When you first turn on your AlphaSmart 3000, you will see the start-up screen for a few seconds, which give your AlphaSmart 3000 version number (for example, AlphaWord v1.x.x,English) and the number of the file it is opening. Then the screen will display the contents of your file. The cursor will be in the same position it was when the AlphaSmart 3000 was last used.
To enter text, simply begin typing as you would on any other keyboard. Use the backspace key to erase. As soon as you type each character it is automatically saved. There is no SAVE command. The arrow key allows you to move your cursor through the text. Additionally, the following keyboard combinations will also move your cursor as specificed:
| &uarr = moves the cursor up four lines (one displayed page) | Home = moves the cursor to the beginning of the document | |
| &darr = moves the cursor down four lines (one display page) | End = moves the cursor to the end of the document | |
| &larr = moves the cursor to the beginning of the line | ||
| &rarr = moves the cursor to the end of the line |
As with any word processing application, the text will automatically wrap at the end of each line, so you should use the enter key only to separate paragraphs.
The AlphaSmart 3000 has cut, copy, and paste functions for convenience in editing text. To use these features, begin by moving the cursor under the first letter of the first word in the text you want to select. When you hold down the shift key along with any of the arrow keys, you will notice a flashing block cursor appear over the letter. Use the arrow keys to select the text that you wish to cut, copy or delete. Pressing ctrl-A or x-A will select the entire contents of the file. Once you have selected the text, the following functions can be used:
• Cut/Delete: In order to delete the selected text, use the Cut command
(ctrl-X or x-X) to move the text to the clipboard, or the backspace key to delete the text entirely.
• Copy: To copy the selected text to the clipboard without deleting it, use the Copy command (ctrl-C or x-C).
• Paste: After selected text has been cut or copied, reposition your cursor and use the Paste command (ctrl-V or x-V) to place the clipboard contents at the new cursor location.
Once you have copied or cut the text, it will reside on the clipboard until the next cut or copy action takes place. The current contents of the clipboard can be viewed at any time using the command ctrl-option-x-C. The contents can be inserted to a new location in the current file, or to a completely different file. The first three lines are the contents of the clipboard, and the last is a prompt. The arrow keys can be used to maneuver your cursor within the clipboard.
The standard clipboard size is 25 KB (the same size of each file on the AlphaSmart 3000), and changes when other SmartApplets are installed, so entire files can be selected and copied to the clipboard if necessary. To select all the data within a file, press x-A. You can view the clipboard status by pressing option-x-C. This command gives you the number of text pages currently in the clipboard, and how much empty space is still available.
To access the AlphaSmart Find feature, press the find key or x-F. You will see a screen that says:
Find:_________
Press Enter to search in file 1,
Option-Enter to search in all files,
CMD-G to Find again, Esc to exit.
At the cursor, you may enter up to 16 characters. The search is not case sensitive, so if you are looking for “CAT” and type in “cat”, the search will find cat, CAT, Cat, or caT. It will also find partial words or characters embedded in other words. For example, if you searched for “cat”, it will also show you “catalog.” If you press enter after entering your search text, it will search in the current file only. If you press Option-Enter, it will search in all eight files. However, if password protection is activated, the Option-Enter command cannot be used and you can only search in the current file. When a string is found in a different file than the one currently displayed, it will open that file and put a cursor at the end of the string it found. After the text is found once, you may continue the search by pressing x-G. The next occurrence will be displayed or the message Text NOT found will be displayed. (x-G does not bring up the Find dialog screen, unless this is the first time you are using the Find function.)
The first time that the AlphaSmart 3000 is turned on, it will display the message Opening file 1. On subsequent startups, it will automatically open the last file used.
The AlphaSmart 3000 supports eight files, which are each 12.5 pages in length, or about 25 KB. This provides a total storage capacity of 100 pages of single-spaced text or 200,000 characters. This file structure is intended to support multiple users or to enable a single user to organize his or her work into chapters or sections. To move between files, press the file 1 key to go to File 1, the file 2 key to go to File 2 and so forth, up to File 8. When an AlphaSmart 3000 file is full, a message will be displayed which reads:
File is full. Use another file or send
data to your computer.
The file status dialog box can be accessed by pressing x-I while in a file. The box displays the current number of pages in a file, and how much space is left.
Text entered into each file will remain there until you explicitly erase it by pressing the clear file key while the AlphaSmart 3000 is not attached to a desktop computer. This will produce a prompt, asking if you are sure. Press Y for yes, and N for no. Note that when you press the clear file key, you are clearing only the file in which you are currently working; other files will remain unchanged.
Once the clear file key is pressed and the file is deleted, information may still be recovered using the Data Recovery command described below. However, for confidential files which you wish to erase without the ability to recover, you may press option-x-clear file. This command permanently erases the contents of the entire file. Use this command with care.
Press option-x-ctrl-shift-clear file to erase all eight files simultaneously. You will be asked if you are sure—pressing the Y key at this point will clear files 1 through 8. However, this deletion is not permanent, and you can still recover any of the files using the Data Recovery command described below as long as you have not typed new text into the files.
If you accidentally clear a file, it can still be recovered as long as no text has been entered into that file yet. Open the file you wish to recover by pressing one of the file 1–file 8 keys. Press option-x-R to activate the AlphaSmart Data Recovery command.
The Data Recovery command restores the end-of-file marker to the same position it was when the file was last cleared (by pressing the clear file key). So if you accidentally clear a file, option-x-R will restore it.
If, however, the Data Recovery command fails to recover the data, try pressing ctrl-option-x-R. This is the Recover 40 Characters command. Each time you press this command it will move the end-of-file marker back 40 characters. Press this command repeatedly until you see all of your text, plus some “garbage.” Then hold the backspace key down until the garbage characters are deleted. You may also try pressing shift-ctrl-option-x-R to recover the entire file. Scroll down to the end of your text where the garbage characters start and press x-backspace to erase from the cursor to the end of the file.
Note: If the file was deleted using the option-x-clear file command, the data is not recoverable.
The AlphaSmart 3000 offers a spell checker with correction/suggestion capabilities.
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Press the spell check key
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The spell checker will check each word in the file.
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If a word is spelled incorrectly, or if it is not in the spell check dictionary, you will be offered several options. For example, if the word “runn” is checked, a suggestion screen will appear. select a word and enter OR I ignore
run E edit
-run -runs -rune -rung C context
-runt -ruin esc exit
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Choose between the following options:
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Use the arrow keys to select the correct word from the list of suggested spellings provided and press enter.
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Press I to ignore the word and go on to check the next word.
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Press E to edit the word. This will take you to an edit screen, where you can enter the desired word at the New: prompt and then press enter to invoke the change. The screen below shows what would happen if you select E to edit the word “runn”. To return to the previous screen, press esc.
Word: runn
New:
Change word and press enter or press esc to ignore changes
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Press C to see the word in context. (This will show you the word as it appears in the file.) To exit from this mode, press any key.
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Press esc to exit spell check.