Dr. Plexfixer

But recently, a small but perfectly formed subscriber asked me if I would answer some of your Uniplex questions on your web pages. "Of course", I replied, "How much?". "About 4 pages!" was the quick-witted reply. So, outwitted and facing something significantly more funny than any of my jokes, I was forced to agree. So wheel on the questions.

Dear Tabatha, its simple, first prepare the ruler you want, with all the tabs, margins and what have you in the right place. Put the cursor on the ruler, and type ESCAPE-RS (Ruler-Save) and 0 (that's zero). This has saved the ruler as the default for this session.

Next, type ESCAPE-OP (Options-Preferences), a pop-up box appears called WORKING OPTIONS. This contains many useful and interesting settings for Uniplex. Ignore them all for a moment and move your cursor to the last item, "Save Options and Rulers", set the field to YES. Type ESCAPE-E (Enter).

Your ruler is now saved forever.

Dear Tabatha - it is you really isn't it? The answer is the same, but when you enter ESCAPE-RS (Ruler-Save) just follow up with a different number. Then once more go to the Working Options screen and save the rulers.

Dear Timothy, are you sure you are not working with Tabatha as well? The short answer is "Lots". I'll talk about some of them in a minute, but first it is important to remember, that any changes you make on this popup form are only saved permanently if you set "Save Options & Rulers" to YES. Otherwise the changes only take affect for the current edit session.

Ha, Ha, but of course, ESCAPE-OP (Options-Preferences) to get the Working Options form on screen. The top line is "Insert Mode". It will tell you what the current setting is, press the >SPACEBAR< and it will toggle between YES and NO. Set to YES, set the "Save Options & Rulers" to YES and press ESCAPE-E (Enter). From now on you will be in Insert Mode.

Yes, Just type ESCAPE-I (Insert) and you will switch between Overtype Mode and Insert Mode, just keep press ESCAPE-I and you will keep switching.

Indeed you can, once more type ESCAPE-OP to call up the Working Options popup. This time look at the fifth line, “Automatic Reformat”. This will show you your current setting, toggle it with the SPACEBAR, set “Save Options” and press ESCAPE-E (Enter). Now, whenever you finish a line, the line will be re-formatted and if necessary justified across the page. Just a word of caution though, if you go back and edit the line later, you will still need to reformat the paragraph yourself.

Dear Unprotected, the answer is simple, there are two steps to protecting spreadsheet cells. Firstly you select the cells to protect, secondly you set spreadsheet protection on. Here's how. Press / to display the command menu, then Range, Protect. You are asked to specify the range, this can be a single cell or a group of cells. Repeat this for all the cells you want to protect. Then, step two, press / for the menu, then Worksheet, Global, Protection, Enable. This protects all your cells. Of course, if you need to unprotect cells later, you use Worksheet, Global, Protection, Disable.

In this case use / Worksheet, Global, Protection, Protect-All. Now you cannot make any cell changes. If you need to change any cells, use / Worksheet, Global, Protection, Unprotect-All.

Dear Confused, there are a number of reasons for protecting cells in a spreadsheet. The cells may contain calculations or macros which you don't want to overwrite by accident. The cells may also contain fixed information, such as prices, or product codes where again you don't want the values to be overtyped by accident. This is especially useful if you are making spreadsheets to be shared by many people who may not be aware of the details of your spreadsheet.

Dear Nameless, you've been creating aliases haven't you? When you create a personal alias list then you can no longer see the master alias list or any of the regular Unix names which are shown. In order to see the full list of aliases you need to add them to the master, system-wide alias list. Of course this means that everybody sees them, so don't put in "Love-Bunny", "Squidgy" or other such terms of endearment as this may cause needless embarrassment!

Dear Frozen Screen, actually the cause is probably a simple mis-type at the keyboard. If you accidentally mis-type CONTROL-S (together) your screen will lock-up. To free it up again, just press CONTROL-Q (together) and it will restart. Now, there are other things which may cause it too, if you have this problem frequently, and you press CONTROL-Q and it doesn't unfreeze the screen then you must talk to your nearest Uniplex advisor. They can usually be found near the computer... muttering...

Last Updated: 25th September 1995