Section 5: The Editor

At the Learner Level we discussed only a few Editor commands. In this Section we introduce all the Editor commands. In addition to a broad variety of ways to move the cursor, we explore the clipboard and view mode. The clipboard is a flexible tool that makes editing text a delight. The clipboard allows you to move sections of text around very quickly. View mode lets you preview your text without leaving the Editor.

Part 1: Control Characters

In the Learner Level Section 4, Part 4, we described the smallest working unit of data as a character. A character in BEX can be any member of the group of the 128 ASCII characters. "ASCII" rhymes with "passkey" and is a well-established computer standard for internally representing characters by numbers. At the Learner Level, we mentioned the characters on the keyboard: all the lowercase and uppercase letters; the space character; the digits 0 through 9; punctuation like comma, period, percent sign, parenthesis, etc. This group of characters numbers 96, and is sometimes known as the printable characters.

In addition, there are 32 non-printing characters, called control characters. You use these characters to control the behavior of a printer or a computer. At the Learner Level, we mentioned one of these control characters: the carriage return, also known as control-M. BEX allows you to type any control character directly into your text. This means that a BEX chapter can contain instructions for the Apple, for an interface card, or for any printer.

Typing Control Characters

When you want to type a control character in your text, first enter the Editor command control-C. The next key you press is interpreted as a control character and is placed as in your text. In the 80-column Wide mode and the 40-column Non-HI-RES screen mode, all control characters appear as the delete checkerboard. In all other screen modes, control characters appear on your screen as small uppercase letters with lines under it.

Entering any control character that's a letter is easy: first enter control-C and then press the appropriate letter. Since most of the one-key control characters, such as <CR> and the left and right arrow keys, have a control character assigned to them, you can enter them two ways in your text. For example, entering control-C and then pressing M has the same effect as pressing <CR>.

In printer manuals, you may encounter some strange looking characters like control-caret or control-shift-2 that you have to enter into your text as printer instructions. Just take these names as literal instructions: for control-shift-2, first enter control-C, then press the shift key and the digit 2 simultaneously. The result is the break character, also known as null or ASCII zero.

It's important to distinguish between control characters as Editor commands and control characters as items in your text. You use control character Editor commands to delete, insert, and move around in your text. These commands are not placed into your text. You enter control characters into your text to give instructions to BEX and your printer. These commands are placed into your text, and can be manipulated as normal characters.

Control Characters on Voice and Braille Channels

As we mentioned above, the Echo speaks the control characters that are in your text. BEX uses a special vocabulary for voice and braille output when you move character by character with the left and right arrow keys. When you enter a "control-shift-2" in your text and then arrow over it, your voice or braille device outputs "break." Some control characters have such long names that we chose to abbreviate them to "ASCII 31" or "ASCII 32."

Control Characters on the Screen Channel

As we mentioned above, every control character appears as the delete checkerboard in the two screen modes that use built-in character generators, modes W and N.

For users with large print and braille screen access devices such as a DP-10 or BDP, the command control-C D toggles the control characters in your text between the default checkerboard, and the at-sign. However, this is only visible in screen modes W and N. Part 6 explains more about this command. For all other screen modes, print and braille, BEX draws special characters. Most control characters appear as a smaller, underlined uppercase letter. As mentioned earlier, <CR> appears as tiny uppercase C and R jammed together. Control-J is the ASCII standard for line feed, so it appears as tiny uppercase L and F jammed together.

Part 2: Entering Editor Commands, Continued

At the Learner Level, we described in detail how to enter Editor commands correctly. Everything we said is true, but we omitted some potentially confusing details.

Remember that when a command is defined as two control characters such as control-A control-W you must type two control characters.

When a command is defined as a control character followed by one or more plain characters such as control-S A you may type the plain characters as control characters. After you enter control-S, BEX is laissez-faire about both shift and control keys: it interprets control-S control-S control-W exactly the same as control-S S W.

With standard versions of TEXTALKER you can change the Echo command character by entering control-E followed by another control character. For example, entering control-E control-A changes the Echo's command character from control-E to control-A. We have modified the TEXTALKER on your BEX disk so that this is not possible. However, if for some reason you have copied a different version of TEXTALKER onto your BEX disk, you should be aware that typing control-E control-A changes the Echo's command character to control-A. Control-A would no longer move the cursor forward. To recover, enter control-A control-E to change the command character back to control-E.

There are several editor commands that we document as being executed with the spacebar. An example is control-A <space> to move to the end of the page. As you may have discovered through experimentation, the spacebar is not the only key that executes the command. In fact, any key that is not specifically assigned to a command executes that command. In the case of advancing the cursor, control-A <space>, control-A W, control-A <CR>, control-A backslash and control-A control-J (or down-arrow) have identical effects.

If you're a "hot dog" typist, you can use the control character that starts one command as the "any key" character that executes the previous command (which is very handy for inserting). For example, you wish to insert five words of text and then delete the rest of the paragraph. Enter control-I, type the five words, then enter control-D control-P.

Part 3: Moving Around in the Editor

We introduced a few of these commands at the Learner Level. Now we'll give you the complete list. All the cursor move commands are available for all users; however, some cursor move commands also output text to the voice and braille channels.

Before we introduce the following command, we need to explain more about your text output. Because BEX is oriented around characters, internally it doesn't save data as lines. The lines that are centered around line-oriented movement commands (explained below) are not the same as output lines. The line-oriented movement commands work with lines which are created by the format commands you place in your text. Output lines are the result of the carriage width you specify when you configure a printer.

One unit you can specify for moving and deleting text is control-L for a line. This only refers to an explicit new line created by a hard <CR> or a new-line ( $l ) indicator you type in your text. BEX only divides your text into output lines when it's printing. Control-L cannot refer to output lines in the Editor, since BEX doesn't know where they will be.

You can move by sentences in the Editor. BEX's definition of a sentence includes any series of letters ending with some punctuation such as period, question mark, exclamation point, and left parenthesis, then <space>. Because of this, BEX interprets most abbreviations as the end of a sentence. Keep this in mind when you use the sentence command, control-T.

When we introduce the commands, we use the number sign # to stand for number you enter. This number may consist of one or more digits. For example, when we say that control-A # <space> advances the cursor # characters, the # can be a digit from 1 to 4096, the limit of the page characters.

Silent Cursor Movement

The up arrow, control-K and the down arrow, control-J move the cursor up or down one line on the screen. When your cursor is located at the top or bottom line on the screen, then control-K and control-J will scroll the screen, too.

