Date:         Sat, 23 Jan 93 12:20:38 GMT
From:         Tony Hirtenstein <tonyh@IBMPCUG.CO.UK>
Subject:      Footnotes, printing and BREAKDOWNS
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.notabene

       "I'm going to have a breakdown; I've worked hard for it and
        noone's going to deprive me of it."

        Thoughts like these run through my mind whenever I attempt to
use footnotes at work.  I'll tell you why: first the background:-

    - the documents I prepare need a large number of fairly short
      footnotes on each page - the numbers in the text should be bold
      and in brackets, but let's not open that can of worms right now...
      (I never did customize the printer driver, so what follows isn't
      MY fault.)
    - the document is numbered according to the following system:-
          Level 1 - 1.         SECTION
          Level 2 - (1)        SUBSECTION
          Level 3 - (a)        PARAGRAPH
          Level 4 - (i)        SUB-PARAGRAPH
        - note that this is not the kind of numbering NB takes to
          easily; it's a form of outline, if you like.
        - to accommodate this numbering I have to execute Define Counter
          commands every so often to reset the counters to 1; ex:-
          <DC2=(1)><DC3=(a)><DC4=(i)>
        - I'd love to put the DC commands into a style, but NB won't
          allow that: it says "Can't set value with default" (???).
    - I use NB version 3.1 with a Deskjet and Times Roman cartridges in
      the office, and a Deskjet 500 at home.  E poi?  Well, version 4
      won't instal either printer correctly, so I can't use it (it went
      into XyWrite mode after trying to instal the Deskjet with
      cartridges!).

      Hitherto I have been using running footers to put in the
footnotes: it's tedious because you have to keep count of what page
you're on, adjust it for NB's tendency to print over the end of the page
when using automatic leading, and adjust the footers accordingly; but it
just about works.
      Yesterday I tried putting all the footnotes in in NB manner:
F1-L-E-F etc., then Ctrl-F10 for each footnote; and deleted the running
footers except for the page numbering.  Oh yes, one other thing: I like
to have a running header with the draft date in it.  So we have running
headers, footnotes and running footers, all in the same document.  With
me so far?

      The first thing that happened halfway through inserting the
footnotes was a system crash, preceded by ominous messages saying "Out
of memory - counters inaccurate".  There _is_ only one megabyte of
memory in the office machine, and I _was_ running a TSR at the time,
wasn't I?  So I start again, this time without TSR's, without other
windows open, and after going to DOS and back again - that gives the
system about 174k to play with as well as the (54k) file itself.
      This time I tried to print just page one of the document.  Using
F1-P-P, the programme reports that it can't calculate the page breaks,
and tells me to use the main Print menu.  So I do.
      Two-thirds of the way through the page, the programme goes on
strike: the printer shows a busy light but can't finish the page.  Only
Shift-Ctrl-Alt-ESC will get me out of the programme, after protestations
about the printer being occupied and files open.  Checking the [384k]
RAM disk before I switch off shows two temporary files of equal size, one
QUIT1.TMP, the other PRINT.TMP.  To add insult to injury, the printed
page doesn't even have the running header!

      I'm not sure what conclusions to draw from this sorry episode, but
one thing is sure: I have been complaining about footnotes and other NB
defects for months if not years, first to Dragonfly and latterly to the
overwhelmed UK distributor.  Since 1990 not one solution has come from
them to the footnotes problem.

      Hypothesis: either (i) footnotes beyond a certain number clog the
system, and it can't keep up; and/or (ii) NB needs vastly more
conventional memory to run in than the manual admits.

      Apart from the inconvenience of using running footers, it also
makes the document untranslatable.  We need proper footnotes and working
automatic numbering if we are ever to use NB to drive typesetters, using
SGML or Atex or whatever (wasn't that why XyWrite was developed in the
first place - historians?)  Are we all doomed to use W***P*****t to get
round these defects?

      So after all that... I'd like to hear from anyone who has a
working approach to my problem.  One possibility is to convert the
dcoument to W***P*****t - has anyone tried this with footnotes?
--
**************** Tony Hirtenstein ********************
tonyh@ibmpcug.co.uk ************* West Oxfordshire ***
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU