MEMO MAGIC!

dBASE III Memo Field Tip

This method of printing Dbase III memo fields at 70 characters
was designed by Ron Jones at LaDorne Systems. Please feel free
to use the enclosed methodology to print out memo fields of any
length, up to 70 characters per line, and even print back to back
memos of undeterminable length right after each other.

Any voluntary contributions for the use of this program will be
appreciated because it sure took me a while to work around Ashton-
Tates' bugs.

LaDorne Systems
600 Water Street S.W.
Washington, DC 20024
202/ 484-8448


What I am doing in a nutshell is writing the memo as a text
files using a report format of 70 characters long. The only
problem with this is that Ashton-Tate skips five lines at the
top of a report for a heading whether you use one or not. The
trick is to remove those linefeeds and then you will have a
perfect text file of your memo field.

I also needed the ability to print one memo field right after
the other on the same page. I have no idea how long the memo
field are going to be so I have to rely on the PCOL() function
to print the second memo right after the first with a blank line
in between.

I remove the 5 linefeeds by reading each line of the memo field
into a database structure 70 characters wide. Then, I delete
and pack and lines whose trim(length) is less than 1. I use
this one structure for all the memo fields I need to print, just
shuffling the memos in and out of the structure.

I didn't comment the code but one should be able to follow the
logic. I would appreciate and comments or suggestions at
improving the process. I know Ashton-Tate's Developers Package
can do wide memo fields but this is for people who don't have
$695 to buy a second dBase package.

Enjoy!

Files needed are:

LADORN PRG 1037 1-01-80 9:33a - prints sample letter w/3 memos
LADORN1 DBF 1511 1-01-80 9:03a - letter info to merge w/memos
LADORN2 DBT 4793 1-01-80 9:33a - memos
LADORN2 DBF 269 1-01-80 9:33a - 3 paragraphs (memos) to print
LADORN1 PRG 384 1-01-80 8:25a - prints memo fields from temp dbf
LADORN3 DBF 512 1-01-80 9:37a - temp dbf for memo fields
PARA1 FRM 1990 1-01-80 9:06a \
PARA2 FRM 1990 1-01-80 9:09a > report forms for memos
PARA3 FRM 1990 1-01-80 9:10a /