default 65 characters long

Bob Hansen · Post by **Bob Hansen** » Fri May 30, 2003 5:31 am

This is an edited paragraph above the original message below. The next forum message is a much more sensible solution by me. Don't spend any time trying to do this one.
I will leave this original solution here for learning and laughing purposes only.

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I recently was sent the following email:

If itâ€™s not too much trouble, can you tell me how to set up TP to default 65 characters with a plain text doc.

I just canâ€™t get itâ€¦thanks Jim

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I have attached my reply here.

Hi Jim....

First it's important to remember that TextPad is not designed as a Word Processor. There may be an easier way to do this, but here is an approach that will work.

Try this:
1. Paste the following line into your blank document:
123456789112345678921234567893123456789412345678951234567896123456789712345678981234567899123456789a123456789b123456789c123456789d123456789e
(That 140 character line is just to count characters with every 10th character numbered to represent its "10" value. Hope that makes sense. It should make more sense when you look at the numbers.
2. From the Menu Bar, select Configure, turn Word Wrap = ON with a checkmark.
3. Change the font from the Main Menu, using View, Document Properties.
4. Go to the tab for Font.
5. In the area for Scope, select Screen.
6. For Font, select TrueType, Courier New, Style=Regular, Size=10.
7. In the area for Scope, select Printer.
8. For Font, select TrueType, Courier New, Style=Regular, Size=12.
9. Go to the tab for Printing
10. In the area for margins, set the Left and Right settings to 1.00 (inches)
11. Click on Apply and OK.
12. Now adjust the window on the screen so that you can see the top two lines whose right margins should end with 612345 (65) and 6789d (130) respectively. This will allow you to see 65 characters across on the screen, which should match the 65 characters you will see when you print. You can look at Print Preview to verify setting are OK.

If you want to do something different from 65 characters, you will have to make adjustments to the Margin Settings for printing, and drag the screen window until the correct character numbers end on the right side of the page. Example, using 70 vs. 65 should be looking for characters 67897 (70) and 6789e (140), with margins set at 0.75 both left and right.

I am going to submit your question (without your name) and my response to the forum. I think it is important that we all learn from one another. I like to give back as much as I take out of the information there. I am sure others have similar questions, and others will have different solutions. Lots of great minds out there.

Hope this helps.....good luck.

The only way I can think of making this a default is probably to make a macro to make the settings. Not really a default, but a quick and dirty way to set up the correct values. I don't think this can be done with Document Classes.

Bob Hansen · Post by **Bob Hansen** » Fri May 30, 2003 5:51 am

GROAN! What a dummy, me!

I just stumbled on a much easier answer:

From the Main Menu, select Configure, Preferences.
Under Document Classes, click on Default.
Be sure to have a checkmark in the box for "Word break at column number".
Enter 65 (or your favorite value) into the box for the column number.
(You will have to determine if you want the checkmark in the box to apply all the settings on this page to all documents or not. Enter the checkmark as you desire).

Click Apply and OK.

That was much easier than my earlier solution. Sorry about that.

Note that this was done on the Default. It could be done on any individual Document Class instead of on the Default, but the original question asked for a default..

The pasted line from the earlier answer is still useful to help you see how many characters you are looking at on the screen as you resize it.

Once again, hope this helps.....

Bob Hansen · Post by **Bob Hansen** » Fri May 30, 2003 6:15 am

Hello "Jim"

Thanks for your original question, but I am unable to reply to your email to me.

I sent you two emails in response to your questions on this matter. They both were rejected because of some type of a spam filter. It may be set up to only accept emails from predefined sender list. You may have to edit some settings to allow email in from me.

When that problem is corrected, please send me new email info off line again or log in here with the option to use personal messages on this forum. Don't want to use this forum for offline type communications.

Thanks again, good luck with your spam filters.