Control-A starts many editor commands which Advance the cursor forward through your text: how far you advance depends on the subsequent numbers and unit character.

You specify how many units to advance by entering control-A # then the unit's control character. This includes all the above commands except for control-A control-S. For example: control-A 200 <space> advances 200 characters, control-A 5 control-W advances five words, control-A 4 control-T advances the cursor to the space after the fourth sentence, control-A 3 control-L advances the cursor to the third new line, and control-A 2 control-P advances two paragraphs.

To move the cursor backward, use control-Z in place of control-A:

Just as with control-A, you use a number to specify how many units to move. You can use any unit command except control-S. Control-Z 5 control-W zooms back 5 words, control-Z 4 control-T zooms back the cursor to the space after the fourth previous sentence, control-Z 3 control-L zooms back the cursor to the third previous new line, control-Z 3 control-P zooms back three paragraphs, and control-Z 1400 <space> zooms back 1400 characters.

Moving to Specific Characters: Locating Text

You can locate text from your current cursor in two directions. Start out with control-L, then type the exact characters you wish to locate. Your search string can be up to 38 characters long. As you are typing in the characters you wish to locate, you can use the left arrow key to fix typing errors.

After you have typed your search string, execute the locate command with control-A to locate in advance of the cursor (towards the end of the page.) Or, execute the locate command with control-Z to locate backwards of the cursor (towards the beginning of the page). The next time you use control-L, you do not need to type the search string again. When BEX can't find an occurrence of your string, you get one high error beep and your cursor stays where it is. The locate command remembers the search string characters until you turn off the computer or enter different characters.

Control-L is very picky when it comes to searching for sequences of characters. You must type the search string exactly as it appears in your text. This includes case and punctuation. For example, you want to search for the word Braille and the word appears with both an uppercase and lowercase B. You must search twice: once with Braille and once with braille. A shortcut to the problem of initial letter case variation is to ignore the first letter. Typing your search string as raille finds both the uppercase and lowercase words.

Type initial and final spaces in your string when you want to find a word as oppose to a series of letters. Suppose you're trying to locate the word the. If you type the for your search string, your cursor lands on other, weather, and theocratic. When you type <space>the<space> as your search string, your cursor only lands on the.

To type a control character into your search string, you use the same method as typing control characters in your text. Enter control-C then type letter. For example, suppose you want to search for every occurrence of control-S followed by two dollar signs in your text. Control-L starts the locate command. Next type control-C S $$ to define the search string, then enter control-A to start searching in front of the cursor.

Talking Cursor Movement

At the Learner Level, we documented many commands as talking movement commands. By this point, you're probably not surprised to discover that the same commands also output to the voice and braille channels.

You can move your cursor by words and output to the voice or braille channel with control-G and control-R. Control-G speaks and Goes forward a word. Control-R speaks and Reverses a word. You can move by words without output with control-A control-W and control-Z control-W.

The speed at which the cursor arrives at its new position is determined by the more sluggish device; when your cursor arrives at its new position, the Apple speaker makes a low boop. When you do not have a device attached to the voice or braille channel, these commands still move your cursor as described.

The left arrow key, control-H, and the right arrow key, control-U, move the cursor one character at a time to the left and right; arrowing speaks the character the cursor moves onto.

BEX uses a special vocabulary when outputting these characters. Regardless of how your output device handles capitalization and punctuation, BEX outputs the exact status of the character: whether it is a plain or control character, etc. On the braille channel, you get the single screen braille cell corresponding to the character you arrowed to. For the voice channel, BEX uses a special vocabulary, with some creatively mangled spelling to improve pronunciation.

The next three commands allow you to review portions of text with voice and/or braille devices. The spacebar can be used to stop output; BEX boops when passing a hard <CR>; details are explained below.

The spacebar stops output

For control-O, control-T, and control-Y, you can press <space> to stop output and cursor movement. If your serial voice device has any buffer, however, pressing <space> may not immediately stop the speech.

Using control-O and the spacebar is very handy for proofreading. When speaking, BEX pauses slightly between each word to check to see if you've pressed <space> to stop the speech output. BEX accomplishes this pause by inserting <CR> between each word right before it's sent to the voice and braille channel. When you set your voice device to pronounce <CR>s, then you hear "return" between each word when BEX reads with control-T, control-Y or control-O. Those <CR>s are not actually in your text.

The environmental command control-S J is the "jerky speech" toggle command. The default is jerky. Enter control-S J and BEX stops inserting <CR>s, and the speech is much smoother. However, when you have toggled off jerky speech, pressing <space> no longer immediately stops output and cursor movement. See Part 6 for details.

BEX boops over a hard <CR>

When you enter control-G, control-R, control-T, control-Y, and control-O, BEX gives a low boop when it passes over a hard <CR>. When you arrow over it with the left and right arrow keys, hard <CR>s are spoken as "return."

Moving from Page to Page

Each BEX page can hold 4096 characters, but you don't need to fill up each page. To move from page 1 to page 2, enter control-P 2 <space>. The disk drive whirs as the characters in page 1 are saved, and you're at character position zero on page 2. When you enter control-P 0 <space>, BEX saves the current page and returns you to character position zero on the same page.

You can also move back and forth between pages without specifying the page number: control-P control-A advances to the next page. Control-P control-Z zooms back to the previous page. This also saves the information in the previous page to disk. Entering control-P <space> cancels any page move.

Control-C control-P cuts the page at the current cursor, leaving you at character position zero of the second page you've just created. You can use any of these features at any time to create more pages. BEX renumbers the pages automatically.

Deleting Text

At the Learner Level, we introduced several deletion commands. Now we present them all. The syntax for deletion commands is similar to control-A and control-Z: you combine control-D with a number and a unit command.

Deleting the block is discussed under Part 4, The Clipboard.

Avoid pages with zero characters

As you are editing text, you may decide that all the characters in one page are useless, so you want to delete them. The best way to accomplish this is with option K - Kill pages on the Page Menu. To jog your memory about which page you want to kill, you can delete all but three characters. Then at the Page Menu, do File list. Any page with three characters is one you want to kill.

You might think that a simpler way to get rid of a page is to delete every character with control-D A, creating a BEX page with zero characters. We don't recommend this. If you delete every character in a page in the Editor, you end up with some orphaned page files cluttering up your disk. Understanding why requires a brief excursion into the bowels of BEX and DOS 3.3.

