PROBLEMS WITH VIEW 13.4? ======================== PROBLEM: You try to print a file via JETCOL or 2COL but nothing happens - the display just returns to the VIEW screen. POSSIBLE REASONS: 1. You don't have JETCOL or 2COL! 2. You have JETCOL or 2COL, but you have not left enough memory free for it to run. Go to the configuration program VIEWCFG.COM and reconfigure VIEW to have at least 50 memory blocks reserved. You may get away with 49, you may need 51 - experiment! ALTERNATIVELY: re-run VIEW using the /mem command line switch to allocate (temporarily) more memory for JETCOL/2COL. 3. You have JETCOL or 2COL, and you have enough memory allocated for it, but it is not referenced in your PATH statement. Either edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to put the drive and directory where you keep JETCOL or 2COL in the path, or, from VIEW, enter the full path when asked to enter your command line parameters. ======================================================================== PROBLEM: VIEW behaves in a strange fashion - keys don't work, or the display is garbled. POSSIBLE REASONS: 1. The VIEW.EXE file has become damaged. Re-install from the ZIP file. 2. You have not allocated enough memory blocks. The configuration program allows you to go as low as 13, but that may not be enough. Try increasing the memory allocation units reserved until VIEW works properly. The number may depend on how much memory you have installed on your system, what TSRs you have running, whether or not not you are running under a network, for example. I find that allocating 15 units allows VIEW to run without problems. 3. You have configured VIEW for fast display but you have an incompatible video card (this is more and more unlikely unless you have an old card, or a card in an AT&T or Olivetti machine). Reconfigure VIEW to disable fast video. 4. You see "snow" on the screen. This means you have configured for fast video but your video card is just not fast enough to keep up with the display (this happens with CGA cards). Reconfigure VIEW to disable fast video display. ======================================================================== PROBLEM: VIEW does not properly decode Word for Windows 6 files. REASON: I have developed an algorithm for decoding WinWord 6 files, but these files are very complex. Please report any problems you have. in particular, VIEW cannot as yet decode properly Word 6 files saved using the "quick save" feature. ======================================================================== PROBLEM: I am running VIEW on a 132 column screen but the menu display does not properly clear when I exit the menu. REASON: As shipped, VIEW is "hard wired" not to try to detect what display parameters you are using (i.e. rows and columns). This is because there are some video cards that apparently do not use standard means for reporting their current mode. Configure VIEW, using the configuration program, to use "fast video". In this mode, VIEW does query your video card to get its current display mode. ========================================================================= PROBLEM: I saved a file in the "save for word processor" format, but my word processor will not import it, or says "unknown format". REASON: Not all word processors will import files that are not in their own format. If you see the "unknown format" message, try editing the file you are trying to import using an ASCII editor. Put a few lines of garbage, with hard returns, at the beginning of the file. Your word processor should now recognize it as an ASCII file and import it. You can then delete the lines of garbage. ========================================================================= PROBLEM: I saved a file in the "save for word processor" format but when I import it there are gaps in the lines. REASON: Unfortunately, there is not much you can do about this, because it means that the original file had spaces at the beginning of lines. Note for registered users: Try saving the file to ASCII format (if it is not already an ASCII file), then converting it with the utility STRIPIT, which is included in the package sent to registered users. STRIPIT removes blanks and tabs from the beginning and end of lines. ========================================================================== PROBLEM: When I try to read a file that I know is ASCII (for example, an overflow file written when VIEW reads a big file), I get the "format unknown" message. REASON: Chances are that there are some high order ASCII characters at the beginning of the file. VIEW attempts to differentiate ASCII from non-ASCII files by looking at the first part of a file, but occasionally it reports this message for what genuinely is an ASCII file. Simply select F1 (view as ASCII) and F2 (use file's settings) to view the file. ========================================================================== PROBLEM: When I try to read a file that I know is HTML, it displays instead as "plain text". REASON: VIEW uses strict checking for HTML files; in particular, for the program to recognize them, the first character MUST be <. Some HTML files have CR/LF sequences at the beginning. To view them as decoded HTML, use a text editor to remove these sequences. ========================================================================== PROBLEM: I have a Word file with strange high order characters. REASON: It probably uses the Mac character set. Press m while viewing the file to convert to the DOS characters (code page 437 or 850). ========================================================================== PROBLEM: I have an RTF file with extra characters and words. REASON: RTF files contain a complicated system of "control words" in the format of \word1 [word2] [word3]. VIEW uses a simplified technique for decoding RTF files. It does not filter out the word2, word3 etc. components of the file formatting codes. In order to do so it would have to check for a very large number of possible control structures, and would lose its speed and relatively small size. Fortunately, the vast majority of control codes have only a single word, so the extra characters and words should not pose a problem. You may in particular see such extra characters at the beginning of a file, where there is a large amount of header formatting information. ========================================================================== PROBLEM: I have a Word 6 o latr, or Wordperfect 7 or later, file that does not dislay correctly. REASON: Unfortunately, because sich files are OLE 2 enabled, some of them may be extremely complex. As a simple DOS-based viewer, VIEW is unable to decode them correctly. (END OF DOCUMENT)