			MICROFILE	

	"Possibly the best file viewer in the world."

	"Makes hex dumps a pleasure to work with."


These are just two comments we have invented to get you interested
in this program.


It approaches the problem of displaying the contents of a file in a
much more flexible and easy to use way than we have ever seen before.


It is not fixed format, the screen presentation can be varied in width,
font and combinations of character, hexadecimal and record formats.

The character set can be chosen from the PC OEM set or one of three
international character sets ANSI, ASCII and EBCDIC.

It allows for extensions to the standard ASCII set as well as providing
the facility to create any other conversion tables.

For example, it is possible to :- 
    
    change all alphabetic characters from EBCDIC upper case to ASCII lower case
    convert all tabs to commas
    replace all dollar signs by pound signs
    create an output file in DOS/UNIX/Apple MAC or other text file format

    - all in a single pass.


It can extract text out of any file that can be read on a PC - data, text file,
word processor document, spreadsheet or even executable files.

For example, it could be used to "unformat" a word processor document by
extracting only the text characters i.e. ignoring attributes such as 
bold, italic, font name etcetera.

The output file could even be multiple spaced lines (if required).



It can read and expand Microsoft compiled files.

It has facilites to search, goto file position, address in hex or decimal,
base 0 or 1, copy to printer, clipboard or file.

It provides a calculator to translate 

	signed/unsigned integers (byte, word, long and double)
	32/64/80 bit floating point
	currency
	date and time
	navigable file pointers
	binary i.e. bit display
	

It can encode/decode UU and MIME format files.


There now follows a more detailed description :-


Screen displays		Address
			Hexadecimal and Character
			Hex only
			Char only
			Text records
			Text word-wrap


Other features		select a new file (obviously !!!)

			close/re-open file (shared access)
			
			file position in hex or decimal

			file position starting from 0 or 1
			
			max file size - 2.1 Gb

			vary the number of characters per line
			
			goto a file position - hex or decimal
			
			search for hex or text string - forward
			or back, from start/end, case sensitive 
			optional, not equal to

			change fonts (fixed pitch only)

			print current screen display			
			
			page forward/back

			goto start/end

			copy screen or records to Clipboard

			extract text records to disc files 
			with output in DOS, Unix, MAC, EBCDIC or other formats
			- read text from unsupported word processing
			documents, program error messages etc  

			optional display of rejected text records

			word wrapping variable from 40 chars to full screen
			width

			separate character set/translation tables for
			both input and output files.

			view system/hidden files

			inform you of hidden directories
			(it cannot access these - you would have to
			change the directory's properties)


			monitors for any file changes to the file
			being examined


			calculator to translate

			- signed/unsigned integer arithmetic
			  byte, word, long and double

			- currency format

			- 32/64/80 bit floating point numbers

			- date/time formats 
			  integer and floating point representations
			  
			- bit display

			- file pointers and the ability to navigate the
			  the file using them ( + return jumps)

			- byte order High/Low or Low/High


The program automatically adapts itself to the PC it is running on,
from the size of screen being used, through to the date formats
that are in use.


By varying the font, and depending on the resolution of the PC
that the program is run on, a text-only display can show as little
as a single character per line to over 132+ characters i.e. unreadable.


Hexadecimal values are always grouped for readability e.g

			FF00 0011
			FFOO 0011 0022 0033



In addition, to the facilities listed above, there are several
areas that can be tailored :-

	(1) As above   - with this option selected the program
			 will display "nn Lines as above" whenever
			 any lines are repeated.


	(2) Delimiters - by default, text displays are shown with
			 plus signs indicating the start and end
			 of text to highlight trailing spaces

			+a normal line followed by a dummy+
			+line with trailing spaces        +

			 these can be changed to any other 
			 keyboard characters (including spaces).


	(3) Background - the main screen background colour can be 
			 changed as required


	(4) Foreground - the main screen foreground colour can also
			 be varied


	(5) Char formats - ANSI, ASCII and EBCDIC are all supported
			 (plus user defined tables).

	(6) ASCII+     - Any of the characters found in ANSI but not
			 in ASCII e.g. "" can be selected to be
			 included in displays


	(7) Unprintables - not all the hex values 0-255 have a visual
			   representation in the text formats
			   available

			   these control characters (for printers etc.)
			   are often displayed as a solid block

			   this can be changed to any required value

			   e.g. copy tab delimited file to comma delimited


	(8) Records    - the program can extract text from files
			 where the text record is indicated by
			 
			 byte/word counts at start of the record

			 or hex 0D0A at the end of the record
				00	ditto
			 	,	comma
				nn	other values can be input

			 or break characters can be used.


			 byte/word counts are used by Pascal programs
			 and many data and executable files.

			 0D0A	most text/word processors,
			   0D	Macintosh files
			   0A	UNIX files
			   00	used by C and other executable programs
			    ,	Comma Separated Variable (CSV) format
 
			 This includes byte and word counts in either
			 Low/High (Intel) or more often High/Low format.


