READER WARRANT Name: Bernard Cain Language used: Amos Pro Utility: B-CARD ++ Final Version Business Card Maker Now includes two Extras disks of borders, designs, and clipart. In respect of all material which forms my reader contribution to Future Publishing's Amiga Format I hereby warrant that:- (1) The material is original and does not infringe any other material or rights (2) The material does not contain any material which is defamatory, obscene or indecent and is exempt from classification under the Video Recordings Act 1984 (3) That there are no legal claims against the material provided (4) That I have full power and authority to provide this material to Future Publishing ---------------------------------- B-CARD ++ by B. Cain © 1999 BUSINESS CARD MAKER. Final Version Comes with two Public Domain Extras disks. See FEATURES list for functions. --------------------------------- Minimum Requirements Workbench 2 with 2 meg chip This program is Public Domain, But the following conditions apply:- 1. B-CARD++ and B-CARD++ Docs and supplied template and example files to remain together in the original directory with the original icons as I intended and not to be copied, distributed, or sold separately. 2. Only to be sold & distributed as Public Domain material. 3. Not to be sold for more than the average selling price of one Public Domain disk at any one time. 4. Not to be sold, copied, or distributed as part of or with any commercial or licenceware software or programmers software without my written permission. 5. Not to be used as an enticement to buy goods of any kind which are not Public Domain. 6. I retain copyright to the B-CARD++ programs and supplied border, design, and template files. !! DISCLAIMER !! NO LIABILITY can be accepted for any loss or damage caused by B-CARD++ or any related B-CARD++ program, and NO GUARANTEE is given whether expressed or implied that B-CARD++ will perform as described in this document or elswhere. If you use B-CARD++ or B-CARD++ related programs then you have accepted this disclaimer and all liability for loss or damage rests with you, the user. --------------------- This interlaced version of B-CARD is now INCOMPATIBLE with files produced by previous B-CARD versions. However I have included a file convertor as a separate program so your existing cards, borders etc can then be used with B-CARD ++. It will even convert clip pics. USING FONTS B-CARD++ uses a range of fonts taken from the default SYS:fonts directory or a fonts directory of your choice. The latter method requires that you make an assignment to your chosen fonts directory with the Amigados ASSIGN command. You can to enter an assignment line in a shell window before using B-CARD as in the following example. The full pathname to your fonts must be given as shown. ASSIGN Fonts: DH1:Business/Cards/Fonts ------------------------------ FEATURES OF B-CARD++ * Two Extras disks ( optional ) Colour and Mono Borders, Clipart and BORDER MAKER ++ program. * Sample cards, borders, designs and 'STOCK' or background theme cards provided. * Prints 8 (best) or 10 (economy) cards at once using A4 size card. Card colours can be changed before printing and changed card saved to disk if required. * Cards can have borders, designs, background themes, text and clipart. * Now creates borders internally using files created with the new ColMAKEBORDER.tmp template. ( see MAKE A BORDER ). * Extracts any design made within B-CARD with clipart etc and saves it as a separate design file. Also extracts borders, perhaps edited, as separate border files. * Loads in clip art as IFF pics ( see LOAD PICS ) * Design and/or border loading can be cancelled to allow loading of larger size clip art to full area of card (explained later). * Clip art can be dynamically flipped horizontally and vertically before pasting on card. Multiple pastings of same clip if required. * DYNAMIC CLIP SCALE feature, which means you can enlarge or decrease the size of a clip whilst it is attached to the mouse cursor. Available in LOAD PICS and CUT and COPY sections ( see later ). * AUTOMATIC SCALE feature ( optional). Scales clips instantly to fit in design box, lower card area, or inner or full card area. Works somewhat differently and quicker than the DYNAMIC version above. * Automatic STORE facility for current clip to use later. Available in LOAD PICS and CUT and COPY sections and Text Entry sections ( see later ). * RESERVE CLIP feature which allows 2 clips to be stored meaning you can paste clip 2 in the place clip 1 occupied and vice versa, i.e. swap clips. * Prints in up to 7 changeable colours, or black for monochrome printers or by choice. * Uses a range of disc fonts and default Topaz (ROM font). * Adjustable Text Guide for different size fonts. * Intuitive entry and deletion of text by mouse cursor. Multiple entry of same text if required. * Choice of 7 colours for text entered within B-CARD++ either dynamically at time of entry or later. * 5 text lines with 3 text zones per line. This allows changing of text colours per text zone. * CUT and Paste and COPY and Paste features with dynamic flipping of image with multiple pastings if required. * PAINT function, also erases. Painting in white areas is now possible as an option. * MAGNIFY function allows easier editing of small details using full complement of drawing and painting tools. UNDO and SCROLL facility now added. * Drawing tools double as erasers and include 7 brushes and Rectangle, Square, Circle, and Ellipse tools and these either hollow or filled with your chosen colour. There is also a Straight line tool. * UNDO facility now available in most functions. * Cards can be saved in Multiple Card Format suitable for loading into a DTP program for better print quality. * Optionally, cards can be created entirely in a paint program using special templates supplied. * Cards shown in 12 background colours on screen to give an idea of which coloured card to print on including white. * Built in 7 Colour Palette Changer now extended to printing section. * Colour Templates supplied to design your own cards. All this plus two extras disks means you can produce good looking cards easily, but read these docs thoroughly to get the most from B-CARD++ FIRST STEPS Everything is set up on this disk to print in Epson mode which is default for most printers,( check those DIP switches on your printer ). If you have any trouble or have a monochrome printer then read the next two paragraphs. You will need to install a graphics capable printer driver suitable for your printer in the devs/printers directory before you can print cards, then use the Preferences program to assign your chosen printer driver in 'Change Printer' so it will be loaded automatically when printing. Set your printer DIP switches also as instructed in your printer manual. You will also need the printer.device in devs directory and the diskfont.library in libs directory ( these are on the B-CARD++ disk ). The cards are printed via the setting in the Prefs Graphics 1 Graphics 2 section which you will find on this disk. Go to the Limits section in Graphics 2 and see the 'Type' is set at 'Ignore', and the 'Left Offset' is set to 'Center' and the 'Scaling' is set to 'Integer' in Graphics 2. This is already done so if you are using B-CARD++ from its original disk things should work right. If using a monochrome printer then you can set to use it here by choosing Grey Scale instead of Color, although best results will be had by leaving