Whenever you ask BEX to manipulate a page file, BEX checks to see if that page has zero characters. When a page file is listed in the directory with zero characters, then BEX never asks DOS to BLOAD, BSAVE, DELETE, or RENAME that page. That's because DOS 3.3 can't handle a file with zero characters. If BEX asked DOS to work with an empty file, DOS would freak out. So when you delete all the characters in the Editor, BEX only updates the directory file. BEX does not save a page file with zero characters.

Suppose you have a chapter named PSALM 25 that contains three pages. Before editing, option F - File list on the Page Menu yields this information:
Chapter PSALM 25
3 pages
Page 1 Size882 A
Page 2 Size 1764 B
Page 3 Size 3528 C
When you do a DOS catalog of this disk, you see these four files:
B005 PSALM 25.A
%%%p-1B008 PSALM 25.B
%%%p-1B015 PSALM 25.C
%%%p-1B003 PSALM 25

Suppose you edit the PSALM 25 chapter and delete all the characters in page 2, then quit. BEX updates the directory file to reflect the new size of page 2, but it does not save an empty PSALM 25.B page file. The older version of the page remains on disk.

Zip to the Page Menu now, and File list looks like this:
Chapter PSALM 25
3 pages
Page 1 Size882 A
Page 2 Size0 B
Page 3 Size 3528 C
However, when you do a DOS catalog, the PSALM 25.B page file still has 8 sectors. You might think you could use option K - Kill pages to delete the PSALM 25.B page file, but that won't work. BEX checks the directory and discovers that page 2 holds zero characters, so it only changes the directory file. To get rid of the orphan PSALM 25.B page file, Quit BEX and use the DELETE command at the BASIC prompt.

Inserting Text from the Keyboard

You can use control-I to signal the start of keyboard insert. After you enter control-I, every character after your cursor turns into the underbar character. Each character you type is inserted in your text immediately before the cursor. While inserting, you can press <CR>, left arrow or <ESC>. Pressing control-N, the right arrow key, or any other control character except <CR>, the left arrow key or <ESC> finishes the keyboard insert and executes the command associated with the control character.

Status Information

The bottom line on the screen displays information about the current cursor position, the size (or total characters in current page), and the number of the current page. In 5-column screen, the display only shows the current cursor and total size.

Use the "Where am I?" command, control-W for status information output to screen, voice and braille channels. When you enter control-W, the text temporarily disappears. You're presented with a question mark prompt. You can now enter any of four characters:

You may press B, C, P and A as many times as you need to get information. After you digest the control-W information, press any key except B, C, P or A to return to the Editor.

Part 4: The Clipboard

The clipboard is an electronic scratchpad that helps you manipulate blocks of text. The clipboard features described here are available only with a 128K Apple.

() 64K Apple: Users of a 64K Apple should read Appendix 4 for information on the limitations of the clipboard size and function.

The clipboard is a "floating" temporary page. It may contain up to 4096 characters, as large as a regular BEX page. However, it is not a "real" page in an actual chapter. You can place text on the clipboard from one page and insert it from the clipboard onto another page within the same chapter or in a different chapter. You can move text on and off the clipboard in various ways, which lets you accomplish many different tasks.

You cannot save the clipboard itself to disk. The contents of the clipboard remain until you copy more information on top of it, delete it, or turn the Apple's power off.

The idea of a block was introduced in the section covering deletion in Learner Level Section 4, Part 10. Using the same commands, you can copy a portion of text onto the clipboard. You can delete or insert text using the block commands we describe in this Part.

Block Marker Commands

We first introduced these commands at the Learner Level.

To delete a block of text, you must have a marker set. The marker can define only the start of the block; the end of the block is the character immediately preceding your cursor. Control-B L moves your cursor to the marker either forward or backward, as required.

Clipboard Commands

Moving the Marker Around

You can only have one marker set at any one time. Every time you enter control-B S, the old marker is erased as the current marker is set. Since the marker is an invisible pointer, erasing it does not alter your text.

The marker is automatically erased every time you execute any insert or delete command. This prevents BEX from becoming confused about where the marker is located. This means you should always set the block marker immediately before you append or copy text to the clipboard.

Placing Text on the Clipboard

There are three ways to copy text to the clipboard. First, you can exchange the contents of the page and the clipboard. Second, you can append text to the clipboard. When you append a block to the clipboard, you are placing the copied text after whatever text is already on the clipboard. Third, you can copy text to the clipboard. When you copy a block to the clipboard, then all the text on the clipboard is overwritten by the copied text.

Exchanging the page and the clipboard

You do not need to set a marker when you want to exchange the contents of the page and the clipboard. At any time, you may enter control-B X, and the clipboard and the current page are exchanged. Your cursor is located at character position zero. When you enter control-B X when the clipboard is empty, then you have a blank page. You haven't lost any of the text in your page, it's just temporarily on the clipboard; it's like putting a phone call on hold.

Control-B X lets you examine and edit the contents of the clipboard. What was on the clipboard is now in the page. If you save the page to disk when the clipboard and you page are exchanged (either by control-Q or moving to another page) you won't save the text that's on the clipboard.

Enter control-B X again, and the original text from the page is back in the page, and the original text from the clipboard is back on the clipboard. It's important to develop the habit of checking to make sure that the text you wish to save is in the page and not on the clipboard before you save it.

Here's an example. You have a chapter with 3 pages: page 1 contains 1200 characters, page 2 has 2900 characters, and page 3 has 800 characters. You start on page 1. First, check to see the status of the clipboard: enter control-W B for block and clipboard information. After the question mark prompt, you get this message: Clipboard 0 No Marker so you know the clipboard is empty. Enter control-B X: all 1200 characters from page 1 are now on the clipboard. Use control-W B, and the response is: Clipboard 1200 No Marker. Now move to the next page with control-P 2 <space>. Enter control-B X to exchange the contents in page 2 with the clipboard. Control-W A yields:
Clipboard 2900 No Marker
Cursor 0 Size 1200
Page 2 of 3

You have moved all the text from page 1 in to page 2. All the text that was in page 2 is now on the clipboard. Move back to page 1, and enter control-B X one last time. Control-W A informs you:
Clipboard 0 No Marker
Cursor 0 Size 2900
Page 1 of 3

You've just switched the text in pages 1 and 2 by using the clipboard as an intermediary. You could accomplish the same thing by using option E - Exchange pages on the Page menu, but the clipboard is much faster!

