General Preferences
The General area lets you set various preferences for how Z-Write operates.
Tab Key Inserts
Unlike some word processors, Z-Write does not support tabs or tables. To align text you'll have to use a monospaced font (like Monaco) and use spaces. When you press the tab key or import text containing tabs, Z-Write will replace the tabs with spaces. This is where you specify how many spaces Z-Write uses in place of each tab character. If you prefer to insert an actual tab character, you may specify zero as the number of spaces to insert. In your text the tab key will appear as a single character, but if you move the text to another word processor that supports tabs for alignment, the tabs will be included.
Spelling Checker
Since Z-Write uses the free Excalibur spelling checker, you must have downloaded and installed it for Z-Write to allow the checking of spelling. To prevent you from selecting spelling without installing Excalibur, you must enable spelling within the Preferences dialog before the Check Spelling command is available. You only have to do this once. There's a handy button within the window to copy the Excalibur URL to the clipboard for you so you can visit the website at your convenience.
Date/Time Formats
Since Z-Write has handy tools for allowing you to insert the Date and Time within your document (such as clicking on the document's clock in the lower right corner), it allows you to set the format used (such as "7/4/04" versus "Sunday, July 4, 2004"). In fact, Z-Write lets you pick two formats: a primary and a secondary. If you Option-click the date or time clocks (or hold down Option while you choose Insert Date or Insert Time from the Utilities menu) Z-Write will use the alternate format.
A powerful secondary feature of this is that you can map Glossary items to a Secondary format. Simply choose the glossary name from the popup menus to assign it to that function. This is mainly for creating custom date/time stamps. For instance, you could have a stamp that prints out "This document was last modified on Wednesday, July 7, 1999 at 9:16:31 PM." Rather than piece that together with several clicks of the mouse and some typing, simple create a glossary item that reads like this: "This document was last modified on #d at #t." When you call the glossary item, Z-Write will replace the "#d" with the primary date and "#t" with the primary time. Once you've mapped a glossary item to, for example, the secondary date function, option-clicking the date would execute your glossary (instead of the regular date routine).
Smart Quotes
Here you can turn on Z-Write's "Smart Quotes" feature. Smart quotes are sometimes called curly quotes, since they curl in and out depending on if they are at the beginning or ending of a phrase. Smart quotes give your work a more "typeset" look, but they aren't always compatible across platforms. On Macs you can type curly left and right doublequotes with Option-[ and Option-Shift-[, but that's not the easiest. Z-Write will replace standard quotes with curly quotes as you type if you turn on the "Automatic Smart Quotes" feature. If Z-Write types the curly quote in the wrong direction (which can happen if Z-Write is unsure whether you're at the beginning of a phrase or not), don't panic -- just press the same quote key again and Z-Write will just change the quote's direction. (You can also convert between smart and straight quotes via the commands on the Convert menu -- useful for text you've already typed or you're preparing to e-mail.)
Auto-Expand Glossary Items
Z-Write can automatically expand glossary items when you type the item's name. If you use an ordinary word as a glossary item name, however, this could prove awkward. Therefore Z-Write gives you the ability to turn off auto-expansion with this setting. Some users have found that auto-expansion slows down typing; if typing is sluggish, uncheck this option.
Use External Glossaries
You can disable external glossary files by moving them out of the Glossaries folder, or you can disable the feature entirely by simply turning it off here.
Auto-Name New Sections
If you turn off this option, Z-Write will prompt you with a dialog to type in a Section name when you create a new Section (either with the New Section command, dragging some text to the Section List, or via the Duplicate command). With it on, Z-Write will automatically generate a unique name.
Display Date/Clock
Set this if you want the clock in the lower right corner of documents to be displayed.
Display Clock with Seconds
If the clock it turned on, this will display it as hours:minutes:seconds.
Text Styling Info
This will display information about the current text selection on the Hot Help area at the bottom of the document window. It displays the current font, text size, any styling characteristics (bold, italic, etc.), and text color.
Live Stats
If you check this option, Z-Write will display (in the Hot Help area) "live" statistics about the current Section: number of characters, words, and paragraphs. Recalculating these stats takes a fraction of a second, so the stats are only updated when you pause in typing. You may force an update by clicking the Hot Help area.
Page Calculations
Many users requested a way to count pages within Z-Write. Unfortunately, this is technically difficult as the number of pages changes depending on many factors: text size, margins, paper size and orientation, word wrap, and more. Calculating the exact page count of a document is time-consuming (try Print Preview to see the time it takes). So Z-Write will estimate the page count of Section (when you display a document's Statistics) by simply dividing the average number of words per page into the total words in the Section. This is where you can specify how many words will appear (on average) on each of your pages. A typical setting for a U.S. letter-sized page double-spaced is 250 words. You may change this to whatever fits your standards. Note that the page count in the Statistics window is still an estimate, but this can at least give you a fair idea of how many pages your Section may be.