the setting at 'Color'. You may need to install another printer driver if you cannot set your printer to Epson mode. If using from Hard Disk you will have to set up your Printer in Prefs as just described. INSTALLING TO HARD DISK From Workbench simply drag the B-CARD++ directory to your Hard Disk. ---------------- 1. MAKING A CARD Please note, this does not involve creating your own designs and borders from scratch, but rather making a card from existing ones. First click on MAKE A CARD box in B-CARD++. You will be see a large white filled rectangle with black or coloured templates within it. The latter shows the full area of the card including borders. There is a control panel from which you can load borders and card designs, and enter text. Please note, at the top of the screen Topaz 8 font will be displayed. At the left side of this you will see two small UP and DOWN arrows to display more fonts. The font which is displayed in this window is the one which will be used on card. You must decide at this point whether you are going to cancel loading of designs and/or borders so you can just load clip art up to and as large as the card area itself ( if cancelling borders ), if so you must click on DESIGN ACTIVE box or the BORDER ACTIVE box. If you click on the BORDER ACTIVE box this will cancel design loading also. You will be asked if you want to change mode. If so the boxes will now read BORDER INACTIVE and DESIGN INACTIVE if you have cancelled borders or BORDER ACTIVE and DESIGN INACTIVE if you have just cancelled design loading. To activate the loading of designs and/or borders again just click again on the relevant box and confirm the action. The box will show ACTIVE again. When design and/or border loading is active you must be aware of the template lines. Templates are placed on the card to simplify matters, the templates will be placed according to the design and border loading status which will be a visual reminder of which mode you are in. Don't change modes or remove or place templates in the middle of a card making session unless you are aborting the card to start again. You must start with a clear idea of which mode you are using and stay with it, otherwise you could foul your design or be unable to erase or replace text placed before changing modes at the correct positon. A card saved in INACTIVE mode will have a special marker attached to it so that on reloading for printing etc B-CARD++ will not attempt to erase the design and/or border template lines which if it did so could ruin your card. Do not erase or tamper with these markers, as they don't affect the look of your printed card in any way. Understand that even if the design and/or border loading is inactive, a card must carry a marker when loaded in otherwise B-CARD++ will completely ignore the setting and erase design template lines as usual. I have provided 5 sizes of Text Guides for different fonts. These are only approximate so how you use them is entirely up to you. The Text Guide is always shown at its standard width when you first access the screen and is found below the card. Now this will allow you to enter 32 letters with standard Topaz 8 font, and if you enter the full quota of letters you will find it just fits nicely on the card without overlapping borders. To change the Text Guide size press the right cursor (>) key, this will display a narrower Text Guide. This would be useful for larger fonts. Pressing the right cursor key again gives another narrower Text Guide and so on. Pressing the left (<) cursor key gives wider Text guides suitable for small and narrower fonts. The widest guide allows a total entry of 52 letters, only useful for small fonts. Entering text with the Mouse cursor If you are entering text straight without loading a border or design you will need to put some colours into the palette boxes which will all be black. Click on the Palette changer button to reveal a window containing three vertical sliders and 7 small boxes which echo the larger palette boxes on the main screen ( except the white number 8 palette box ). Click on one of the small boxes and use the sliders to change its colour. The same large palette box above will change colour also. Do the same with the other boxes till each box holds a different colour. Don't enter white into any of these boxes. Click on OK Exit button when finished. Make sure your chosen font is displayed above the card.. Click on the ENTER TEXT box and type in some text ( Topaz 8 is used just for typing the text ) and press Return key. Do not use commas. For some reason any text after commas is not displayed. The text you have just entered will then be attached to the mouse cursor in the font style displayed in the font window and will follow it when you move the mouse. You are only allowed to enter this text on the card, and within the border boundaries, or more if you have cancelled border loading. Try to place it on one of the five lines provided on the card . Before placing text on the card you can click on a palette box except the white one and change the colour of text attached to the mouse cursor. If you don't choose a colour then Colour 1 in the palette will be used. You can change the colour of this text as many times as you like and when you are happy with the colour you can place your text. Now click the mouse button to place text on card. Take note, a Text Zone box must be highlighted at left before you can place text. This tells you that you are in fact in a text zone. An alert box will appear in the fonts window area asking if you do indeed want to place your text. If not the text will remain attached to the mouse cursor. This action guards against accidental mouse clicks which would place your text willy nilly where you may not want it. The text will still be attached to the mouse cursor when you paste it down in case you want to paste it again and perhaps in another colour or to create shadowed text. You are at liberty to click on ENTER TEXT and 'Text End' boxes at any time to abort the current operation. In fact you will need to click on 'Text End' box if you need to change and use a different font on the card or exit. While the text is attached to the mouse cursor and you move around the card you will see a coloured square on the Text Zone boxes following your movements and showing which text zone you are in. Now let's say you have placed your text approximately on LINE 1. There are 3 text zones on line 1 as indeed there are on each of the 5 lines provided which are marked by small vertical blue lines at top and bottom of the card, these echo the Text Zone boxes at left of the card. If you typed in a line of text which more or less fills line 1 the chances are Zone 1 on Line 1 will hold the reference to this text for this zone is where the mouse cursor would be just before you placed text on the card. At the left side of the card you will see a set of Text Zone boxes, 3 to each line. If you changed the colour of your text before placing it then Text Zone box 1 on Line 1 will be filled with the same colour as your text. If you didn't change the colour of your text the relevant Zone box will be filled with Palette colour 1. Click on 'Text End' box to exit. Now to change the colour of the text again on line 1. Click on the Text Zone box on Line 1 which is the same colour as your placed text, now go over to the Palette boxes at right of screen and click on another colour your placed text will immediately change to the new colour