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Graphic Interpretation - Formally Yours
by Bruce Thomas

We have all received them. It is quite likely that a few of us have even created them. But how many people have done it the easy way?

My topic this time is form letters and how easily GEOS users can take advantage of tools that come with the basic system to create some top-notch form letters.

Work Saving Tool

The biggest use of most computers is writing whether it is a report for the office, a term paper for school, a newsletter or info request sheet for a club you belong to or the annual Christmas Letter to friends. The latter two lend themselves quite nicely to the form letter.

GEOS V2.0 includes geoMerge to handle form letter creation and printing. The beauty of the system is it contains some sophistication with the inclusion of IF-ELSE logic. You can customize your form letters in neat ways using the logic commands and we'll have a look at those shortly.

GeoMerge is one of the applications that must be installed to your original GEOS boot disk. Once you run it for the first time it gets keyed to the serial number of your disk and then you can copy it to other disks for regular use. As with everything in the GEOS world, make sure that you use backup copies and not your original disk.

Setting up Your Files

Let's take a look at setting up a form letter for a user group meeting. To start with we must have some data to work with. GeoMerge gets its input from a standard geoWrite file. This can be created in geoWrite or you can create one from geoFile or geoDex. There is another option that lets you enter the data manually but that is not very practical for large mailings.

Rather than getting into the entire goeFile/Dex options we will create a simple Merge Data File in geoWrite. Create a new geoWrite file called TestData and enter the following information:

Name
librarian
local
Computer
Threefive
*
Bob
Harry
yes
64
no
*
Jane
Harry
no
128
yes
*
Harry
Harry
yes
128
no
*

These three member records will be used to fill in the blanks in our form letter and create three unique letters. Make sure that the last asterisk is the last character in the file. Do not press Return or any other key after this asterisk.

Here we go. Open a new file in geoWrite called TestLetter and enter the following:

Commodore User Group Meeting Notice.
Date: November 20, 2000
The usual place

Dear <<Name>>,

Our next meeting will be held on November 20, 2000. <<IF local = "yes">>We look forward to seeing you there.<<ENDIF>> Our agenda includes the latest game software plus a look at a new assembler program and some neat web pages.

Our monthly disk for the <<Computer>> will be available on <<IF Threefive = "yes">>1581 Disk<<ELSE>>two 1541 flippies<<ENDIF>>. Please contact <<librarian>> to reserve your copy <<IF local = "no">> or to order one through the mail<<ENDIF>>.

The latest edition of our newsletter will be <<IF local = "yes">>available for pickup when you attend the meeting<<ELSE>>mailed out to you<<ENDIF>>.

Formally Yours
The Club Executive

Now, this letter isn't anything special but it does highlight the neat things that geoMerge can do. You will notice that I have used an IF statement in one place and IF-ELSE logic in a couple. On top of that I have used very simple substitution in two places to personalize the letter.

There really isn't a big secret or any tricks involved. If you can read and follow directions the tutorial in the V2.0 manual takes you through a similar process.

Better than HQ

After you have created the above two documents just run geoMerge, select the TestLetter as your document, answer Yes to the question about using a Data File for merge information and then choose your TestData file as the input file. The next dialog box that comes up is almost a typical print selection box. Make your choices and, if your printer driver is on the disk with geoMerge, your three letters will come out of your printer.

Now, I said the print dialog box is almost typical. If you look closely you will see an option that normally doesn't show up in a GEOS print box. This is the File option. This option indicates that the folks at BSW had high hopes for GEOS and that they integrated lots of sophistication in this environment long before PC users had it.

After choosing the File option and pressing OK geoMerge will ask you for a file name. Make sure you have lots of space on an available disk drive. GeoMerge will print each letter to your disk and append a number (1,2,...) to the name that you entered. These are now geoWrite files that you can edit however you wish - although that would negate the benefits of using a form letter.

These files contain the fonts that you chose in your original letter document. If you have chosen an LW font you can use geoLaser to send these files to a PostScript-equipped Laser Printer and send out meeting notices that will surely entice people to come and find out how you did it!

Until next time, enGEOy your Commodore!