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                 This is a BI-CENTENNIAL project!

        This is my first programme written in C and it feels 
              as though it took 200 years to write!

        This programme may be freely distributed but please
              keep this file and COLS together.

                 Tony Oxenham    046-771499

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Usage  COLS <input file> <output file>

COLS will take a text file and rearrange it to print in two columns
of equal width and equal length.

The user has full control over Left Margin
                               Width of Columns
                               Gap between Columns
                               Top Margin
                               Number of Printed Lines
                               Bottom Margin

The last three should normally add up to 66 total lines per page.

Optionally COLS will add Amies printer control codes as follows:
 Total line length up to 135 characters  - compressed Pica.
 Over 135 lines and under 159 characters - compressed Elite.
 Over 159 characters per line -  you're out of luck.
 COLS returns the printer to normal at the end of the file.

If you are going to rework the file in a word processor you might
want to set the left margin to zero.

Only ASCII characters between 30 and 126 (and LF) will be copied 
from the input file - thus Scribble! files won't print with bold,
italic, underline etc. If you want these features then load the 
output file back into your favorite word processor. (Don't forget
to reset the line length.)

IFF files such as Textcraft files are not supported. You can however
save a Textcraft file as an ASCII file and use that.

COLS appends a new file to the end of an existing file allowing you
to mix formats, eg. You might want the heading full page width.
To do this make a separate text file containing just the heading,
and save it as say df0:mytext then make a file containing the rest
of the text FOR THAT PAGE and save it as say df0:bodytext.
Next type 'COLS df0:bodytext df0:mytext' and bodytext will be tagged
onto mytext making one file. Then make another file for the rest of
the document and call it say df0:restoftext and type
'COLS df0:restoftext df0:mytext'. MYTEXT is now a thing of beauty
and a joy forever. 
If this seems like too much work then you had better go out and buy
WordPerfect.

Try formatting your document using Scribble! set to 60 characters
line length, left margin to zero and right justified. Save using the
PRINT -> GO -> FILE  menu option. Now run it through COLS and 
you have a newspaper style page.

Have fun.



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