as will the Text Zone box. Want to change it again ? then click on the same Text Zone box choose another colour and the text and Text Zone box will change to this colour. Please note, you must have entered text into a Text Zone to be able to use this feature. You can change the text colour like this at any time and the colour reference is kept in the Text Zone boxes so if you come to erase this text and then replace it again the text will be shown in the latest colour in the Text Zone box. You can enter as much text on one line which will fit and you can create effects like shadowed text by placing two identical text lines one upon the other. However only the last placed text in any Zone will have a reference to it held in the zone boxes. So you can only change the colour of the last placed text in any particular Zone O.K ?. Also only the last entered text in a zone can be replaced with the REPLACE TEXT button. If you wanted to have three different colours on the same line and which you can change later, then just enter a part of your intended text enough to place in Zone 1. So place the text on your chosen line in Zone 1. Now type in another part of the text and place in Zone 2 on the same line. Do the same with the last part of the text in Zone 3 and you have 3 zone references held in the Text Zone boxes on the left of screen. Please note all these zone references are only valid in any one text placing session and once the card is saved to disk or you exit, there is no reference kept meaning you cannot change the text colours of this previously entered text when the card is reloaded. You have use of the Palette changer however but this only changes existing colours and doesn't allow you to swap text colours around, though there is the PAINT function you could use. Templates are placed on the card to show where to avoid placing text, ( unless removed ), these will also indicate whether you have deactivated design and/or border loading or not and is a handy visual guide. I have also placed two short horizontal blue lines at either side of the on screen card. Avoid placing any text which would cross an imaginary line drawn between these two points, for this is one of the template lines which is erased prior to printing. The latter instruction only applies if loading of designs is activated. Now you have placed some text and changed its colour, how about erasing it ?, what !! you don't want to because you rather like it ?, Well trust me, go on click on ERASE TEXT, you will be asked to click on a Text Zone box which contains some text, remember we know which zones have text because the Text Zone boxes will be either highlighted or coloured, click on the Text Zone box of your choice and zap! the text has gone. Oh dear ! what now ?, well simply click on REPLACE TEXT button and then on the relevant Text Zone box and your text will return to just where you placed it earlier. Now to digress for a moment, if you placed a graphic later on over this erased text because you'd forgotten the text's actual position, then you come to replace the text only to find it corrupts the said graphic which you want to keep, then don't worry, just press the 'U' key to UNDO the last action and your corrupted graphic or whatever it is will be magically restored. This works with the ERASE TEXT feature also. Now back to where we where !. B-CARD++ will remember the colour, position and font for all the text entered ( within reason). Only the last entered text in any Text Zone ( yes, I think that's right ). Now for another little goodie, let's say you've entered text as above and while it is attached to the mouse cursor you realise you have to abort the operation by clicking on 'Text End' box because there is something on the card which needs to be erased first because it's in the way, well go ahead, click on 'Text End', erase the offending object then after this simply press the 'R' key to recall the text back to the mouse cursor. You will be taken back to the point you were at before you aborted so you can now place your text as you intended. If you choose another font before pressing 'R' key your text will be recalled back in the new font style chosen. Only the current clip can be stored be it text or graphics, so if you now clip a graphic for example this will be the current clip instead. DRAWING TOOLS ( and Erasers ) If you look in the top left corner of the screen you will see 7 dark blue circles in 7 sizes in a white rectangle. These are the brushes or erasers to draw with or erase colours to white. Normally you can erase or draw in any part of your card except the borders ( these can be cleared separately) but if you have disabled border loading you can erase and draw in the full card area. They are very easy to use. Just click on one and if you are erasing you can use it immediately. If you are drawing then click on a palette colour at top right after choosing the brush. You will be taken over to the card area immediately. You will notice the brush attached to your mouse cursor so you can now begin erasing or drawing. Press on the Left Mouse button and keep it held down while you erase or draw. Releasing the Left Mouse button and the erasing or drawing stops. Press it again to continue. To exit, just click the Right Mouse button and your brush will be returned to its place and you can proceed with other operations. The white box below the brushes contains the Rectangle, Circle, Ellipse, and Straight Line tools and a 'F' or Fill icon. You can use these tools to either draw hollow or filled shapes ( except Straight Line tool ). To draw a hollow shape simply click on the tool, choose a Palette colour at top right by clicking on it, if you don't choose a colour then colour 1 in the palette will be used. You will be taken to the card area immediately. Now when in position click the Left Mouse Button once then press it again and keep it held down and move the mouse to create your shape. Release Left Mouse Button and your shape will be drawn in the colour you may have chosen earlier. You can draw another of the same kind of shape immediately by holding down the Left Mouse Button again and moving the mouse. To exit, and choose another tool and colour simply click the Right Mouse button 2 or 3 times. To use the Fill Mode, click on a shape then on the 'F' icon then proceed as above. Your shape will be filled with a solid block of your chosen colour. Please note, the circle and ellipse shapes will only draw a solid block of colour on clear or single colour backgrounds, so if you want to draw a solid circle over a tartan pattern then sorry it can't be done, in this case the circle would be either drawn BEHIND the pattern with the tartan pattern in front or maybe not. If you wouldn't like that then cut the tartan pattern as a clip which will leave a clear area behind or use the brushes to erase instead. If you make a mistake you can UNDO the last action by pressing 'U' key. When using brushes this should be done AFTER you release the mouse button and BEFORE you press the mouse button again to continue drawing or erasing. Similarly you should press the 'U' key AFTER making a rectangle, or ellipse, or straight line, and BEFORE making another shape. However, you can UNDO the last action even after you exit, but you must do it before you begin another operation. DRAWING TOOLS key summary ----- U = UNDO last action CUT and Paste - COPY and Paste Let's say you've finished your card and your happy with the Text