Copying text to the clipboard

To copy text to the clipboard, you must first set the block marker at the beginning of the text you wish to copy. Move to the beginning of the text. Enter control-B S to set the marker. The marker defines the beginning of your text. Now move your cursor forward until you're at the end of the text you wish to copy. The marked text includes all the text from the marker up to the cursor; the character the cursor covers is not copied. Enter control-B C, and the marked text is copied onto the clipboard. Whatever text was on the clipboard is overwritten by the text you've just copied.

Copying text to the clipboard does not affect the text in your page. You must consciously remove this text by entering control-B D to delete text you marked in the page. Deleting text in the page with control-B D does not affect the contents of the clipboard.

Appending text to the clipboard

Appending text to the clipboard is a similar process. First establish the marker with control-B S, then move to the end of the text you want appended. Now enter control-B A to append the text onto the clipboard. The text from where you set the marker to the character before the cursor is appended after any existing text on the clipboard.

The text you just appended is still in your page; if you wish to delete it, then enter control-B D.

When you want to move text from the page to the end of the clipboard, you do two steps. First, append or copy the text onto the clipboard by setting the marker and using control-B A or control-B C. Second, use control-B D to delete the block of text you just appended.

Moving Text from the Clipboard to the Page

There are two ways to move text from the clipboard to the page. The first way we've already discussed: you can exchange text from the clipboard to the page by entering control-B X.

The second way is to enter control-B I. A copy of all the text on the clipboard is inserted in your page, immediately before the current cursor position. The contents of the clipboard is unchanged; you can enter control-B I somewhere else and insert the same text again.

Clipboard-Related Error Beeps

When you use control-B commands, you can receive three kinds of error beeps. A single high error beep signals that you've entered a command sequence BEX doesn't recognize. For example, if you enter control-B F, you get one high beep.

Two high beeps means there's not enough room to execute the control-B command. This can happen with control-B I (there's not enough room in your page) or control-B A (there's not enough room on the clipboard.)

Three high beeps indicates a marker error. When you place your cursor before the marker and then enter control-B A, control-B C, or control-B D, BEX rebels with three beeps. The marker always defines the start of your block, so it must precede your cursor.

When you enter a command that requires a set marker, but you have no marker set, you also get three beeps. Either you neglected to set the marker, or you executed an insert or delete command and your marker was erased. You can get three error beeps when you enter control-B A, control-B C, control-B D or control-B L.

Some Examples of Using the Clipboard

The ability to edit text in the clipboard (by entering control-B X, editing, and then exchanging back again) means that there are literally as many things you can do with the clipboard as you can in a BEX page. You'll find that many tasks you used to use the Page menu for can be accomplished more quickly with the clipboard.

The following examples are not exhaustive. For clipboard success, keep two things in mind. First, the contents of the clipboard are never saved to disk. When you want to hold on to the contents of the clipboard, put them in a page somewhere. Second, remember that control-B C overwrites all the text on the clipboard. You should be sure you don't need the text on the clipboard before you enter control-B C.

As you are developing familiarity with the clipboard, you can check on its status in two ways. Control-W B or control-W A lets you know how many characters are on the clipboard, and where your marker is in the page, if you've set it. Control-B X lets you directly examine the clipboard's contents. After you enter control-B X for a clipboard exchange, be careful not to overwrite the data on the clipboard by inadvertently using control-B C.

Inserting a paragraph

As you review your text, you see the need for a new paragraph. Insert a few unique characters in the text you can locate later to find your place: for example, ~~ (two tildes). Now enter control-B X to place all the text in your page on the clipboard. Your cursor is at character position zero of a blank page. Write your paragraph, but don't use control-B A or control-B C.

When you're finished writing your new text, enter control-B X to put the paragraph on the clipboard. Your cursor is at character position zero of your page. Enter control-L ~~ control-A. Your cursor is right where you want to insert the paragraph. First delete the tildes, then enter control-B I and a copy of the paragraph appears in your text.

Switching text

Place your cursor at the beginning of the text you wish to switch; enter control-B S to set the block marker. Move to the end of this text.

When you want to switch a sentence, enter control-T to get to the end of the sentence. To move to the next new line, enter control-A control-L. To move a paragraph, enter control-A P. For larger blocks of text, enter control-O to start outputting to the end of the page, and press <space> when you hear the end of the text. Since these commands always move your cursor to the space or <CR> that defines the end of a word or sentence, the complete word is included in the block, while the character the cursor covers is not.

Once you arrive at the end of the text, enter control-B C to copy the text to the clipboard (and overwrite anything that's already there). Enter control-B D to delete the text in your page that you just copied on to the clipboard. You have executed a delete command, so now your marker has been erased. Move the cursor to where you want the text to go. This can be in the same BEX page, in another page in the same chapter, or in a different chapter. To move the text to a new chapter, simply quit the chapter you're in, and edit the chapter you want the text put into. Enter control-B I to insert it.

Erasing the clipboard

Enter control-B S to set the marker, then immediately enter control-B C. Since you haven't moved your cursor, you've copied zero characters to the clipboard, effectively erasing it.

When you want to make sure that you're not erasing anything important, then use this procedure: enter control-B X to exchange the clipboard and the page. Review the text for anything worth keeping. (You can append any worthwhile text to the end of the current clipboard, which is your original page). Enter control-Z <space> to position the cursor at the start of the page, then enter control-D A to delete all the text. Finally, enter control-B X again to get back to your original page.

Make a short-term backup of text

Enter control-B X to exchange the contents of your current page with the clipboard. Enter control-B I to insert the contents of the clipboard (your original text) into the page. Now type away, but don't use any clipboard commands. If you decide that you want to go back to your original text, just enter control-B X again and there it is.

Rearranging a series of paragraphs

Locate the paragraph you wish to have appear first. Copy it to the clipboard. Move to the next paragraph, and append it to clipboard. Continue appending until you've arranged the paragraphs in the right order on the clipboard, then enter control-B X to move the text in to the page.

Quick and dirty search and replace

Section 8 explains option R - Replace characters in great detail. At the User Level, however, Replace characters requires some disk access. You have to quit the Editor, choose option R - Replace characters, and read and write chapters to disk. At the Master Level, Replace characters is much faster. The following technique is good for quick changes.

In Part 3, we described the locate command: use control-L combined with control-A or control-Z to find particular characters in your text. We refer to the characters you're locating as the find string. The characters that take the place of the find string are called change to string.

