This page contains answers to questions you might have about the
Bridge Author's template.
- How do I use the template to prepare
an article?
- What features of the template are available in the unlicensed version?
- When I clicked on Check Hand(s), I received a message informing me that the cursor was not in a deal layout. What does that mean?
- Why are the suit symbols for hearts and diamonds not red?
- I seem to have messed up the template by somehow saving changes to it. Help!
- I used the Copycards function, but then when I pasted in the cards things were messed up. What went wrong?
- When I used Check Hand(s), the program told me about an error, which I
then fixed. But there were other errors it didn't tell me about, so my presentation was imperfect. Why didn't it catch all of my errors?
- I typed a hand myself, without using the template, and then tried to check it with the Check Hand(s) function. Why didn't that
work?
- Can I make my article be ready to mount on
the
Web without using a special program?
- I scanned an article I wanted to improve upon, then inserted a
scanned hand into a document
to which I had attached the template. After some minor editing, I used Check
Hands. Although the hand looked perfect, the template complained
about the number of cards and about incorrect characters. What went wrong?
- How will updates be made available?
- I played a deal on Bridge Base Online (BBO) and want to include it in an article. Is there a convenient way to get the deal without typing it in manually?
- I tried to import a deal from a .lin file and the program said the deal number I specified was not in the file. But I know that it is in the file, because I can see it as a bridge movie. Why is the template lying to me?
- In addition to showing cards, the program is also displaying weird characters like NS or NH within a deal layout. I didn't type those. Where did they come from?
To use the template, open a new WORD document (File...New).
In all versions of WORD, you can attach a template to the document via
Tools...Templates and Add-ins...Attach. When you click on Attach, a list of
the templates available in your templates folder will appear. Select
BridgeAuthor, and when you click OK, the template will be attached. In WORD
2003 or later, you can save some clicks because when you open a New
document, a window opens on the right of the screen that immediately offers
the opportunity to attach a template. You can verify that the template has
been successfully attached by opening the File or Insert Menu, which will list some
bridge-related options not available in vanilla WORD.
In WORD 2007, the traditional menus are gone. The template is attached to a New document by clicking on My
Templates..., then clicking on BridgeAuthor. The options contained in the
template are made available by clicking Add-Ins.
When you have written some of your brilliant bridge
material, save the document via File...Save As... Be sure to save the file
as a document, with a .doc or .docx extension. DO NOT SAVE THE TEMPLATE! When you
resume work on the document (via File...Open...), the template will already
be attached.
The key definitions that allow you to type a suit symbol by holding down
the Control key along with the first letter of the suit (e. g. <Control>
+ H yields a heart symbol) are available. So are the menu items that allow you
to insert one hand and a bidding diagram.
The various suit layouts and the capability to check hands are only
available if you purchase a personalized license. Hey, it's a mere $10.95 USD.
The program looks for some hidden text that describes the hand layout. The
easiest way to deal with this is to form the habit of always putting the
cursor in the middle of the first hand's spades.
Most bridge magazines do not print in color, so that is the
program's default. If you want the symbols in your document to appear in
color, apply the Suit Symbol Colorizer item in the Format menu after you
have finished writing the article. There is no need to highlight the section
you want colorized; the function applies to the entire document.
If you thereafter change your mind and want to revert to
pure black, use the Select All command on the Edit Menu to select the entire
document, then go to the Font... command on the File Menu. In the Font Color
box, select Automatic or click on the black square in the palette.
You probably applied the template globally, then later agreed to WORD's
suggestion that you save changes to the template. Correct usage of the
template, as an attached document template, would not allow this to happen.
But mistakes happen. The simplest solution is to re-install your back-up copy
of the template. What, you didn't keep an intact copy? Well, never mind, just
download it again and re-install. Your license will still work properly.
You cannot simply use the paste icon, you must use the Pastecards function.
That is because several operations are built into the function; it does more
than just paste. Put the cursor on one of the cards, then click Copycards.
Next, move the cursor to a blank spot in the document and click Pastecards.
Do not insert a new hand layout; the program automatically embeds the hand(s)
you copied into a four-hand layout.