colours and font styles but you realise if only that text on a particular line or Text Zone was a little lower or higher or any other position you might fancy. Well this is what the CUT box is for. Just click on it and an alert box will tell you you are in Cut and Paste mode. If you click the right mouse button at this point the alert box will re-appear to inform you have exited the CUT and Paste Mode. Don't exit yet though, Go to the text or image you want to cut, press the left mouse button and keep it held down and move the mouse. You will see a box enclosing the image and will grow bigger as you proceed to enclose the image or text within it. When the box does enclose the image, release the left mouse button. Your text/image will be cut from the card to follow the mouse cursor leaving a blank area behind it. Now lets say you didn't cut that text or image correctly, then just click the Right Mouse button BEFORE ( not AFTER) you've pasted it down and the text/image will be put back in its original position so you can try again. If you want to exit and store the clip for later and retaining the blank area where the clip used to be then press 'E' key. Let's say you still have the text or image attached to the mouse cursor, move it to the position you want to paste it then click the Left mouse button, The image will be pasted down instantly. The image or text will still be attached to the mouse cursor to paste down again if required. To release the image to cut out another just click the right mouse button. Now at any time while the image is attached to the mouse cursor, you can flip it horizontally by pressing 'H' key or verically by pressing 'V' key. Before you flip the image you can also enlarge or decrease its size by repeatedly tapping the '+' or '-' keys on the numeric keypad, or press the 'HELP' key to invoke the automatic clip scaler ( see separate notes on this ). If you want to abort the operation temporarily and come back later you only need to press 'R' key when ready to recall a stored clip at any time to the mouse cursor. If a clip is enlarged or decreased it will be recalled in its new size. Clips are stored automatically, but only the current clip will be remembered be it text or graphics, so if you now for example enter text this will be the current clip instead. Please note, any image flipped horizontally and pasted down may be placed 4 or 5 pixels to the right of where you pasted it, so leave some white space here just in case, however you can UNDO the last action by pressing the 'U' key immediately if an image isn't pasted down correctly. If an image still doesn't look quite right when pasted down, cut and paste again and as many times as it takes to place the text/image correctly. These operations can be applied to anything you've placed on the card except borders. To exit at at any point click the right mouse button twice and an alert box will appear to tell you have exited. The COPY and Paste function is used exactly like CUT and Paste except it leaves the original image intact and a copy of it is attached to the mouse cursor. Just click on COPY box first. Please note, any text CUT or COPIED into another position will not have any zone references applied to the new position, so this means you cannot then erase this newly placed text with the ERASE TEXT box or change the text colours, however the the old zone references are still intact so you can replace text at its old positon any time. You can always use the Erasers to delete the newly placed text and start again. It may be best to always leave CUT or COPY operations to the very last stage of your card design and when you absolutely know what you want to do. A word of caution is needed on pasting down your image for this is perhaps the only time you may be able to foul parts of the screen. This is to allow even the smallest image to be pasted down anywhere on the card so the mouse cursor sometimes has to go outside the card area to achieve this. Always proceed gently and methodically and then it shouldn't be a problem. CUT and COPY key summary V= Vertical flip H = Horizontal Flip R = Recall stored clip ( after exiting ). E = Exit ( clip is stored for later use ). U = UNDO last action '+' (plus) key = Enlarge clip '-' (minus) key = Decrease image RESERVE CLIP Although B-CARD++stores the current clip automatically, it may sometimes happen that you need to cut a clip from the card then store it while you cut a second clip. For example you may want to put clip 1 in the place where clip 2 now resides and clip 2 where clip 1 resides, in other words swap them over. This function makes it simple to do, just click on RESERVE CLIP button. An alert box tells you are in RESERVE CLIP mode. Now when you cut your first clip by pressing the LEFT mouse button and enclosing your image in a box and releasing the mouse button, you will be asked if you want to reserve it, if so your first clip will be reserved, if not, you can try and cut the first clip again. To abort at any time and exit RESERVE CLIP mode just click the RIGHT mouse button. If you have cut the first clip then you will be asked to cut your second clip. Again you will be asked if you want to reserve it, if not you can try again or click RIGHT mouse button to abort. Let's say you have cut 2 clips successfully, then clip 2 will be attached to the mouse cursor ready to paste where clip 1 was earlier. When you paste clip 2 down you will be asked if it has been placed correctly, if not, you can paste it again or as many times as it takes. When clip 2 is pasted down then clip 1 will now replace clip 2 at the mouse cursor so this in turn can be pasted down. When you have pasted clip 1 down you will exit RESERVE CLIP mode. Remember you can abort at any time by pressing RIGHT mouse button. If after all that you don't like the changes just press 'U' key directly after pasting and the clips will be restored to their original positions. Please note, RESERVE CLIP mode is just an extension of the automatic store feature which means clip 1 will be the current clip ( unless you abort immediately before clipping ) even after exiting RESERVE CLIP mode and can be recalled to the mouse cursor again by pressing 'R' key, until of course another clip is cut or text is entered. RESERVE CLIP Key summary 'U' key = UNDO CLIP ACTIONS ON CARD AUTOMATIC CLIP SCALER A problem lies in trying to scale images to fit into an area which is different in shape to the image itself. For example, if the image is a bottle, then we could say it is longer in the vertical plane than in the horizontal. Well suppose you wanted to scale this into an area where the horizontal is longer than the vertical, now you will see that the bottle would be scaled in proportion to this area and we would finish up with a fat looking bottle, in other words, it would be distorted. To overcome ( not completely ) this problem, you have to make 1 of 2 potential decisions, and we will call these priorities. They are VERTICAL and HORIZONTAL priority. These terms should now be self explanatory. To use the function press the 'HELP' key whilst a clip is attached to the mouse cursor. Now before cutting this clip it would have helped if when enclosing it in a box before clipping, you made the box similar in shape to the clip itself, or in other words, left as little white space as possible between the box and the clip. Now to continue, the clip will be released from the mouse cursor and a window will open allowing you to choose some options. First you click on VERTICAL PRIORITY, or HORIZONTAL PRIORITY, then on one of DESIGN, LOWERCARD, INNERCARD and FULLCARD. Click on one of these depending on where your clip is to be placed. When this is done, the clip is re-attached to the mouse cursor and will be scaled according to your chosen options and you can then paste it down. Press the 'U' key if you need to UNDO the last action. If you think it is scaled incorrectly, then click the RIGHT mouse button to get back to the window to click on some new options in the window and the clip will again be scaled to the new options. When finished, click the RIGHT mouse to get back to the window, then click on the EXIT button. If after exiting, you recall the clip by pressing the 'R' key then the Auto Scale window will open again to choose new options, unless of course you have cut another clip in the meantime. AUTOMATIC SCALER Key Summary 'HELP' key = Invoke AUTOMATIC SCALER ( Clip should already be attached to mouse cursor ). 'U' Key = UNDO last action. 'R' Key = Re-open Auto Scale window PAINT FUNCTION Click on a Palette colour first then on the text or graphic you want to change. You can also click on the white box near the Palette boxes if you want to erase, but beware, for normally any area reduced to white cannot be recoloured with the PAINT function, but I have included an option so you can do so. If you look beneath the Palette boxes at top right of screen, you will see a box labelled 'NO White Areas' this is the default setting. Just click on this and an alert box will appear asking if you now want to paint in white areas, if so the box will now read 'Paint White Areas'. You are fully responsible if your card is ruined by this mode, but all is not lost as you can undo the last action by pressing 'U' key. Click on the box again for the default setting. Now when ready, click on a Palette box, the mouse cursor will change to a cross-hair. An alert box will inform you are in PAINT mode. Now go over to the card and click on anything on the card including borders. The colour underneath the cursor will change to the new colour and will stop when it encounters a colour which is different to the original colour you have just changed, ( got that ? it's standard practice). If you have any templates in place, they will be removed temporarily when using the paint mode, as these may allow colour to be spread around the card where you may not want it. If you have used the option to paint in white areas the outer template will remain in place. Don't worry about clicking on white areas unless you've chosen to. Anything white is normally ignored so you won't get a blood red card for example. You can click away with your colour as much as you like till you decide to choose another colour or exit. To exit PAINT mode or to choose another palette colour just click the Right Mouse button at any time, an alert box will show you have exited. You can UNDO the last action in PAINT mode by pressing 'U' key. This must be done BEFORE painting and changing another colour. However, you can UNDO the last action even after you exit, but you must do it before you begin another operation. PAINT function key summary ----- 'U' key = UNDO last PAINT action MAGNIFY Function The full complement of drawing and painting tools is now provided. Press the 'Z' key to invoke this in the MAKE A CARD and EDIT A CARD sections. A Magnify window will appear at bottom left of screen containing 6 brushes and shape tools and 8 boxes containing the current palette. At the same time a small rectangle will be attached to the mouse cursor. All you need to do now is move the mouse over to the part of the card you wish to edit and click the LEFT mouse button ONLY. The area within the small rectangle will then be magnified and transferred to the aforesaid window at bottom left of screen. You can move the mouse and click on the LEFT mouse button as many times as you wish and each time the area within the small rectangle will be copied to the MAGNIFY window. When you are happy with the chosen magnification click the RIGHT mouse button. The mouse cursor will then be transferred to the MAGNIFY window. At this point you can choose between PAINT, DRAW, ERASE, or create a shape i.e. BOX, CIRCLE, ELLIPSE, or STRAIGHT LINE, either hollow or filled except for Straight Line tool. To draw or erase, click on one of the six brushes above the palette box with the LEFT mouse button, then click on a Palette colour to draw or the white palette box to erase. You will be taken over to the magnified image to draw or erase. The colour you have chosen to draw with will be shown where your brush was earlier, but this will be white if you have clicked on the white Palette box. To create a hollow shape click on a shape icon then on a Palette colour. To create a filled shape, click on a shape icon, then on the 'F' or Fill icon then on a Palette box. To paint or erase an area, ignore the brushes and shape icons and click immediately on a Palette colour or on the white box with the LEFT mouse button, you will be taken over to the magnified image. The mouse cursor will then change to a cross hair and you can paint, draw or erase depending on the chosen mode. To choose another colour to paint, draw or erase with , click the RIGHT mouse button and choose another colour, or brush and colour or shape and colour with the LEFT mouse button and either paint or draw again. To undo any paint, draw or erase action press the 'U' key. This will correct any mistake you may make, but will only correct the last action. Any editing or undo action done in the MAGNIFY window is copied over instantly to the card so you can monitor your progress. You can also scroll the magnified area to show other parts of the card by pressing the four cursor keys on the keyboard and continue editing. The small rectangle on the card proper will also scroll in accordance so you always know which part of the card you are editing. To get back to the card to magnify another area click the RIGHT mouse button until the small rectangle is again attached to the mouse cursor. You can now repeat the above procedure. If you transfer the image to the card and decide you dont like the changes after all just press the 'U' key to undo ALL changes made previously in the MAGNIFY window. Please note, MAGNIFY mode will behave exactly like PAINT mode in all respects and will also take note whether you have chosen to paint in white areas or not. MAGNIFY function key summary Z= Enter MAGNIFY mode U= Undo last action Cursor Keys < > \/ /\ = Scroll image LOAD PICS Pressing 'P' key brings up a requester asking you to choose a pic for loading. Now this pic or pics should have been prepared earlier and should consist of clip art which is of a size which can be incorporated on the card without fouling the template lines or border areas. Remember you can load in larger clip art by deactivating design and/or border loading first. The pic size is strictly limited to 640*512 interlaced with 8 colour palettes. Any pic differing from this screen size may cause B-CARD++ to abort, but you can use a palette with less than 8 colours if you have a monochrome printer for example, be aware though if you try to mix files with different palette sizes the results may be unpredictable. Let's say you have chosen a pic from the requester, then if so the B-CARD++ screen will vanish to be replaced by your chosen pic. Now all you have to do is press down the Left Mouse button and drag the