Q. I am particularly interested in your reply to Mr. W. regarding the conversion of old program files (DOS recipes) to new applications.
I’ve just been asked to take over a database begun in the mid-’80s with Microsoft File. It still runs on an old Mac SE, but the previous manager discovered that this version was orphaned. Like the recipe example, there are about 600 entries, each with dozens of fields.
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I guess the printing-scanning routine you describe is a possibility. If I can get the fields aligned correctly, it would save a whole lot of typing!
You’re right, it is inelegant, but unless I find a genie in a bottle, this is likely the best option. Please reply if other readers responded with other ideas.
Scott Haring, Dublin, Ohio
A. I heard from other readers all right, but there really wasn’t much good news. In fact, the most common reaction was anger at me and at the computer industry establishment for the fact that every time a problem comes up, it seems like the most common suggestion is to throw money at it. Certainly, that was the case when I was forced to recommend that Mr. W. buy an expensive scanner to convert printouts of his wife’s outdated DOS recipe program into computer-readable text.
She had spent years typing recipes into that program only to find that its creators have decided not to upgrade into a Windows version, leaving her with all the recipes in a complex format that no other software can recognize. My idea was to scan printouts and use today’s sophisticated scanning software to retain the formatting for those recipes that could then be imported into some readily available program like Microsoft Excel or Access. That is why I described that solution as uncomfortably inelegant.
Several readers pointed out that it is possible to open just about any computer file, no matter what the format, in a universal text editor like WordPad in PCs or Simple Text in Macs. They suggested that Mr. W. could sort through the gibberish that will include formatting codes and other information used by the file code in that particular recipe program.
He could find the actual text for the recipes and save that. The problem is that this text gets so mixed up with formatting codes that the experience of trying to extract it might be compared to attempting to remove mouse droppings from a can of coffee spilled on a barn floor. And that metaphor is even more inelegant than my clumsy suggestion about buying a scanner.
Q. I’m having a devil of a time with this. I scanned a page of my stationery into Paint (as a .bmp file) to clean it up and change some of the info. I sized it at 100 percent on the scanner’s software, but, when it got to the paint program, it is HUGE. This makes it easier to see and fix each little pixel, but when I try to print it out, it’s still HUGE. It wants to use 16 pages of paper! How can I get the thing back to normal size for printing?
Michael-Leonard Creditor, San Diego
A. It looks like you have come to the right exorcist, Mr. C., but first let me pay you my respects for thinking up the idea of using the Paint program built into Windows for something as useful as tweaking the letterheads in one’s stationery. It is a great idea and certainly far cheaper than all of the various and sundry desktop publishing software that most of us tend to buy for such pursuits.
Your answer to reduce those huge pictures is well hidden under a menu called Image in the Paint program’s Toolbar. Click on Image, then choose Attributes and you will get a menu that lets you slim down that huge scanned file to whatever dimensions you may like, such as 8 inches wide for letterheads.
Q. I recently purchased a CD-R/RW unit. I backed up all my data and files to CDs, and then started playing around. One feature that I really liked was the ability to record my favorite songs from various CDs to a single CD. This was great so long as I played the CD through the computer.When I tried to play the CD on our separate CD player, it would not recognize any track past 20.
A check of our music CDs showed that 10 percent or less of the CD was ever recorded. This seems like a terrible waste of CD space as well as a rip-off of the public.
Do you have knowledge of a CD player that can play more than 20 tracks from a single CD, excluding computers.
P.L. Lawrence @aol.com
A. This whole business of using personal computers to create music CDs is shaking the world’s recording industry to its very roots, Mr. L.
Already there are a number of products reaching store shelves that do exactly what you desire, namely allow owners of conventional music players to listen to home-brewed music CDs that hold far more tunes than the discs that are cut to artificial industry standards, which are inefficient and needlessly expensive.
For example, the new RioVolt portable CD-R player from SonicBlue Inc. will play both store-purchased music CDs and also discs burned with MP3 files on home computers. This device includes a line-out port that is easily plugged into the amplifier on any home music system, thus allowing consumers to load up discs with far more than 20 cuts.
The pioneering DVD/CD players from Apex, including the Apex 600A, are high-fidelity components that play both music CDs and CDs filled with MP3 files that consumers either record from their personal music CD collections or download from Internet resources such as Napster.
In other words, you merely are a bit ahead of the pack, and soon the marketplace will be filled with devices that address and solve the problems you raise.
Q. I am still using Windows 3.1 and want to copy a file to a disk, but that file has become larger than the 1.4 megabytes a single floppy disk will hold. Is there a way I can copy this big file onto two disks?
Sid Schoengold @juno.com
A. Even in a world where some of us are exploring the possibilities of storing 650 megabytes on a CD so we can play stereo music on our PCs, other folks, like yourself, Mr. S., have equally perplexing issues at the lower end where conventional floppy disks are not up to the tasks commonplace among computer users.
Your answer is software called PKZip that performs a bit of magic called disk spanning to break up huge files into component parts, compress them and save the results onto however many floppies it takes to hold them.
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You can download a trial copy of PKZip at www.PKWare.com. Because your machine is running Windows 3.1, you need to get the 16-bit product called PKZip 2.60. In case you don’t have Internet access, check out your local software store.
Q. Whenever I try to run the defragment program or the Scandisk program, they start and then keep restarting. After a while I get a message saying defrag has restarted 10 times and telling me that something is writing to the disk. It says I should close all programs and then try again.
Since I know of no program running except Windows itself, I don’t know how to proceed. I always turn off the screensaver before starting.
David Fichman II, San Diego
A. I know I am dating myself, Mr. F., but even The Shadow does not know what evil lurks in the background every time one starts up Windows. The small applications that could well be running include things like scheduling for certain programs, drivers for the monitor and the mouse, gimmicks like Instant Message modules and much more.
The only way to be sure none of this stuff can run in the background, and therefore confuse Scandisk and hard drive defragmentation software, is to start your machine in Safe Mode and run those disk maintenance utilities from that condition. Safe Mode boots Windows with only the essential operating system and basic display drivers, leaving all other drivers and background tasks out of the picture.
Various computers use different techniques to call up Safe Mode. The most common is to hold down the Control key and switch the machine off and on. Another common command sequence is to hold down the F8 key while booting. If neither of these work, check your manual or call technical support where you bought your PC. Tell them Lamont Cranston sent you.
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Contact Jim Coates via e-mail at [email protected] or via snail mail at the baiduhai, Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611. Questions can be answered only through the column. Add your point of view at chicagotribune.com/go/askjim.