The first step is entering control-B X to temporarily put your page "on hold" on the clipboard. Delete any characters that were in the clipboard with control-Z <space>, control-D A. Type the characters for your change to string. Enter control-B X again to return to your original page. Your cursor is now at character position zero. Enter control-L, then your find string, then control-A. At the first occurrence of these characters, enter control-B I to insert the characters from the clipboard. Your cursor is still on the first character of your find string.

When your find string is short, use control-D # control-W or control-D # control-T to get rid of it. When your find string is long, enter control-B S to set the marker; move forward with control-T or control-O; press <space> to stop your cursor, then enter control-B D to delete your find string. Enter control-L control-A again to locate forward, and repeat the process as needed.

Creating a table of contents

Tables of contents are made up of the major points in an essay or article. Usually, you use format commands $$h and $$c to make distinctive the headings and subheadings in your text. Following our recommendations in the Learner Level Section 6, Part 3, you concluded these headings with ( $p ) indicators.

When your text follows these format guidelines, then creating a table of contents is a breeze. Use control-L to locate occurrences of $$h. At the first occurrence, enter control-B S to set the marker, then enter control-A control-P to advance to the next ( $p ) marker. Now enter control-B C to clear the clipboard and copy the first entry to it. For every subsequent occurrence, enter control-B A to append the following heading or subheading to the contents of the clipboard. Advance through the entire chapter or chapters this way, harvesting all the items for the table of contents. Edit a new chapter and use control-B X to examine the entries for your table.

Restoring old text while keeping new text

You can use the clipboard to hold new text you've created while restoring old text you've changed. You save the new text by copying it to the clipboard, instead of leaving it in the page and saving the page. Then, you crash out of the Editor with Control-Reset so that you don't save the unwanted text, but still have the original text on disk.

For example, suppose you are editing an existing chapter. The page you are on has two paragraphs. You delete the first paragraph and create a new version. Then you realize you really want to use the original first paragraph plus the new paragraph you've just created.

First, copy the new text onto the clipboard: Move to the beginning of the text and enter control-B S to set the marker. Then move to the end of the text with control-A <space> or any of the other movement commands. Enter control-B C to copy the new text onto the clipboard. Append any other new text to the clipboard with control-B A.

Next, you need to restore your old text. When you have not saved since before you made changes in your text, you can enter Control-Reset to crash out of the Editor. Your clipboard text is saved, because it is not on any page in your chapter. Edit your chapter; your old text is back. You may then enter control-B I to insert the new text you saved into your chapter where you need it.

Part 5: Previewing Print Format in the Editor

Sighted users sometimes feel disoriented when entering data in BEX's Editor. That's because BEX fills each screen line, so words are sometimes broken between lines. One command allows you to preview format commands your text without quitting the Editor: control-V, the View Mode Editor command.

Page Format for the View Mode

When you enter control-V, the default page format is 80 characters wide by 24 lines long. All format commands on the page are executed. Format commands such as $$w# and $$f# can easily override this format. Page breaks are shown by a line of slashes.

When you enter control-V, text scrolls up the screen quite fast. Use control-S to pause and restart the scrolling. Once the text is completely printed, you press any key, including control-S, to return to the Editor.

After all the text is printed with control-V, and before you return to the Editor, the cursor appears in the lower left-hand corner of the screen. You may also get some extraneous letters near the cursor; these are not in your text and should be ignored.

Your current cursor position determines how much of your text is printed when you enter View Mode. The text where the cursor appears becomes the middle screen line when you enter control-V: line L for Echo and SlotBuster users. When your cursor is at the end of the page, all the text on the page is printed to the screen with control-V. When your cursor is at the beginning of the page, only the first 11 lines of formatted text are printed. When your cursor position is in the middle of the page, all the text before the cursor, plus about ten lines after are printed to the screen.

Your cursor position is not affected when you enter control-V; you cursor is in the same place when you return to text.

The Effect of Format Commands in View Mode

When you enter control-V BEX prints the text of the current page to the 80 column screen. All format commands on your current page are executed, including line spacing and paragraphs. However, any long-term command on a different page is not executed. When you have a margin command or paragraph indent at the beginning of your chapter, those commands are only executed when you are viewing that page.

Clipboard format commands to the current page

You can temporarily copy your format commands from page 1 to your current page using the clipboard. Use control-B C to copy them onto the clipboard, and control-B I to insert them at the beginning of the page. The commands will then be executed when you enter control-V.

When you are finished editing the chapter, make sure to delete the format commands you've placed in your pages. If you do not, strange things may happen with your format. If you changed the margin using a plus or minus sign, and you did not delete all but the first instance of the command, your margin would increase or decrease by that amount every time BEX's formatter encounters the command.

For example, suppose you place the command $$ml+5 at the beginning of your text. You clipboard it onto subsequent pages for use with control-V, and then forget to delete it before printing. Each time the formatter encounters $$ml+5, it moves the margin in five positions: so the text of your first page will have the correct format, but once the second page of your chapter is printed, its margin will be ten positions in, instead of five. The third page will be fifteen, and so on.

Part 6: Customize the Editor Environment

At the Learner Level we introduced three commands for customizing the environment in the Editor. At the User Level you have four classes of commands at your disposal, giving you control over the screen output, the keyboard input, the voice and braille channels, and special Editor features.

Screen Modes

You can choose from ten screen modes by entering control-S S followed by a screen mode letter. Any change lasts until you turn off your Apple or reboot. When you quit the Editor, the menu prompts are displayed with the screen mode you specified in your configuration. The next time you use the Editor, you are in the screen mode you had the last time you quit.

The ten screen mode letters are:

You use these same ten letters when printing to the screen--see Section 6 for details.

Screen channel affects the Editor's "feel"

The screen channel is independent of the voice and braille channels, so the screen mode you specify doesn't affect how your voice or braille device displays characters. The larger the screen mode, the longer it takes to draw the letters on the screen, and the more your keystrokes end up in the keyboard buffer. W and N screen modes are the fastest, because they use the Apple's built-in character generators. If you are partially sighted and a fast typist, you can use W or N mode while you are typing, then switch to L or X to carefully proofread your work. Sighted transcribers who are familiar with braille dot patterns can use one of the braille screen modes for proofreading.

Braille Keyboard Mode

As well as using the Apple keyboard in its time-honored fashion, you can also use six keys and the spacebar like a Perkins-style braille keyboard. Changing to braille keyboard is different from all other environmental commands. Every time you quit the Editor, the keyboard mode returns to normal; if it didn't, you would have to use the braille keyboard to type in chapter names.