mouse enclosing your chosen bit of clip art in a box. Releasing the mouse button will cause a copy of the clip art to be attached to the mouse cursor. Now if at this point you change your mind, click any Mouse button to release the clip art from the mouse cursor so you can choose another clip. If you want to keep hold of the clip art to use on your card then press 'E' key to exit and get back to the B-CARD++ screen to paste your clipped art upon it. If after all that, you decide you're not going to paste the clip after all then just click the Right Mouse button to abort the operation, but let's say you're going to paste it on your card, well before you do you can flip the clip horizontally by pressing 'H' key or vertically by pressing 'V' key. Before you flip the image you can also enlarge or decrease its size by repeatedly tapping the '+' or '-' keys on the numeric keypad, or press the 'HELP' key to invoke the automatic clip scaler ( see separate notes on this ). If you want to recall the clip back to the mouse cursor after aborting press 'R' key to recall a stored clip at any time to the mouse cursor. Any clip enlarged or decreased will be recalled to the mouse cursor in its new size. Only the current clip can be stored be it text or graphics, so if you now enter text this will be the current clip instead. Paste the clip down if you are ready. Please note that flipped clips can sometimes be pasted down 4 or 5 pixels to the right of where you intended, so leave a little white space here just in case, however if you foul other images on the card you can UNDO the last action by pressing the 'U' key immediately after. You can paste the image down as many times as you like by clicking the Left Mouse button, or click Right mouse button to abort. Use the CUT and PASTE facility later if your clips are not exactly where you want them. Now unless you want to load in a different pic you can re-access the pic you have just loaded by pressing 'A' key. I have provided an example pic you can load in named B-CARD_CLIP_PIC, this will demonstrate well enough how to make up your own clip pics. Take special notice that the background colour is white and will be defaulted to white by B-CARD++ when the pics are loaded in as explained elsewhere in these docs, so don't change and use Colour 0 or background colour for drawing with. The palette of these pics is used on the card so when you come to paste the clips on your card the colours of the existing palette will change as they do when loading in a design or border. However, if you abort before pasting a clip down and for example load in a border or design in the meantime then recall the clip later by pressing 'R' key the palette of the clip will have changed to the newly loaded border or design. You're not allowed to foul the border area unless you have cancelled border loading. LOAD PICS Key SUMMARY P = Load Pic E = Exit pic A = Access pic H = Flip horizontally V = Flip vertically R = Recall stored clip (after exiting) U = UNDO last action. '+' (plus) key = Enlarge clip. '-' (minus) key = Decrease clip. EXTRACT DESIGN or BORDERS Clicking on EXTRACT DESIGN button will enable you to save a design which you may have created in the design box within B-CARD using clipart etc. This can then be loaded back when creating cards as a separate design file. The EXTRACT BORDER button works similarly. DO NOT add extensions of your own to filenames when saving to disk. Entering BORDERS, and DESIGNS If you are using a border round your card you should load this in first. Borders are positioned automatically. If you are not using borders then load a design first ( normally ) before text. Designs are positioned automatically. You can cancel design loading by clicking on DESIGN ACTIVE box or cancel both border and designs by clicking BORDER ACTIVE box as explained earlier, this will allow you to load in larger size clip art without fear of fouling the design and/or border template lines. As designs and borders are created independently of each other you may use different palettes for each, however, you cannot use two different palettes within B-CARD++ as this would amount to 14 colours. You will have to decide which palette has priority within B-CARD++ and the way to do this is quite simple. B-CARD++ will use the palette of the most recent file loaded, in other words if you want to use the border palette, then load it in AFTER the design and vice versa, or better still make design and border files you intend to use together with the same palette within your paint program. All this doesn't matter too much as B-CARD++ now carries its own Palette Changer with which you can fine tune or alter your card colours completely ( See PALETTE CHANGER below). If you are only using text then enter it straight away. You should be aware that if you are using a design on your card the first two lines should not be used for text before a design is loaded as it will obliterate all of the text. You can of course click on REPLACE TEXT and if the text is in a clear area it should show O.K., however if it fouls any part of the design that part of the text may look different in colour. If you think the text will not go with the design press 'U' key immediately after loading design to restore text only. Which ever way you load designs i.e. before or after entering text you can usually restore text by clicking on the REPLACE button or pressing 'U' key. I haven't tried all the options myself but you should be able to combine text and designs in different ways. Don't forget the PAINT facility can be of use also. Click on TEXT END when you have completed text entries. To clear designs or text on lines 3, 4 and 5 click on CLEAR TEXT. To clear designs or text on lines 1 and 2 click on CLEAR DESIGN. The reference to any text is not forgotten and the text can be replaced again if required. Any DESIGNS cleared will be lost from the card and must be loaded again from disk. To clear a border only, click on CLEAR BORDER box. There is an UNDO feature now with all of these, just press the 'U' key to UNDO the last action only. The 'U' key can also be used to restore the previous loaded border or design if it was the last action. You can replace borders, designs, and text at any time on your card till you consider it finished. You can view the card at any time in isolation on screen when you are ready, Click on VIEW CARD. You can then change the background colour to give an idea what is the best colour of card to actually print on. You may well decide there are enough colours already in the text, border and design and opt to print on white card instead. It has to be said, darker card colours will subtract rather than add to your colour scheme. Don't forget to save your finished card to disk before you quit the program. DO NOT have more than 25 letters in your card names. DO NOT add any extensions to your card names as this will confuse B-CARD++. The extension .crd is added to the end of card names automatically. MAKE A BORDER box When you click on this box, a requester appears so can you load in a file previously made with the ColMAKEBORDER.tmp template in a paint program. I have created one for you named EXAMPLE.Mkbdr, notice the .Mkbdr extension to the filename which must be added when making the file in your paint program. I must hastily add at this point that existing files can also be edited within B-CARD thus virtually creating new borders from old and these edited borders can be tested within