Troubleshooting

The following is a list of commonly occurring problems and their solutions.

I cannot get text to wrap at the end of the line

Ensure that you have the Wrap option turned on in the Options dialogue box. Have you typed any spaces into the line? If you have typed just one long word or string of characters without spaces, when you get to the right margin, PipeDream scrolls the slot rather than splitting your word and starting a new line.

When I perform a layout operation on a slot, nothing seems to happen

Many operations act on either a slot or on a block of slots. If there is a marked block, the operation will be performed on the block. If there is no marked block, it will be performed on the slot containing the caret. If you want the operation to act only upon the current slot, you need to ensure that there isn't a marked block in the document. If there is a marked block in the document, the mark block box will be inverted. Either mark the slot to which you want the operation to apply or click Select on the mark block box before carrying out the operation.

Commands affected are: Right Align, Left Align, Centre Align, LCR Align, Free Align, Decimal Places, Sign Brackets, Sign Minus, Leading Characters, Trailing Characters, Default Format, Remove Highlights, Highlight Block, Number <> Text, Snapshot, Clear Protection, Set Protection.

I cannot get arithmetic to work. For example, if I put A1+B1 in slot C1, I just get what was in A1 or l get 0 or the message Unexpected string

Arithmetic can only be done on number slots. If a formula in one slot contains references to other slots, you must ensure that all the slots referred to are number slots. A simple way to see if a slot is a number slot is to look at its justification. If it is a text slot, it will probably be left-justified; if it is a number slot, it will probably be right-justified with two decimal places. Slots are text slots by default. To convert a text slot to a number slot, position the caret in the slot, click Select in the formula line and press Enter. To convert a lot of slots from text slots to number slots, mark the slots as a block and give the Number<>Text command (Ctrl-ENT). Note that this command works both ways, so that any number slots in your marked block will be converted to text slots. If you want to enter a lot of number slots all at once, you may find it helpful to set the New slot format option in the Options dialogue box to Numbers. See Number Slots.

When I type in numbers, they are displayed as % signs

Your columns are not wide enough to display the numbers you have typed in, even in exponential format. The simplest way to deal with this problem is to give the Auto Width command. This ensures that all columns are the correct width to display the widest entry in the column.

When I load my file, it has lost all its column information and highlights and I just get the values from number slots, without the formulae.

The file was not saved in PipeDream format. Bring up the Save dialogue box and set the Format option to PipeDream. Save the file and reload it. A file is usually saved in the wrong format because it was loaded in a non-PipeDream format and PipeDream saved it in the format in which it was loaded. So if you load a file in some other format remember to save it in PipeDream format if you wish to keep all of the formatting information.

When I print my document, the headers and/or footers are justified too far to the right

PipeDream justifies the headers and footers to the rightmost right margin in the document. To find this, position the caret in each column in turn and find the right margin marker for each. You may have more columns than you need, in which case you can delete the surplus columns to the right. Alternatively, you will need to move the offending right margin marker to the left, using the Move Margin Left command.

Printing is slow when using RISC OS printer drivers

Most RISC OS printer drivers, including those for inkjet and dotmatrix printers, have to build up a graphics image of the page being printed. This is a lot of information and the higher the resolution the printout the longer it will take. For example printing a page at 300*300 dpi needs four times as much information, and is thus four times slower, than printing a page at 150*150 dpi. To ensure that you are printing at maximum speed check that you are using a recent printer driver. Check also the amount of memory that is free in your computer before you start printing. Free memory is used for buffer space by the printer driver. You will find that RISC OS printing can be much slower if you have very little memory free. Aim to have 1MB or more free if you can. If you cannot free this amount of memory, free up as much as you can.

My printer won't print the £ sign

There is no ASCII code sequence recognised by all printers for the £ sign. The £ sign is not being printed because your printer needs a different code or codes from the one(s) being sent by the printer driver you are using. You will need to create a character translation in the printer driver which has " £ " in column A and, in column B, the code sequence needed to generate the £ sign on your printer. See PipeDream Printer Driver Editing.

I cannot control the page length on my printer / after printing lots of blank sheets of paper are fed out of my printer

The PipeDream printer driver contains a line which specifies that a formfeed character should be printed at the end of each page. Feeding to the end of a page with a formfeed rather than printing carriage return characters is usually faster and less noisy. However, it requires that the printer should be working to the same page length as PipeDream. Otherwise, the page breaks will come out strangely. The solution is to remove the line in the printer driver which has EP in column A, so that no formfeeds are printed. See PipeDream Printer Driver Editing.

All of my text prints on one line on the printer

Change the line in the printer driver which has LF in column A so that there is a Y in column B. This sends out a linefeed character with each carriage return character. Alternatively, your printer may have a DIP-switch to control this which you may prefer to use. See PipeDream Printer Driver Editing.

I edit my printer driver but there is no change to what comes out on the printer

PipeDream only recognises a new printer driver if you have saved it using the Save option on the Files menu. Therefore, if you edit the printer driver, you must save it.