() Apple IIgs: The braille keyboard mode does not work on the Apple IIgs. () Caution! When you use the N or W screen modes along with the braille keyboard, you cannot see your cursor. () Caution! The braille keyboard always creates lowercase letters.

The braille keyboard uses the "home" keyboard row: the keys S D F and J K L.

These are the codes you use to enter and exit braille keyboard mode:

If you're familiar with the Perkins-style braille keyboard, then BEX's braille keyboard mode lets you do the same thing with less effort. You must depress the Caps Lock key to activate the seven keys: dots 1, 2, 3, are letters F, D, S, respectively; dots 4, 5, 6 are J, K, L; and the spacebar is the spacebar.

There are two ways to issue Editor commands in braille keyboard mode. You can use the same technique as with the regular keyboard: to issue commands, depress the control key, then press and release the appropriate letter key. You can also chord control characters, by brailling the letter and pressing the spacebar. Pressing F D J K and <space> simultaneously enters the Editor command control-G to go ahead one word.

There are two possible ways to type a control character into your text. The first is the same as with the regular keyboard: enter control-C then press the letter. The second way is to press F J and <space> and then the braille equivalent of the letter. For example, press F J and <space> then F J to enter the control-C character into your text.

To leave braille keyboard mode, depress the control key, then press S K N, then release the control key and the Caps Lock key. Braille keyboard mode is automatically canceled when you quit the Editor.

() Caution! We do not recommend use of the braille keyboard mode for BDP (Braille Display Processor) or DP-10 users--you lose the cursor that your BDP or DP-10 can track. You can switch to a large print screen mode if you wish large print output.

Sending Commands to the Voice and Braille Channels

At the Learner Level, we detailed sending Echo commands inside the Editor. The only Echo command you can't use is control-L, because that's what BEX uses for locating. The syntax for Echo commands is the same in the Editor and at menus: control-E followed by the appropriate plain numbers and letters. (For example, control-E 12 V to set the volume medium loud.)

Commands to non-Echo devices

You can also send commands to other devices on the voice (and braille) channel. You have to find out the commands from that device's documentation. Use control-S O to start a command sequence, and <CR> to end it. For example, to send the Echo pitch command directly to the Echo itself, enter control-S O control-E # P <CR>. Control-S O tells BEX to send the next command on to the voice device. The <CR> at the end is mandatory--it tells BEX that you've finished your command sequence.

Your braille device may be controllable through commands sent from the host device. You may need to temporarily change command characters to prevent conflicts. The control-S O sequence sends the following commands to both the voice and braille channels. When you configure both an Echo GP and a VersaBraille as "devices for all the dialogue on the screen," then both devices receive the control-I 12 P sequence. Fortunately, the VersaBraille simply ignores it.

Jerky Output Toggle

Control-S J controls the quality of speech and the action of the spacebar during the execution of control-T, control-Y, and control-O. The default is jerky, and you can press <space> to immediately stop output and cursor movement. Toggle jerky speech off with control-S J and the speech will flow more smoothly. With jerky speech off, pressing <space> does not stop cursor movement and output immediately. Pressing <space> after entering control-O does stop cursor movement and output before the end of the text; how quickly your device responds depends on the device. Generally, it stops at the end of the sentence in which you pressed control-O. Try it and see! You may find that you want to use jerky speech (the default) when you're actively writing, and turn it off with control-S J when it comes time to review long sections of text.

When your jerky speech is toggled off, and you are searching for a specific sentence using control-O, use control-X to skip ahead to the next sentence. When you enter control-X in this situation, your voice device skips over the sentence it is currently speaking and reads the next sentence.

Pressing any key while the Echo's talking shuts it up and immediately passes that keystroke to the Apple. However, this feature may take some getting used to in BEX's Editor--see Learner Level 10 for details.

The DP-10 Toggle

The DP-10 large print screen display device cannot show the delete key checkerboard, which is used in screen modes W and N to show control characters in your text. Enter control-S D, D for display, to change the character that represents control characters on the screen. Control-S D changes it from the delete checkerboard to the at-sign, which the DP-10 can display. The DP-10 large print screen also cannot show BEX's HI-RES screen. Change your screen mode before using the DP-10 when you use the HI-RES screen mode as your default.

Part 7: Troubleshooting

A few problems are listed here. For further help, see Section 13, Advanced Data Recovery Techniques, and Learner Level Section 4, Part 14, Troubleshooting Editor Problems.

Section 6: Print and Multi-Function Print

At the Learner Level, you used option P - Print to send formatted text to inkprint and large print printers, voice devices, and braillers. At the User Level, you have access to a new option on the Main menu: option M - Multi-function print. You can use either Print or Multi-function print to send formatted text to any printer you defined in your configuration. Section 3 describes how you define any of the eight printer classes in your configuration. There's also a lot of useful background information about printers in the BEX Interface Guide. This Section discusses using braille previewers, continues the discussion on the Review class printers, and introduces some concepts of printing without a format. Samples of using a Review class printer in Section 7.

For both Print and Multi-function print you use the chapter selection methods described in Section 4 to give BEX a list of chapters to print. Multi-function print allows you to do three things: specify which output page printing starts with; make multiple copies of chapter or chapters; and print the data in one BEX page.

The last step in both Print and Multi-function print is specifying where the text goes. You have many more choices here.

Part 1: Specifying Which Printer

At the User Level, you can direct text to more devices. As always, enter a question mark followed by <CR> at the Which printer: prompt to be reminded of the printers you configured:
Main Menu: P
Print
Drive or chapter: 2 <CR>
There are 2 chapters:
1 BLACK
2 WHITE
Use entire list? N <CR>
Select chapters by number
Chapter number: 1 <CR>
BLACK
Chapter number: <CR>
Which printer: ? <CR>
1 - Printer in slot 1 (80 by 58)
2 - Printer in slot 3 (80 by 58)
3 - Brailler in slot 2 (41 by 25)
4 - Brailler in slot 3 (41 by 25)
S - Screen output
N - New inkprinter parameters
L - Last printer parameters
Add +V for voice output
Which printer:

You can always cancel printing in progress by pressing <ESC>.