B-CARD and if you think them good enough can be saved as separate files. If you haven't yet made one of these files then load in the EXAMPLE.Mkbdr and a border will be created for you on screen. To edit this border and thus create a new one, click on EDIT BORDER box. Load in the EXAMPLE.Mkbdr from the requester and the border tile boxes will be displayed in a window ready for you to edit. The mouse cursor will constrained within this window initially, but by pressing the 'Z' key you can choose from all the drawing and paint tools in the MAGNIFY mode window, Try not to edit the template box lines. Press the 'U' key if you need to undo the last action. When you are happy with your editing, exit the MAGNIFY mode window then press 'T' key (TEST) and a new border will be created on the card. Press 'S' key to save to disk or 'E' key to exit. When saving to disk you can save in this new tile format (.Mkbdr) or in the older border format (.bdr) or both. DO NOT add any file extensions of your own if saving from within B-CARD, the .Mkbdr or .bdr extensions are added to these files when saving. These border (.Mkbdr) files are much easier to create than the standard ones using the ColBORDER.tmp template, for they consist only of three small boxes (tiles). One is for creating the Left and Right corners of the border, and the other two are for the horizontal and vertical areas. These boxes are quite small so use the Magnify mode in your paint program to make a design within them. To make a border from scatch load in the ColMAKEBORDER.tmp into a paint program. When you are creating a border be aware that the corner box is for the Left Upper Corner of your card or border. The Right corner box will be created from this. This makes for symetrical corners and gives your border a neater look. Now place a design in the Corner, Horizontal, and Vertical tile boxes and that's it. Have a look at the EXAMPLE.Mkbdr file in a paint program if you want an idea. Don't forget to save your finished tile boxes with the .Mkbdr extension in the filename so B-CARD can display it for loading. See section on template use also at end of these docs. Palette Changer This is available in the MAKE A CARD, LOAD A CARD, and EDIT A CARD sections, and is meant to fine tune or change colours completely in the current palette. For example, you will find it very useful for matching up design and border files which carry different palettes or changing a colour which may not print out very well etc. The idea is to construct or load in a card first, then use the Palette Changer as a final application after other changes have been completed. Click on the PALETTE CHANGER box and you will be presented with a window containing 3 vertical slider bars for changing colours, and a set of 7 small boxes which echo the larger palette boxes on the main screen except the white number 8 box. Click on any one of these small boxes then use the sliders to change the colour. You will notice the same number palette box on the main screen changes colour also exactly in accordance with the Palette Changer box, as do the colours on your card. You can click on any of the other small boxes and do likewise to other colours. If you find you would rather have the default palette after all, just click on the DEFAULT button and your card's original palette will be returned instantly. If you like the changes you have made then click on the OK EXIT button to return to main screen. As long as you don't load in another border, design, or card the Palette Changer will remember the default palette so you can restore it later if required. You will have to save your card to disk to make any colour changes permanent. Save Multiple Card Pic Or SMCP for short, means you can save out a sheet of business cards as an IFF file and load into a DTP or other program to obtain a higher quality print out than is possible in B-CARD. There are a few little things you need to do after you have saved out the file, which are not difficult but requires that you have a program which can print pics such as PPaint, Turboprint, a DTP program, or other. I personally use Wordworth. Lets say you've constructed or are going to edit a business card within B-CARD++, then make sure you've saved it to disk first in its present form as a B-CARD++ card, then click on the S.M.C.P. button to save it again in the multiple card format, and perhaps to a different location. The extension .MCP will be added to the filename so you can identify it later. You will be asked if you want a TEN or EIGHT card sheet in Monochrome or Colour to be saved to disk. I recommend the EIGHT card option. When you are ready load up your DTP or other program then load in your M.C.P. file as a Pic. The only thing you need to do now is maybe scale your MCP file to fill the full area of the page on screen in a DTP program. When this is done you can configure the print settings from your program as you see fit then print it. An M.C.P. card file cannot be loaded back in to B-CARD++ so make sure you have saved your card as an ordinary B-CARD++ card also. 2. LOAD A CARD This loads previously created and finished cards ready for printing or viewing. All B-CARD++ cards are recognised by the extension .crd in the filename. If you have saved a card previously with the INACTIVE or ACTIVE options regarding borders and designs then B-CARD++ will automatically display and print it correctly. You need to use A4 size cards plain or coloured, using the facility provided on your printer for printing on to envelopes. You can print on paper also in the normal way. This would be useful for printing newly created cards to see if they are satisfactory. This will save you wasting the more expensive A4 card unecessarily if you are not happy with the printed results. Before printing you can click on VIEW CARD and change the background colour on screen to give an idea which coloured (or plain) card to print on. You will no doubt want to print your own cards made in MAKE A CARD as soon as possible or create new designs for a card from scratch using the supplied templates. Before printing you can choose to print in colour or black if you wish or if you have a monochrome printer. You can also change the colours on your card with the PALETTE CHANGER before printing if you think for example that a certain colour or colours may not print very well. See PALETTE CHANGER section in these docs for full usage. You can also save the card back to disk with the new colour changes if required, otherwise the change will only last for the current print session. When ready you will be asked if you want to print 8 or 10 cards per sheet. The 8 card mode produces the best quality print out whilst 10 card mode is O.K. for economy use. Next you will be asked whether you want cut marks placed on the printed sheet, these facilitate cutting cards later to an equal size but may be unnecessary if using a guillotine knife cutter for example. Click on PRINT BLACK or on PRINT COLOUR which ever is your choice. 