NWA-PCUG 10/2000 NewsLetter Article 18861 N. Hwy 112, Springdale, AR 72762-9303 ClickBook 2000 -- Windows Printing Utility by Mike Alcorn, Editor CTPC Newsletter from 08/00 CTPC Newsletter I fell for ClickBook years ago when I first found it. It did a simple (seeming but in fact very complex) process very well. It took large documents -- documentation, proposals, archival reports, database listings, what have you -- and printed them in a variety of space and paper saving booklet formats. I use it extensively. Not deeply, but extensively. By that I mean I don't use very many of its functions but the ones I use, I use a lot. Mv specialty is 4 page booklets from an 8 l/2x11 sheet of paper. In fact, I reviewed an earlier version in the November, 1998 CTPC newsletter -- my first as editor. I was chagrined to find shortly thereafter that ClickBook had problems printing some Adobe Acrobat files. At that time the company acknowledged the problems and said that they were seeking a solution. I am happy to report that ClickBook 2000 solves those problems. To be certain you should be sure to use Adobe Acrobat Version 4.0 or higher. New Features I'm very poor at evaluating products in terms of how they could be improved. I'm just happy if they do the job I have set for them. In this light it is interesting to review a new version of a product like ClickBook 2000 with its list of new and improved features. With most products, these lists get a ho-hum from me since they weren't features I was very interested in. Not in this case. Just reading the list of new features got me excited: adding table of contents and page numbers, combining portrait and landscape orientation in one print job, combining multiple documents. One of the new features is the ability to merge documents from several applications into one ClickBook document. Before obtaining ClickBook 2000, I had spent several hours trying to merge a cover page from Ventura with 2 pages from Word and 7 pages from Microsoft Access and print them double sided in the correct order. In the end I simply printed each individual page then flipped it and figured out the correct page to print on the back. In both Word and Access I fiddled around to get the correct page numbers to print on each page. After installing ClickBook 2000 I printed a copy in 5 minutes! When you send a document to ClickBook, it pops up and begins receiving and processing the document. If you send a second document, as long as you have not yet clicked ClickBook's Print button, the second document becomes part of the same booklet. You can send a third document, and so on. The documents can come from different applications but must be sent to the same printer. This is a really great feature. I have become quite enamored of the concept of automated software updates. Windows offers the Windows update button. Quicken products offer a One- Step-Update choice. However, I'm talking about products like Computer Associates Personal InnoculateIt anti-virus software and ClickBook 2000. These products actually tell you when an update is available. Downloading and installing are quick and straight-forward. These programs accomplish this by trying to connect to the Internet each time they start. In some situations this can be annoying. You can set ClickBook to manually update only, or a longer interval such as, once a week or once a month. To do this, have ClickBook running, then click on Tools, InstantX, and Settings. Now click the center tab titled InstantUpdate. Select the settings you wish and click OK. Now You Tell Me I upgraded from an earlier version and had a few problems getting my printers to work. I wasn't going to mention it in this review since I assumed the fault was mine. However, in doing research for this review I found that Blue Squirrel tells you to Uninstall any printers installed by earlier versions before installing ClickBook 2000. Since some early versions did not come with an uninstall program, this is a slightly complicated procedure. If you are upgrading, I suggest you check out the FAQ for detailed instructions (you can still save any layouts you have created in the older version). I believe the earlier version called a 4-page folded booklet just that. The new version has many more styles (30 in the Windows version) but none called a folded booklet. It took me a while to figure out that what I wanted was now called I a "Surf-n-Print". That's a little too cute for me. This does give me a chance to mention that the print preview screen is much improved. You can change layouts on the fly and see exactly how they will look (front and back) when printed. This is actually how I figured out that the Surf-n-Print was what I would call a 4-fold booklet. The Demo Version The demo version is fully functional; however, each page prints black bars with the company name and phone number. When you purchase, ClickBook 2000 will get a VIP key which you add to the program as follows: 1- Launch ClickBook. 2- Select the "Tools" menu and highlight the "InstantX" menu option. 3- Click on the "Settings" menu option. 4- Enter the VIP key at the bottom of the InstantX dialog. When the VIP Key is entered, the black bars will disappear from your printed output. Printer Setup Much of your work with ClickBook 2000 will involve duplex (two-sided) printing. Making sure ClickBook 2000 properly organizes your pages is critical. The program comes with an excellent printer setup wizard. There is an Easy Setup option but I suggest you use the Custom Printer Setup Wizard. This walks you through a test printing and asks you questions about what your output looks like. Based on your answers, ClickBook 2000 sets up the printer. You have the option to always print an instructional sheet reminding you how to handle printing the back side of your pages. Note that you can set up a ClickBook printer for each physical printer you have on your system. http://wxvw.bluesquirrel.com/clickbook/index.html While you are at the ClickBook home page, be sure to click on the link to Staplers. Printing 4-page folded booklets is great but even greater is being able to professionally saddle-stitch staple them. I've produced hundreds of booklets using one of these staplers and consider it a home office essential. Some issues of the CTPC newsletter are printed on 11x17 paper. I was having trouble stapling these (and considering ordering the long-necked stapler) until a friend showed me that by simply rolling one side of the newsletter it would fit in the saddle-stitch stapler. What a revelation. Another nice touch is that ClickBook 2000 offers a place on their web site for you to upload and share layouts you have created. I downloaded and installed a legal-sized booklet template. The instructions say to copy the template file(s) to the Clickbook Install Directory\Layouts\"selected sub- folder". For many people this will not be easy to figure out. Assuming your Windows system is installed on your C:\ drive, the default ClickBook installation location would be: C:\Program Files\Blue Squirrel\ClickBook 2000\Layouts\"selected sub-folder" Other Functionality As noted, most of my work involves booklets. For those whose needs are different, ClickBooks handles CD jewel cases, tri-fold brochures, tiled sheets, web pages, business cards, greeting cards, personal organizers and more. There is a User Manual available for download as a pdf file. The file is about 550K in size and results in a 32 page booklet. Conclusion Rates 5 out of 5 stars in my book. Once you have this product installed you will find more and more situations where it makes sense to use ClickBook in lieu of your regular printer. It saves paper, ink/toner as well as time. Overview: ClickBook 2000 works with any Windows printer. It actually installs itself as just another printer. Hence it is available automatically from within any Windows application. It resizes and reorders the pages of any document to print correctly in any of a variety of booklet (and other) formats. Available at: http://www.bluesquirrel.com/clickbookIindex.html. The self-extracting file is just over 3Mb in size. Price: $49.95 Operating Systems: ClickBook 2000 will run under Windows 95/98 as well as Windows NT 4.0. The company is currently working on an update that will run on Windows 2000. There will not be a 16 bit version so it will not be supported under Windows 3.x.