattern of pixels. The engines that scale or change the style of a vector font don't work on bitmapped fonts.

Question:
Can I use fonts in a Bindery book for the Zoomer other than the ones that come preinstalled?

Answer:
Only if they are located on the B: drive of the Reader's Zoomer, which is unlikely. The common work around for using extra fonts in a book is to convert text to a bitmap. Since the Zoomer has a limited number of fonts pre-installed, using bitmaps provides the author with a wider range of design possibilities, without having to distribute additional fonts along with one's book.

Assuming that books will primarily be read on screen, not printed out--especially on a Zoomer--the bitmap fonts are also a good choice, since they are always very legible on screen and they draw quickly. However, they do suffer from the limitations mentioned above.

Installing Bindery into NewDeal or Geoworks Ensemble

To install Bindery into NewDeal or Geoworks Ensemble, you MUST have version 2.01 or newer of Ensemble or NewDeal. We do not recommend installing Bindery into Release 3 (if you do install Bindery into Release 3, you will probably need to re-install Release 3 after installing Bindery, because Bindery installs older versions of some system files.

If you are installing Bindery version 1.0 into NewDeal or Ensemble, back up your GEOS.INI file. The DOS installer for Bindery 1.0 overwrites the GEOS.INI file. This is an unfortunate situation involving the installer that was corrected in Bindery 2.0. After installing Bindery, restore your INI from the backup, or copy a fresh INI from the first installation diskette for NewDeal or Ensemble 2.01, or edit the INI file as noted below. If you have Windows on your system, use the Windows installer. It doesn't overwrite the GEOS.INI.

If you've installed Bindery into Ensemble, you may want to look at the following entries in your GEOS.INI:

[uiFeatures]
defaultLauncher = Bindery

should be

defaultLauncher = GeoManager

and

[ui]
productName = Geoworks Bindery

should be

productName = (whatever your product is named)

Both the DOS and the Windows installer make a new Token Database and back up the old one to TOKEN_DA.01 (or .02, or .03, etc... depending on how many already exist). Look in \PRIVDATA for a file like TOKEN_DA.01 (check file sizes to figure out which one you want) and then rename it from the DOS prompt to TOKEN_DA.000 and all your icons should be restored. This way you won't have to rescan all your old icons and the Bindery icon will be added next time you start the software.

Beeps in Calculator or other applications

After installing the first release of Bindery into NewDeal or Ensemble 2.01, using the Calculator and punching a key (either on the main keyboard or the keypad) may cause the computer's speaker to beep twice real fast. The beeps seem to be limited to ASCII keys and not others such as backspace, shift, etc. The beeps may occur if you hit the end of a text line and try to keep typing. An updated Text Library is available for download from NewDeal's web site that will eliminate the annoying noise. Do not use the updated text library with NewDeal Release 3, reinstall Release 3 instead.

Books on CD ROM

A user asks:
Is it possible to have a technical book of about 200 pages and Book Reader all self-contained on a CD ROM disc? That way a technician can simply use the CD for all the information he needs. Or do I have to load NewDeal and Book Reader onto the hard disc?

A NewDeal guru replies:
No, it's not possible to run Book Reader solely from a CD ROM. NewDeal must run on a read/write device, because as NewDeal loads and runs, it writes new files and modifies old ones. Therefore, NewDeal cannot run solely from a CD. Examples of files that NewDeal creates or writes to while it's running are the GEOS_ACT.IVE file, the state files for all the applications that use them, the printer spool files, and the GEOS.INI file, among others.

Norton's AntiVirus (NAV) for Windows

There have been unconfirmed reports that Norton's AntiVirus for Windows prevents Bindery from running. The symptom is a KR-09 error as Bindery begins to load. When NAV for Windows is loaded, Bindery installs okay, it completes Graphical Setup, and GEOS.LOG completes through the loading of the Task Switching Driver. But Bindery fails to load, usually with a KR-09 error message.

Unfortunately, NAV does not flag the failure with a virus warning message, either, or it would be easier to track down the conflict.

There's no work around so far. If you experience this conflict, NAV must be uninstalled in order to run Bindery. Disabling NAV by removing the line that loads it in the autoexec.bat file is not adequate.

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Last Modified 8 Mar 1999