Numbered Printer

Printers 1 through 4 are the printers you defined in your configuration. The first number is the printer number you enter at the Which printer: prompt. Braille embossers are listed as "braillers" when you chose them from the brailler class. Review class printers are listed as "printers" and braille previewers are listed as "braillers." The slot for the printer is listed, followed by two numbers in parentheses, the carriage width by form length. You can tell inkprint printers and braille embossers apart from Review class printers and braille previewers by the slot numbers they are configured in: the Review class printers and braille previewers are always in slot 3. In the above example, printer 1 is the inkprint printer configured in slot 1, and printer 2 is the Review class printer configured in slot 3.

() Hint! The printer number and the slot number are not the same. You must use the printer number at the Which printer: prompt. You use the slot number to tell the types of printers you have configured.

Screen Options

Answering S at the Which printer: prompt directs printing to the screen channel. Each screen has built-in values for carriage width and form length. BEX's formatter places soft <CR>s and page breaks where appropriate. S alone prints to the screen mode defined in your configuration. Add one of the 10 code letters to print to a different sized screen display. The code letters and their carriage widths and form lengths are:

You can add voice output to any of these screen modes by entering the two letters followed by +V at the Which printer: prompt.

The screen is a printer with pause on form feed. When the screen is full, it pauses. Press <space> for the next screen. Press <ESC> as text is being printed to stop printing and return to the Main menu: prompt.

In wide screen mode, underlines are shown in reverse video. In all other screen modes, the underline is shown.

() Echo: You can only use Echo line review with the SW and SN screen displays.

When your carriage width or form length exceeds the built-in defaults for your screen display, the carriage width and form length in your text are ignored.

Defining New Inkprint Parameters Without Reconfiguring

Answering N at the Which printer: prompt directs output to a new inkprint printer. You can use it for a new printer, or to change the parameters of an already configured printer. An N printer is always a generic inkprint printer. Just enter N <CR> at the Which printer: prompt and answer four questions, for which BEX supplies default values. The default values BEX uses are taken from the last printer you specified. When you define a new printer with N the first time you choose option P - Print or option M - Multi-function print after booting, BEX takes the values from printer 1 in your configuration and uses them as the default values.

() Caution! You cannot use N to define a new brailler; N only works for inkprint printers.

Here's a sample:
Which printer: N <CR>
Old carriage width: 80
New width: 72 <CR>
Old form length: 58
New form length: 56 <CR>
Printer slot is 1
Enter new slot: 2 <CR>
No pause after form feed
Do you want to change? N <CR>

For these four questions, you can press <CR> to use the value listed, or enter a new value.

Last printer chosen

Enter L at the Which printer: prompt to use the same printer you used the last time you answered this question. When your previous printer was printer 1, for example, then L uses printer 1. The values used by the L choice are the same values that would appear as defaults for a new printer under N.

Add voice channel

At the Learner Level, you added the two characters +V to obtain simultaneous voice output with any printer choice. At the User Level, +V adds simultaneous output to the voice channel.

() Caution! The L (last printer) choice does not "remember" if you added voice output with plus V. If your last choice was printer 3+V you enter L+V for the same result.

Print to voice channel alone

When you have a serial voice device, you have three ways to direct output to it: You can describe your voice device as a class V printer in your configuration. Or you can enter +V alone at the Which printer: prompt. Or you can define a new printer with N.

Part 2: Option M - Multi-Function Print

This option adds three features to option P - Print. These new features are the ability to start printout on a specific page, to print multiple copies, and to print a single BEX page from a chapter. There are three more prompts after you specify the chapters to print. Which prompts you receive depends on how you answer them.

() Hint! Multi-function print adds a form feed at the end of printing, even when you make only one copy. When you want a document to roll out of your printer after printing, use Multi-function print instead of option P - Print.

Restarting a Printout on a Specified Page

This feature is handy if you have some mechanical trouble during a printout, for example you're printing a 15-page print document, and your ribbon breaks on page 9. After you choose Multi-function print, specify your chapter or chapters:
Main Menu: M
Multi-function print
Drive or Chapter: BLACK
Drive or Chapter: <CR>
Restart printout on output page 1 9 <CR>
Which printer:

We wanted printout from page 9, so we entered 9 <CR> instead of pressing return to accept the default 1 answer. BEX prompts: Which printer: and your choices are the same as with option P - Print.

BEX "pretends" to print the first 8 pages, and then actually sends data to your printer at the top of page 9. BEX behaves exactly like it's printing during the "pretend" portion: BEX reads data from disk and uses up time figuring out how the page should look. Restarting a printout in the middle of a very long document will be very time-consuming. When you have a braille book, for example, with 140 pages, don't use Multi-function print to reprint pages 75 through 140. Instead, divide your book among several BEX chapters. Start each chapter with the same format information, and use $$n# to set the page number to the correct digit at the start of each BEX chapter. If you don't wish to print all the pages of a document, press <ESC> to cancel the printout.

Printing Multiple Copies

This feature allows you to make more than one copy of one or more BEX chapters. When you accept the 1 default on the previous prompt, BEX asks for the number of copies, and offers an answer of one. When you change this answer to a higher number, BEX makes that number of copies of the list of chapters you've specified.

BEX automatically inserts a form feed at the end of each copy of the list, so each copy starts on a new page. For example, suppose you have a letter consisting of two BEX chapters: LETTERHEAD and JOAN and you want three copies of each. Here's how the dialogue looks:
Main Menu: M
Multi-function print
Drive or chapter: LETTERHEAD <CR>
Drive or chapter: JOAN <CR>
Drive or chapter: <CR>
Restart printout on output page 1 <CR>
How many copies? 1 3 <CR>
Which printer:

You want to make three copies of the letter, so you enter 3 <CR> and BEX prompts Which printer: Specify your printer, and BEX prints LETTERHEAD, JOAN, form feed, LETTERHEAD, JOAN, form feed, LETTERHEAD, JOAN, form feed.

() Caution! BEX's formatter is reset each time you press P for Print. The formatter does not remember text format from the previous time you printed.

Printing a Single BEX Page From One BEX Chapter

When you only specify one chapter to print with option M - Multi-function print, BEX asks if you wish to print one BEX page from that chapter. To get one page only, enter Y in response to the question, and enter the page number you want printed:
Print single BEX page? N Y <CR>
Print BEX page: 2 <CR>
Which printer:

When you change the default to You, BEX reads the directory file of the single chapter you've specified. You have to know how many pages the chapter has. Enter a digit followed by <CR>, and BEX prints the text in that BEX page. Keep in mind that this text may occupy several output pages.

