Hi,
A very basic question I know but I can't seem to find mention of it in the help documentation.
All I want to know is how do I toggle between insert and overwrite mode (if indeed I can ?) when entering text in a Word Processing document.
Many thanks for your help.
Nick
To the best of my knowledge this facility is not available in AppleWorks.
To the best of my knowledge this facility is not available in AppleWorks.
I had a feeling that might be the case....grrr 😟
Thanks for replying Roger.
Cheers,
Nick
To over write you can select the text you want to over write and start writing.
To insert you just insert the insertion point and start writing.
Hi Fruhulda,
I get what you're saying but the problem would be that when I select a block of text or characters, once I start typing, those selected characters disappear and everything to the right jumps across to the left where I'm typing from.
Basically I need everything to stay where it is and just overwrite on top.
So you mean that you adjust the amount of text to that you over write? isn't that restricting you?
Hi Nick.
I do remember this behaviour, but to the best of my recollection, I ran across it in only one word processing application, and that one was running on a Commodore 64. The default condition was destructive replacement of the existing character by the new one, and the only means it offered of inserting new text was to insert a 256 space block of 'space' in the document, then type into that space.
I'm curious why you are asking this question at this time—it seems something one would discover missing pretty early in his use of any application that didn't support this.
If I'm correct is inferring that you're just starting to use AppleWorks, then I'd discourage you from continuing. AppleWorks's last update was in 2004, and Apple delared it to be EOL (End of Life) about a year after that. EOL meant that Apple would no longer sell or support AppleWorks, with the implication that it eventually would be unable to run on current system software.
With the introduction of Lion, and its dropping of Rosetta, that implied consequence has come to pass (for Appleworks, and for all other software written for PPC and not updated to run natively on intel processors).
If you're a long-time AppleWorks user, and are aware that continued use depends on the life of the machine you're running it on,that's one thing. If you've come to AppleWorks only recently, I don't see much point in spending the time to learn the intricacies of an application that's been officially unsupported for the more than six years now.
Regards,
Barry
Hi Barry,
Apologises, I should probably have clarified what it was that I'm trying to achieve in my first post so people can get a handle on what I'm trying to do.
Basically I've been a Mac and Appleworks user for over 10 years, my system is now ancient and regularly presents many problems in just surfing the net, let alone anthing else ! What I'm trying to do is use Appleworks to write guitar tablature (I've never attempted this with Appleworks before) - if you're not a guitarist, this is basically a diagram of where you put your fingers on the neck, with groups of six horizontal lines (representing the strings) running across the page (imagine a sheet of traditional manuscript paper with an extra line !).
The reason I was enquiring about an overwrite function is so that I can set up a WP document with the lines running cross the page (a 'blank' tablature page if you like) and then add the relevant numbers on those lines at will. The problem of course is that everytime I enter a number on a line, everything on that line shifts one place to the right and after entering many numbers over several lines, the whole document format is thrown out as lines have wrapped round etc. etc.
I thought this would be a simple solution as although there are tab editors out there, none will run on my ancient system.
Many thanks for taking the time to reply though and I have to say I hadn't realised that Appleworks had been dead and buried for so many years !!
Anyway, until that lottery win brings a new iMac......
Cheers,
Nick
Try this - it's very much a rough-out, using columns and drawn lines:
Or you could try using a spreadsheet.
Hi Roger,
Thanks for posting that up, the only problem is the numbers are in the gaps between the lines not on the lines, the fret position numbers need to be written on the line. It's unfortunately the same with a speadsheet.
My plan was to have the lines created using the hyphen symbol and then just overwrite a hyphen at any given point with a number, then once printed, it appears the number is sitting in the middle of the line.
Nick
You can move the lines anywhere you want, they're independent of the numbers. Just click on a line and either move it with the mouse or use the up/down arrow keys to move it:
- not sure if that's what you're looking for but it's reasonably configurable.
A-ha, interesting, let me have a play with that.
Cheers Roger
Hi Nick,
Most of your replacements will be of a single hyphen by a single digit number. Here are two ways of doing that pretty efficiently:
Further down the neck, where you're inserting two digit numbers:
Characters to the right of the editing position will jump around a bit as AppleWorks deletes the single character then replaces it (more so with the two character replacements).
Regards,
Barry
Hi Barry,
Many thanks for your reply.
That's basically what I started off doing and although I know selecting or deleting a hyphen prior to writing the fret position in takes a second, over the course of tabbing an entire song it's rather laborious, hence me just wondering if there was an overwrite function so I could just enter the numbers freely without having to select anything first.
I quite like Roger's suggestion of using solid straight lines, I hadn't considered that previously, you don't really need columns for the fret postions, just setting up the solid straight lines in a basic WP document allows you to make it look like the numbers are sitting on the lines and the lines obviously don't wrap round as you enter the numbers. The only draw back to this method is that the lines run right through the numbers which makes the overal appearance of the tab harder to read.
Sorry, I'm sure that it sounds like I'm really nit-picking and dismissing both your suggestions, I'm not, I really appreciate your input, it's just that I know how I want the tab to look.
Anyway, realistically I think setting up a WP document with hyphens for lines is probably the way to go in order to achieve what I want.
Many thanks to you both for your assistance.
Cheers,
Nick
You can make the lines grey so that they are less obtrusive, and you can add vertical lines if you want.
Have a look at this variant - a spreadsheet frame with grey lines added. The advantage is that you can click on any cell to add the number, in any order.
Appleworks v6.2.9 insert/overwrite
