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Old 08-21-2007, 06:19 PM   #1
Marilynx
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
Posts: 55
Default Testing PM 7...

I've got PM7 up. I've succeeded in making a page the size of the one Lulu tells me I'll need to print the size book I'm planning to print. (6 x 9). I've succeeded in placing a single text file in it, and formatting the text more-or-less the way I want it. (I am going to have to learn how to create PM styles and save them.)

However, the text cheerfully flows off the end of the page and the rest vanishes. There does not appear to be an automatic addition of pages. Do I have to only place and position the text that fits on a single page? If so, doing the cook book and the book is going to be a witch.

I am finding the help files irritating rather than helpful. There's no continuity of information. A couple of paragraphs with no detail, and no examples. And then, "see this" and I click on that, and it has nothing to do with what I am trying to learn how to do.

I understand that PM7 is not Word and vice versa. I understand that most of the people here hate Word -- but it's what I've got, and what I'm used to, apart from my venerable WordStar.

However, in Word, when I began this project, I created a cookbook section template which had a blank section title page oriented so it would always be a righthand page in the book, and a blank page on its back. I set headers -- Louisiana SCD Lagniappe on the left and my name on the right. I set footers -- page number and section name on the left pages, and section name and page number on the right pages. I created several styles -- TitleLineOne, TitleLineTwo, which were, respectively, 16 point Ariston centered, and 16 point Ariston centered with an additional 25% leading underneath it. Also a Commentary style which was just 12 point TR italicised. I had an Ingredients style which was 14 point TR, ragged right, hanging indent, and a Directions style which was 14 point TR, justified. A Recipes style which was small caps italicized designated another recipe in the book. A bulleted and justified 14 point TR was used for "variations" on a given recipe. Word created its own notion of what size the foot notes ought to be. I set up a tool bar with buttons on it for each style, and as I typed in a recipe, I simply applied the formatting to it as I went. When I created a new section, say, breaking out "Fruits" from "Fruits and Vegetables" or creating "Herbs and Spices" to put all my spice mixtures in, instead of lumping them in with the "Dips and Dressings", I just used the template, added my frontispiece and footers, and pasted in the recipes I was breaking from one to the other.

After due consideration, I think I like the way the New Century Schoolbook looks, so I'll likely be using that. (Although a number of cooks tell me they prefer sans-serif fonts in their cook books.)

It may be naive of me, but I honestly thought I would be able to install the program, read the directions, and be able to have something like
a template ready to go in a very short time. It's what I've done with every other program I've ever tackled. My assumption was that what would take the longest would be converting my files to text and re-formatting them. I'm honestly frustrated that this isn't the case, and that, moreover, there doesn't seem to BE a set of comprehensive instructions. The so-called help file is just a bunch of pithy little reminders for people who already know the program.

I hope the book I've ordered is better.

   
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