			 Various other tests are performed to discard
			 garbage characters.

			 Note - all tests are carried out on sentences, not
			 only individual words. A high accuracy is achieved
			 - even on executable files.
			(see the Help file for a full explanation)

	(9) Sideways scrolling available for text records


	(10) Text can be displayed word-wrapped if required.

	(11) Compressed files - files compressed using MS compress.exe
			can be displayed in actual or uncompressed form.

			Note "compressed", not "expanded" - some file
			formats can increase in size when "compressed" !

			This often happens if a second compression is
			applied to files already compressed.

	

		-----------------  ///  ------------------



As an example, with As_Above on, a 16 character hex and text display
took 5 seconds to display "2800 lines as above" on an uncompressed
bitmap file.


Searching for non-existent strings on a 5 Mb file took about 40 seconds to
report "no match found" - 100,000 + chars/sec.

These were run on a 486/25 SX with 4Mb of memory - and seem to be consistent
results regardless of how many other programs were loaded.



		-----------------  ///  ------------------

The program is distributed in two compressed formats :-

  (1) SETUP.EXE - installs the program files and Visual Basic run-time files

  (2) MICROZIP..EXE - a self extracting ZIP file (program files only)


Note - this program will NOT run from a floppy drive - it must be installed 
       onto a local hard disk, nor will an unlicensed version run over a
       network.


		-----------------  ///  ------------------


  To install using SETUP, insert the disc into drive A or B and run

			SETUP.EXE

  This will install the following files :-

	MICROFIL.EXE	490,999 bytes	- suggested directory C:\MICROFIL
					  although this can be changed 
					  during installation (this does
					  not affect the running of the
					  program).

	MICROFIL.HLP	96,086 bytes	- the help program


	README.TXT	11,474 bytes	- this file
		       -------				
		       598,559		- (Jun 1966 / Version 96.5)
	


  The remaining files are all standard Visual Basic files and are all
  "loaded" into the Windows system directory, which is usually

		C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM


  In fact, if you have ever installed any Visual Basic programs, then you will
  find that these probably exist on your system, and so will not need to be re-installed.


	VBRUN300.DLL	398,000 bytes	- Dynamic Link Library used by
					  all Visual Basic Version 3
					  users

	CMDIALOG.VBX	 18,688		- Background/Foreground colours,
	COMMDLG.DLL	 89,248		  File dialogs

	PICCLIP.VBX	 15,840		- used in toolbar displays

	THREED.VBX	 64,544		- various control buttons

	VER.DLL		  9,008		- version control

			-------
			595,328

	Total space requirement may vary between 598,559 to 1,193,887


		-----------------  ///  ------------------


  To install using MICROZIP.EXE

  Copy MICROZIP.EXE to an existing or new directory (suggested name MICROFIL)
  on your hard disc.

  Use PKZIP/WINZIP to extract the files.

  MICROZIP.EXE can be deleted after use.


		-----------------  ///  ------------------

  MICROFIL can be registered via Compuserve 

	 GO SWREG  product ID  12112


		-----------------  ///  ------------------


When MICROFIL.EXE is run for the first time, it will create a data file

		 MICROFIL.DAT      (in the same directory as MICROFIL.EXE)

This is about 1000 bytes long and is used to hold program settings
between sessions and registration details (assumming you decide to register).

This takes about 5 minutes and the progress of the file initialisation
is shown on the screen.

On unregistered versions, this initialisation process is repeated every
4 hours of actual use.



		-----------------  ///  ------------------


Note - STOP PRESS - Feb 1996

On some machine there appears to be a problem when running the SETUP program.

It fails with the message 

		"Cannot find ver.dll"

VER.DLL was first shipped with Windows 3.1 and should be on every Windows
machine (in the window/system directory) at this version or later.

The setup program relies on this library to check disk space availability and
to unpack the files.


However, the copy on the Setup disk is not in fact compressed (despite it
having the compressed file extension .DL_).

If you experience this problem, then you can get round it by using
File Manager to copy

	A:\VER.DL_ 	to	C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory

	then rename it 		C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VER.DLL using the File/Rename menu


Re-running the SETUP program should then work without any problems.



		-----------------  ///  ------------------


Known Problems

KP9601/001	Feb 1966

  COPY_TO_DISK - network printers.

  On a system where the default printer is a network printer, an error message
  is generated when using this function. This occurs when the program
  attempts to set the printer font to match the screen fixed pitch font which
  appears not to work on a network printer. 
  The screen is still copied and printed but using the existing settings of the
  printer. This is currently under investigation.


KP9605/001	9 Jul 1966

  COPY_TO_DISK/NORMAL - serial format

  When using COPY_TO_DISK/NORMAL options and screen display is none-TEXT format,
  only the first 100 bytes of the file are copied.
  Full file processed if screen display is text mode or extracting/encoding
  UU/MIME code.
  Error caused by UU/MIME de-bugging code not being removed.
  Problem cleared 9 Jul 1996