Part 3: Preview Braillers

Two preview braillers allow you to know exactly what the formatter is sending to a braille device. They function much like the inkprint Review class printer we discussed in Section 5 of the Learner Level. All three require that you have an 80-column card. The preview braillers are members of the B - Brailler class of printers. Brailler code 1 is the Braille Previewer, code 2 is the Braille Previewer with voice.

Braille Previewer with Voice

Like the Review class printer, this mode is designed to work in conjunction with the Echo's line review feature. The output to both these modes is the same; the only difference are the default values used for underlining, paragraphs and page numbering.

Clearly the easiest way for a blind person to review braille format is with paper braille output, but you can't always depend on having a paper braille output device available. The braille previewer is a reasonable tool for checking the format of short sections of braille text, using the screen review functions of the Echo or SlotBuster.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Echo's line review functions, suggestions on which commands to use appear at the end of this section. For further help, Learner Level Section 5, Part 4 discusses Echo line review in detail.

Screen layout for the Braille Previewer with voice

The Apple 80-column screen is 80 characters across by 24 lines down. The page display starts at the left edge of the screen. The exact number of characters in the display depends on your carriage width. The first two characters are the line number, expressed in two digits: 01 through 24 at the start of each page. Then comes a vertical bar line which is the left margin delimiter. After the delimiter come the number of characters in your carriage width, and finally, another vertical bar line as the right margin delimiter.

The delete character appears immediately after the last non-space character on the line, and before the right vertical bar delimiter. On the screen, the <DEL> looks like a square checkerboard. The Echo says "delete." This means that when you encounter a delete, the rest of the line contains nothing but more trailing spaces. Conversely, when you encounter a space character, you know that there are more real (non-space) characters on the line. When the first character in the line is a delete character, then that line is blank in your final output. For example, when line 09 is blank, and you have the Echo in All punctuation mode, the Echo says: "zero nine vertical line, delete, space" (with "space" repeated 40 times or for the rest of your carriage width). Since the Apple's screen contains 80 characters, and since four characters are used up for the line numbers and vertical bar delimiters, the maximum carriage width that fits on one screen line is 75. Since most braille devices emboss at most 44 cells per line, this presents no problems for the Braille Previewer.

Printing to Braille Previewer with voice

When you wish to preview your braille material, print your chapters to the printer number you specified as class B, number 2 in your configuration. You don't add +V for simultaneous Echo output. If you did, you would hear every line as it is displayed. What you want to do is send a screenful of data and then examine it with line review.

As each line of text is printed to the screen, the Apple speaker makes a click. A short series of clicks alerts you to a short page. When the clicks stop, you can begin to use line review. To see any lines on your current page past line 24, you press the down arrow. To get the display of your next output page, press <space>.

It's important to keep in mind that after you enter line review, all of your keystrokes are interpreted as line review commands. See Learner Level, Section 5, Part 4 for a discussion of the Echo commands with line review for further help.

Braille Previewer

Brailler code number 1 is designed for use by sighted transcribers. The screen display uses the delete key to make a border around the page. The screen also has a "cheat sheet" for screen braille and dot equivalents.

You use the Braille Previewer to proofread exactly what's sent to your braille device without having to emboss it. You configure the previewer with the same carriage width and form length as your braille device. It's more accurate than printing to the screen display SB, because it shows material at the true carriage width and form length.

The Braille Previewer is part of the TranscriBEX system. TranscriBEX uses a combination of BEX options to facilitate accurate braille transcription, following the translation and format rules as stated in English Braille: American Edition and the Code of Braille Textbook Formats and Techniques. It's a low cost add-on module to BEX. Contact us for more details.

Part 4: Printing with No Format

When you are creating inkprint or braille documents, you want your format commands executed. But when you are sending text to another computer, sometimes you don't want your commands executed. One of the printer classes is designed to transfer your text exactly as it appears in the Editor. This feature was originally designed to send text to the disk-based VersaBraille II. It has since proved useful in some other situations as well.

Commands That Deactivate Format

We introduce in Section 7, Part 9 a BEX format command that deactivates all subsequent format commands. When you enter $$z in your text, no single dollar sign format indicators nor double dollar sign format commands are executed. Your text is sent from the Apple exactly as it looks in BEX's Editor. The only <CR>s in your output are any hard <CR>s you typed; after you enter $$z, BEX no longer creates soft <CR>s. The effect of $$z lasts until the formatter encounters the $$d reset to default command or until you reload the formatter.

A second command provides a middle option between $$z and printing with full format. $$l0 (lowercase l digit zero) sets no soft <CR>s at the end of a printed line, and turns paragraph ( $p ) indicators into hard <CR>s. Hard <CR>s are still executed. $$l0 is handy when you are transferring BEX chapters to other computer systems. See Section 7 for further discussion of format commands.

The Paperless Brailler

When you regularly send unformatted text to another computer, it's a pain to always remember to type $$z in your text. BEX has a shortcut for this situation: you configure one printer as a class P - Paperless brailler. A Paperless brailler prints without format--it's as if you typed $$z at the beginning of your chapter; only you can't turn formatting on again like you can with $$z. When you print with a Paperless brailler, it strips out sticky spaces, touching tokens, discretionary hyphens and discretionary linebreaks--these commands are discussed in Master Level Section 5, Part 2. When you enter ? <CR> at the Which printer: prompt, after configuring a Paperless brailler, it is listed as a Printer in slot # (40 by 0) even though it prints with no format.

Section 11 discusses VersaBrailles in detail, and explains more about sending text to the VersaBraille II through a class P - Paperless brailler. BEX's class P - Paperless brailler provides you with a limited terminal feature. We combine this class printer with option I - Input through slot to transfer text between Apples, Macintoshes, and IBM'S here at Raised Dot Computing.

Part 5: Printing with a Software Driver

Many printers require special software, called drivers. BEX large print on dot-matrix printers, and printing to Review class printers and the Cranmer Brailler are three common examples. When you tell BEX to print to one of these devices, it has to read the driver software from the program disk. When the program disk is not in drive 1, BEX hangs.

When you want to print two disks worth of chapters to a printer that requires a driver, you have to do some fancy disk swapping. Specify the chapters in drive 2 first, then the chapters in drive 1. You must have the data disk in drive 1 to specify the chapters. As soon as BEX prompts Which printer: replace the data disk in drive one with the BEX Main side. Now press <CR>; BEX reads the driver program from drive 1, then starts reading text from drive 2. At this point, you can remove BEX and insert the data disk back in drive 1.