Compose Your Message Off-line

You can use your favorite PC editor to compose and spell check a message before you log onto the CCNA. This is not pretty, but it works.

A. Prepare the message on your PC using any editor which can save it as an ASCII file.

B. Log onto the CCNA.

C. There are 3 ways to send your ascii document.

1. Directly into the message:

. In Pine enter "r" to reply to a current message, or "c" to Compose a new message.

Place the cursor at the end of the text area of the message, or at the beginning of a blank area in the message which is large enough to take the message, as the uploaded text will overwrite whatever follows the cursor.

Upload the message using the appropriate commands for your communications package. Formatting, such as tabs, paragraphs, etc. will likely be lost when the message is uploaded
eg:
a. Initiating the transfer is often done using the "Page-Up" key or the "Alt-R" keys.

b. You must use ASCII as the upload protocol.

c. Indicate the ASCII file on the PC to be uploaded.

d. Start the upload of the ASCI file from the PC to CCNA.

You will be put back in the Pine editor and your message will appear as it is being uploaded .

e. Edit the resulting message to format it the way you want it to look and send it.

a. Upload the document from your computer to your home directory on the CCNA machine using the Uploading and Downloading Files utility on the CCNA menus and your communications program.

Once the file is in your CCNA home directory:

b. In Pine enter into a Reply to a current message, or go into Compose a message.

c. In the message area, position the cursor where you want the document to be inserted and press "^R" (control-R) and "^T" (control T), pick the document you have uploaded and press enter/return.

The messge will now contain the document you uploaded from your computer.

Note: This method will keep the format. In fact the file need not be in the ascii format, although sending anything else will require the person receiving the file to have the nessessary software to use it. If the file is a document to be read, you are safest using an ascii file. However, Binary files can be sent by this method.

a. Upload the document from your computer to your home directory on the CCNA machine using the Uploading and Downloading Files utility on the CCNA menus and your communications program. Remember you only have a limited amount of disk space including both mail and files on the CCNA machine (800K).

b. In Pine enter into a Reply to a current message, or go into Compose a message.

c. Compose what message is required to explain what the attachment is about.

d. Move the Cursor to the Attachmnt: statement , press "^T" (control-T), pick the file to attach, and press enter/return.

e. Send the message as usual.

If you have comments, suggestions or concerns, please contact the CCNA Helpdesk

Last revised April 28 1998