3. EDIT A CARD If you later decide a previously created card needs something added or taken away this is where you can change things. It works almost like MAKE A CARD except you need to load in a complete card first. You will find you need to use the erasers before entering new text although you can add text to the card without these if enough room is available. Any card you load in which has been saved with the DESIGN or BORDER INACTIVE option will automatically be recognised and if the (in)active box(es) is currently at its default i.e. ACTIVE then it will now read INACTIVE or vice versa and you can now edit the card in the correct mode. Don't change the (in)active box(es) unless you want to change modes and load designs and/or borders as the template lines will then be erasable again and you could spoil your card. You will be warned of this before changing modes. DO NOT add any extensions to your card names as this will confuse B-CARD++. The extension .crd is added to the end of card names automatically. Editing is as described in MAKE A CARD. 4. PRINTED CARDS The cards will be printed in sets of 8 or 10 on A4 size card. The 8 card option will give the best print out, and the 10 card option is for economy use. There will be small markings in between cards vertically and horizontally, these show where to cut the card so you end up with 8 or 10 individual cards. To obtain A4 cards, go to your local art shop or office supplier and ask for A4 Coverboard cards, these come in a bewildering range of colours and styles including fluorescent, pastel, white, gold, silver, and textured. The cost at my local shop ranges from 10p each for the plainer cards to 45p each for the more luxury ones. Giving one example, if you purchase ten 10p cards for £1 and choose the 10 card print option, this will give you 100 cards at 1p per card. It's possible you could buy these A4 cards cheaper by bulk, ask around. If you need to produce a greater quantity of cards A.S.A.P you may like to invest in a guillotine knife cutter. If you are not familiar with this it is best described as a flat board with a hinged knife at one end. One with a 12 inch blade would do nicely. With this you could say print ten A4 size cards containing 10 business cards each. You would then stack these ten A4 cards together neatly and cut through them all a once using the cut marks already described giving you 100 business cards in next to no time. ------------------------- 5. CREATING BORDERS and DESIGNS ( with templates ) First you should be aware that you MUST use the supplied templates to be sure your borders and designs are created to the correct size and in the correct position expected by B-CARD++. Their are 6 separate templates, the first three are expectedly named ColBORDER.tmp for creating borders and ColDESIGN.tmp. for creating designs, and a template called ColFULLDESIGN.tmp. With the latter you can create an entire card in a paint program and just load into B-CARD++ for viewing or printing. The next three templates are new to B-CARD and the first two carry markers to inform B-CARD++ which kind of card you have made. For example the ColFULLCARD.tmp template is for creating a card in both BORDER and DESIGN INACTIVE mode. The ColINNERCARD.tmp template is for making a card in DESIGN INACTIVE mode only. You must NEVER erase the markers on these last two templates, they carry essential info which B-CARD++ needs to identify them correctly, and they are useful for making 'STOCK' cards ( background themes ) or even full cards. The last three templates should be saved with the .crd extension in their new filename. The last template is ColMAKEBORDER.tmp and was fully described in MAKE A BORDER section earlier. You need a paint program such as DPaint. The templates are in the Hi Res Interlaced format. The screen format should remain as 640*512 with 8 colours. You can reduce this screen size to 640*256 temporarily whilst designing thus doubling the vertical height of templates if the interlaced mode proves intolerable on the eyes. You must return the screen back to 640*512 Interlaced mode before saving files back to disk. Any attempt to change the screen format or add to the number of colours will result in failure or disappointment or both. However B-CARD++ will return any changed background colour to the original default i.e. white when it loads files in. Any extra colours added will cause B-CARD++ to reject files or abort. Whatever you do avoid changing and using colour 0 (white) background colour for designing with for you might just as well have used invisible ink. Any change in screen format though cannot be corrected and may cause B-CARD++ again to abort. The templates are simply black or coloured rectangles on a white background. In the case of the ColBORDER,tmp template, there are two rectangles, a smaller one inside a larger one. You must create your border in the space BETWEEN the two rectangles. With the ColDESIGN.tmp template there is just one rectangle in which to create a design. You can use as little or as much of space within the border rectangles as you wish as long the border or does not encroach beyond the recommended space. Any part of a border which is outside the recommended limits will be erased by B-CARD++ so your border will not be printed completely. A design on the other hand can be in the design box (ColDESIGN.tmp) with similar restrictions as applied to borders or created in the ColFULLDESIGN.tmp template. The ColFULLDESIGN.tmp template is a combination of the ColBORDER.tmp and ColVDESIGN.tmp templates and is meant to create a card within a paint program rather than in B-CARD++. You can place whatever you wish into this as long as no part of the template lines are used by your design or border. The template lines are erased prior to printing. You should only use the ColFULLDESIGN.tmp file if you intend design your ENTIRE card within a paint program. If you do design your entire card within a paint program, YOU MUST save the finished card with the .crd extension to the filename, so that B-CARD++ will recognise it as a card. Whatever else you do you must retain the screen format at 640*512 with 8 colours. A card constructed with the ColFULLDESIGN.tmp file. can only be loaded into B-CARD++ as a DESIGN and BORDER ACTIVE card ( see earlier). The position and size of the rectangles must not be changed. Do not erase or alter any part of the rectangles but ignore them and save to disk with your completed card, border, or design. In case you were wondering, B-CARD++ DOES NOT print these template rectangles onto your business cards, they are expressly for the internal use of B-CARD++ only. You may have clip art available which can be used, there is plenty out there, they should not have more than 8 colour palettes though, so convert them first. If you have an artistic bent you are only limited by your imagination. It should go without saying, but use the spare screen in your paint program for designing then cut and paste the results onto your template screen, Another thing, but very important, save your border or design when finished under another name but ALWAYS with the file extensions .dsg for DESIGNS and .bdr for BORDERS. For example, a ColDESIGN.tmp file you have entered a design into and are going to name 'Plumbing' should be saved as 'Plumbing.dsg' similarly a border you have entered in a ColBORDER.tmp file would be saved as 'Plumbing.bdr' ( without the apostrophes ). A full card made with the ColFULLDESIGN.tmp and the two new templates of course are saved with the extension .crd for reasons already explained. The ColMAKEBORDER.tmp is saved with the .Mkbdr. extension. It is in your own interests to do this as B-CARD++ will only display cards, borders, and designs for loading which carry these extensions in the filename. If you accidentally corrupt your original template files, you can create new ones from within B-CARD++ ( see CREATE TEMPLATES on B-CARD++ menu screen ). E N D