Technical Notes

Import Text into PalmNotes

Import (small) blocks of text into your Zoomer Palmnotes:

• Bring the desired text file to your Zoomer by using PalmConnect, AOL, etc. Open the AOL text editor.
• Select and Copy the text desired. The maximum size of openable file in this editor is 8Kbytes. (There is a utility in the AOL PDA Forum Software Library for breaking up large text files into "openable" chunks.)
• Open the Notebook application and open/create the desired document. Open a blank page.
• Tap the Toolbox at the top of the Notebook page. Tap the Paste tool. The copied text will automatically be pasted into the page.

Import (large) blocks of text into your Zoomer PalmNotes using PalmConnect: You can import text into your Zoomer Address books in blocks of several pages (about 170 lines of text on U.S. Zoomers). The process takes a couple of steps, but it makes it possible to take your sales/product lists, guidelines, reference material, or just your day's reading along with you. FIRST -- Read the PalmConnect User Manual section on importing into Palm Address.

General process:

• Format text into blocks to be imported
• Import blocks into PalmAddress book on PalmConnect
• Manually copy blocks to PalmNotes book
• Copy the PalmNotes book over to the Zoomer

Procedure:

Hint: Imports into PalmAddress must be comma-separated fields (.CSV file format). Comma-separated fields look like this:

"I'm first","I'm next","I'm third"

Records are distinguished by carriage returns.

For importing purposes, any text which has no quotation marks (") can be an importable field, even if it has < CR >'s in it, if the whole text is "wrapped" in quotation marks. For example,

"General process:  
- Format text into blocks to be imported
- Import blocks into PalmAddress book on PalmConnect
- Manually copy blocks to PalmNotes book
- Copy the PalmNotes book over to the Zoomer"

is one importable block for one field. If the text contains quotation marks, just wrap them in quotation marks ( e.g. ...""Cigar Ashes, a short monograph"" by Sherlock Holmes... ).

You must decide how many fields you want to create based on the complexity of your data and how many fields you want to fill in PalmAddress. This note describes the simple case of bringing multiple blocks of text into the Notes field of PalmAddress.

Make your text look like the following. Blocks should be separated by a carriage return (< CR >) to designate separate records (to be put into separate Notes records) (See also "Using PalmAddress as a Database".)

"this is block 1.  It
has lots of text."
"This is block 2, and it has a lot more
text."
"remember, any block can have up
to 30k of text.  This is the limitation of the
PalmAddress database."

Hint: Import the whole document as one (1) single text block into one PalmAddress record, as long as you don't exceed the capacity limit.

Save your text file with a .csv extension.

Open PalmConnect, then open PalmAddress. The records will be imported under the * item of the alphabet, so it's OK to use a working address book.

Select IMPORT from the FILE menu in PalmAddress. Set the FORMATS to .csv and find your file. The MAP FIELDS button should appear. Click on it. In this case, PalmConnect should have read your file and identified that it has only 1 field (there's something wrong if it sees too many fields). Map the fields according to the instructions in the PalmConnect manual. It's easiest to map your source field into the last field of PalmAddress, the Sketch Page. Do the import. You should see a dialog box indicating that you successfully imported the records. (See the TechNote on Import Mapping.)

Click on the * in the PalmAddress alphabet. It should show you a "--no name--" record for each record you imported. Open one and examine it. The formatting may be off a bit, but all of the text should be there.

Open the desired PalmNotes notebook and create/open the desired page. You'll want to have both the Address book and Note book displayed on your PalmConnect screen.

Mark the text to move by multiple clicking. (See the Moving Text with Keystrokes.) Hold down the < Ctrl > key and Right-mouse the marked region. Holding < Ctrl > and right button down, drag and drop the text onto the desired open Notebook page. Voila! Repeat as necessary. Delete the records from your Address book.

If you imported into the Sketch Page, you can use the Toolbox tools to copy and paste your text.

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