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In a recent mail I received, a customer asks how he can neatly print Graded Analysis files in his word processing program. I have used the following procedure for years and take it for granted by now. For those of you who need some pointers, I hope you find the following helpful.

Here are detailed instructions to address the problem of small fonts using Graded Analysis Report files and a word processor. The example I will use is applicable to the most popular word processing program, Microsoft Word. I am also assuming that your A+ program is installed in C:\APLUS70 (default installation).

Please print these instructions and have them handy when you are ready to begin.

1.) In A+ after converting a vendor file, choose the option "Create Graded Analysis Report(s)". Highlight the track(s) and date(s) you desire and click "Select". What this will do is create a Graded Analysis file in the folder C:\APLUS70\REPORTS. For example, Belmont for June 21st will be named BEL0621A.TXT.

2.) Go into Microsoft Word, click "File" and "Open". In the box entitled "Files of type", make sure it says either "All files (*.*)" or "Text files (*.txt)".

3.) Navigate your way to the C:\APLUS70\REPORTS folder in the "Look in" box. In the large window, you should now see the Graded Analysis file(s) you have created while in the A+ program. Select the file and click "Open". When the file opens, it probably won't look too good. This is where you need to play with the settings.

4.) The first thing I do is to click "File" and "Page Setup". On the "Margin" tab, set the Top, Bottom, Left and Right numbers as low as they go for your particular printer. If you don't know the minimum values, choose 0 for all 4 numbers and Word will adjust them accordingly. Click "Fix" once Word makes the adjustments. At this point, depending on the highlighted font and font size, your lines may still "wrap". Here's where you play with the font and size.

5.) Highlight the entire document (do this by holding down the Ctrl key and moving the mouse pointer into the left margin and clicking once). The entire document should now be highlighted. For font, choose "Courier New" and for font size, choose 8. These are the settings I start with and depending on the number of races, you may be able to fit the entire card on 2 sheets of paper. If your lines still wrap, you may need to choose a smaller font size but "Courier New/8" has worked fine on every printer I use.

6.) Click anywhere in the document to "unhighlight" it. Now, to make sure you don't get the first part of a race on one page and the second part on another page, you will need to set the pagination.

7.) If you click "File" and "Print Preview", you should be able to see how many races fully fit on the first page of your document. Close the preview window, locate the last full race you want on the first page and click the mouse between that race and the next race. You should now have a blinking cursor above the word "Date" in the next race. Hold down the Ctrl key and press Enter. This will create a page break at that point. Repeat this process until you have as many page breaks as needed to neatly print your report.

8.) Click "File" and "Print" to send your report to your system printer.

If the print is still too small for your liking, I recommend that you use "Landscape" for your reports. You will be able to get larger font sizes but you won't get as many races per page.

As stated above, this example works for Microsoft Word. If you use a different word processing program, some of the above instructions may be slightly different.

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