Another crime you might have committed was to copy something else, using
the copy icon, after invoking Copycards but before using Pastecards. Copycards
uses the same storage medium, the Windows Clipboard, as the copy icon.
The Copycard function works only with hands you have typed
into a document. It does not worh with imported .lin files.
Patience, grasshopper. The program deals with one error at a time. After
you fix the first error, click on Check Hand(s) again. Keep repeating this
process until the program reports that the deal is OK.
When you Insert a layout, the template builds in information that allows
the Check Hand(s) function to recognize a deal. If you type the hand yourself,
that information is not there, so Check Hand(s) doesn't know what to do.
Back to Top
You actually have to do almost nothing to make the article
ready for the Web, at least if you have a relatively recent version of Word
(2000 or later). Just use the Save as Web Page... option on the File Menu.
For Web displays, I suggest you use the template's Suit Symbol Colorizer
item (available on the Format Menu) to make the hearts and diamonds red.
Back to Top
The template is designed to work only with keyboard input. Scanners and the OCR readers they use are imperfect, and can introduce characters not
recognized by the template even though they look fine. If you want to use a scanner, you can do so but be warned that some program
functions, most notably Check Hands, may not work correctly and you will have to check the old-fashioned way.
Back to Top
If the program is updated, the new version will replace the version that is
offered through the Purchase Bridge
Author's Template page. Check
the page periodically to see if the version available there is a later one than
yours. A valid personalized license will unlock any version of the program. That
is, a purchaser is entitled to free updates forever.
Back to Top
You are so in luck. With Version 3.0, the Bridge Author's Template introduced an import function that brings in BBO's .lin files and sets them up for inclusion in your article instantly. In addition, the template will optionally rotate the deal so that either South is the declarer (like in the newspaper) or any designated player becomes South. This is convenient for setting up either bidding or card-play problems.
After invoking the Import function, just delete the hands or bids you do not want the reader to see.
When you invoke the Import Deal From .Lin File... option on the File
Menu, the template will automatically search for .lin files in the folder
set up when BBO was installed on the computer (by default, C:\Program
Files\Bridge Base Online\hands if you use Windows XP or an earlier version, C:\Bridge Base
Online\hands if you use Windows Vista or 7.) Usually, the deals from a session you played are stored in a subfolder bearing the
name of your BBO handle (mine is djw). The session is label by the date on
which you played it. Most files contain a set of hands,
so you have to specify the deal number when the template asks for it (if the
deal is from a team game, you have to preface the deal number with "o" or
"c" to indicate open room or closed room). If you want to discuss more than
one deal from a given file, you can avoid a few clicks by invoking the
secondary menu item Import Deal From Most Recently Used .Lin File...
Files containing sets of deals from events previously
broadcast on BBO are available in the Vugraph archives (member's Main
Menu\Other Bridge Activities\Bridge Library\Vugraph archives). You can
also get deals you(or anyone else) played from the Bridge Base Online public
web site. Using that approach, you
download a file containing a single deal (be sure to select the .lin file
version). You can even find deals that I, djw, have played! But be very
cautious about writing up deals on which I may have erred...
Back to Top
The problem is that I am not as good a programmer as Fred Gitelman. Over the years, the BBO team has fiddled with the way in which they embed deals within a .lin file. I have not always been able to unravel their
encoding. When I do encounter a deal that the template doesn't get right, I
try to fix the code, then post an updated version.
If you encounter a .lin file on which the template fails,
please send the file to me. So far, the problem has arisen only for files
containing multiple deals. A workaround that may help while I am struggling
to prepare an update is to save the one deal you need as a .lin file from
the BBO web site
that archives recently played deals. The template can process that single
deal.
Back to Top
Don't worry, you are not hallucinating. Those characters are supposed to be hidden; they help the template to accomplish its magic. You accidentally changed WORD's View settings to Display Hidden text. There is no good reason to do so while preparing a bridge article. Change the view by going to Tools, Options, View, Formatting Marks. Either Hidden text or All will be checked. Make sure both are unchecked.
Back to Top
|
