The Bridge Author's Template is a Microsoft WORD
template (in Microsoft-terminology, a document template) that simplifies the task of writing a bridge article or book.
It catches most of the errors I am prone to make when preparing a
bridge article, except for dumb analyses.
When the template is applied to a document, many things happen.
(1) The template soups up the keyboard to
allow easy typing of suit symbols (just hold down the Control key (Ctrl) while
typing a C, D, H, or S, and the symbol for the corresponding suit will
appear).
(2) Enhanced Menus are
available that offer special bridge-related options. Menu items generated
by the template have suit symbols beside them. (Word 2007, which
has eliminated the menus, changes the access point, but don't worry, all
of the template's functions are still available.)
(a) The Insert Menu
offers items that set up hand and bidding layouts for standard presentation of
play and bidding problems.
(b) The Tools Menu offers a Check Hands item that certifies
whether each hand has 13 unique, legitimate cards and in a four-hand layout, checks to see that
every card in the deck appears exactly once.
(c) The Edit Menu offers the Copycards and Pastecards
items. These are useful when you want to present first a problem hand, then show
the entire deal. When you fill in a layout with one or two hands, you can use
the Copycards function to copy the hands to the Clipboard. Next,
insert a four-hand layout and click Pastecards. The hand or hands you've
already typed will be positioned within the four-hand layout. The objective is to avoid
having to re-type the cards for the hands you've already entered.
(d) Version 3.0 of the template (January 2010) introduced a
new import function that displays deals stored in Bridge Base Online's .lin
format. BBO automatically places records of all deals played into a
folder on the user's system. Additionally, one may download deals in .lin
file format from BBO's web site.
The template displays the cards and the auction, and offers the option
of rotating the deal so that either declarer or a designated player is
in the South seat. This feature facilitates presenting aspects of the
deal as problems. The Import Deal
From .Lin File option appears in the
File Menu.
(e) The Help Menu contains an About Box that specifies
the currently installed version of the template. There is a direct link
from that box to the FAQ for the template.
