The latest version of PageFour was released today. This release contains one new feature, as well as a number of small changes, improvements, and bug fixes. They include:

1. Overhaul of the way smart quotes work.
There were a number of inconsistencies in the implementation of smart quotes, particularly when editing existing work. These have all been corrected, and smart quotes should be working perfectly now.

2. Shortcut key combination (Shift+Ctrl+’) to switch smart quotes on and off.
Opening the Options dialog can be a little time consuming, particularly if you need to switch between smart and plain quotes on a regular basis, so the new short cut should help speed things up.

3. New Quick-Insert shortcuts.
This option allows the user to set a series of shortcut keys for commonly used words, phrases or characters. It is especially useful for long names or unusual keyboard characters that require multiple key strokes to implement.



The keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, Ctrl+3, etc. have been adopted for use by this feature. Simply type the character, combination of characters, word, or phrase, into the edit box next to the control key combination of your choice, and from then on that key combination will insert the corresponding characters into your text. This dialog can be opened from the right click Insert menu in the word processor, or from the main Edit | Insert menu.

In order to locate an unusual character, click on the Insert Character button at the bottom of the dialog. This opens a second dialog listing every available character. Double Click on the character you wish to use before leaving the dialog, and it will be inserted into the Quick-Insert edit box.

A side effect of this new feature is that the shortcut keys for changing the color of text have been changed from Ctrl+1,2,3 to Shift+Ctrl+1,2,3, etc.

4. Insert Date shortcut.
This option works within the word processor, as well as in the edit box on the new page dialog and comes with an accompanying global date format setup on the Miscellaneous page of the Options dialog. Once you set up the date format you wish to use, the current date will be inserted into your text, or into a new page name by using the shortcut key Ctrl+D.

5. Background color extended to side windows.
A new checkbox has been added to the word processor page of the Options dialog called “Apply background color to side windows.” This will change the background colour of the Notebooks list, current Notebook tree, and Smart-Edit windows to correspond to the word processor.

6. Font Dialog Improvements.
The Font dialog has been improved to allow any color to be chosen and set as the default, rather than the limited selection of only 8 colors.

The early release of version 1.63, with only a limited selection of new features, is due to the importance of the smart quote corrections. As always, if anyone encounters any problems with the changes, please let me know.

Every now and then I get an email from an old-time user of PageFour where they suggest adding a feature that already exists. This is an easy mistake to make with software, especially if you’ve been using it for some time and grown accustomed to working with it in a certain way. I’m as guilty of this as the next person, and frequently stumble across features I never knew existed in other people’s software, despite being a regular user for months or even years.

With that in mind, I’d like to draw attention to a few PageFour features you may never have used, but might find interesting.

1. Lock and Unlock
Have you ever closed PageFour because you were leaving your seat for a short time? Maybe you were making a cup of coffee or putting the washing on, and didn’t want anyone to look through your work. The Lock/Unlock feature was designed for just this purpose. Accessible from the Tools menu, or by using the F4 and F5 shortcut keys, locking PageFour will disable access to all parts of the program apart from the currently open page. This means that no one will be able to browse through your folders, switch to other tabs, or open any of your notebooks.

When you return to your seat, you simply Unlock PageFour (F5) by entering your password.

To enable the feature, all you need to do is ensure that a password has been set within PageFour - Tools | Change Password menu. You may never use the password to encrypt any pages, but it can still to used to Lock and Unlock the software.

2. AutoCorrect Dictionaries
I’m not the greatest typist in the world, being in the habit of typing just a little too quickly and carelessly. My most common mistake is typing teh in place of the. As with other word processors such as MS Word, this is where the AutoCorrect feature comes in. This particular feature will be switched off the first time you use PageFour, but once you enable it, will run automatically from that point on.

From the Spelling menu, select Options, and ensure that Correct spelling errors as you type is checked. Click on the Dictionaries button, and check either the autocorrect.adu or autocorrect-british.adu dictionary. Both dictionaries are similar, the only difference being that one automatically converts US spellings to English, and vice versa. (color to colour, center to centre, etc.)

3. Global Font and Paragraph Settings
The default font used in the word processor is Verdana 10, and the default paragraph settings are single line spacing, with no spacing before or after lines or paragraphs. This can be changed for the current, and also for every subsequent page, by using the Font and Paragraph dialogs on the Format menu.

Simply set up the font and paragraph settings you require, and check the Make default for all new pages checkbox.

4. Shortcuts you may not know about
Most shortcuts appear next to whichever menu option they relate to, but not every feature of PageFour has a corresponding menu item. To move between open tabs in the word processor, use the Ctrl+Alt+ Left or Right arrow keys. This is a very quick method of flicking backwards and forwards between open pages without using the mouse.

Other shortcuts you may not be familiar with include Ctrl+J to shift focus between the word processor and the notebook tree, the left and right arrow keys to open and close the currently selected folder, and F12 to take a snapshot of the current page.

The font colour drop down list on the format toolbar has a series of shortcut keys (Ctrl+1 - Ctrl+8) to change the current font colour to any one of 8 preset colours - very useful for greying out text or highlighting in red.

5. Cut / Copy / Paste across Folders and Notebooks
Most people will have found the drag and drop feature within the notebook tree, possibly by mistake when they moved the mouse too suddenly, but not everyone is aware of the short cut keys that do much the same. Cut, Copy, and Paste is fully implemented across pages, folders, and notebooks, and can be accessed either from the Edit menu, or the almost universal shortcut keys of Ctrl+X (Cut), Ctrl+C (Copy), and Ctrl+V (Paste).

This allows you to easily move or copy pages and folders between other folders or notebooks. The icon of the cut or copied pages and folders will appear slightly different depending on which operation you are carrying out. As with most cut and copy operations, the Ctrl+Z (Undo) shortcut will undo a cut or copy, returning the notebook to its previous state.

6. Export Notebooks
Saving a file out of PageFour is a straight forward process, one that I’m sure most people have done at some point, but exporting an entire notebook, or all notebooks within PageFour, may not be an everyday occurrence. There are two ways to do this: either select an individual notebook or folder (Ctrl+X) and use the Tools | Export Selected menu, or simply click on the Tools | Export Notebooks menu to export everything.

Both of these options allow you to select a destination folder, and immediately make a copy of your notebooks. I use this particular feature to backup to an external hard drive every couple of days, rather than opening Windows Explorer and copying the relevant folders myself. As well as providing a simple method of backing up, the Export feature works in conjunction with the Import Notebooks feature, also on the Tools menu, allowing you to synchronize between two installations of PageFour on different machines.

All of these features are explained in detail in the PageFour help (F1), or in the manual on the website.

PageFour Version 1.61 was released today. This is an interim release consisting of fixes for two bugs reported by users. The first corrects inconsistencies in the background colour of the word processor when the chosen colour is not white, and the second corrects an error in screen position when PageFour is used on a PC with dual monitors.

Existing users should be aware that if neither of these scenarios are relevant to the way they use PageFour, there is no reason to download or install the interim release.

Download instructions can be found on the download page.