Most software comes with reference documentation of some sort. My guess is that most people throw the printed manuals away with the box and never bother to read the online versions, even though they are just a click away on the help menu. For most part, you can get away with not reading documentation. But there is a downside in not doing so. First, you end up asking for unnecessary support. Second, you may not even know of some of the program’s best features. Don’t believe me? I will prove my point with an example.

It would be difficult to find a PC user who has not used Notepad. It is perhaps the most-used application on Windows. I am sure you have used it too. But I bet you haven’t read the help file that comes with the. I will now tell you a few things about Notepad that you likely don’t know. But you would have known them, had you bothered to read Notepad’s help.

You can use Notepad as a log.

1. Open a new text document.


2. Type .LOG in the first line at the left margin.


3. Save and Close the document.


4. Open the document again. Viola! You will see the current data and time already entered for your entry like this:

      .LOG
      2:50 PM 9/26/2006

Notepad will do this every time you open the file. But what if you want to leave your file open? No Problem. Notepad takes care of that too. Just press F5 and Notepad will add an entry like this:

      2:55 PM 9/26/2006

I use this logging feature to add time entries when I am at client sites. I have a log file on a portable USB drive.  I add an entry when I start work and add another when I stop. That keeps track of my billable time. If I make calls that I need to record later in SalesForce.com, I make a log entry. Then when I am back in my office, I transfer the entries to whichever application they need to end up in. I can’t tell you how incredibly useful my little log file is. Give it a try and find out for yourself.

If you search on the web, you will find this feature listed as a hack, an undocumented feature, an easter egg, and what-not. The fact is it is listed in the help file. But who reads documentation? Apparently, not even the people who write these so-called hacks, undocumented features, and easter eggs!

Printouts of Notepad documents usually say “Untitled” at the top, because most people open a new document, type something in and print it without even bothering to save it. Did you know that you can add a header and footer to a Notepad document? What if I tell you that you can align the header or footer to the left, center or right? Not only that, you can also add date and time, and page numbers to the header or footer. You can see how to do all these things by referring to the “Create a header or footer” entry in Notepad’s help.

Notepad has just one font, right? Wrong! Go to Format/Font on Notepad’s menu bar. The dialog box that appears lets you choose whatever font, font style, and font size you want. The font changes are reflected when you print the document as well! Who knew good old Notepad can be used as a poor man’s word processor (and a rich man’s word processor in case of emergencies)?

Notepad’s Word Wrap feature was introduced in Windows XP. Whether you turn it on or not, the text automatically adjusts to the paper size when you print the document. Did you know that you can set different page margins if you want to? Just click on File/Page Setup and adjust the print margins to suite your requirements. By the way, you can also print Notepad documents in Landscape.

Are you a programmer or a web developer? Notepad has a couple of nice features to find line numbers and character positions that may be useful to you. You can press CTRL-G to bring up a little dialog box where you can enter a line number to go to. You can also turn the Status Bar option under View menu to see the line and character position of the cursor in the status bar at the bottom.

While this column is not intended to replace Notepad’s help file, I hope that, by now, I have proved to you that reading the documentation of software programs you use often is a good idea.

When I started out as a trainee programmer many, many years ago, the first thing that my boss threw at me was the user manual for the Editor on a Wang-VS computer. “Read and understand this very well”, he said. “Once you sit at a terminal, I don’t want you to waste your time and that of others by asking stupid questions”. His advice was justifiable in those days because computer time was valuable; we had to reserve time slots to use a terminal. Despite the prior warning, I ended up asking questions the first few times I was at a terminal. In most cases, the curt answer was RTFM!

These days, everyone has his own computer right on right on his desk. Software is a lot friendlier too. This gives people more time to play around with programs until they get somewhat comfortable with them. It also leads people to believe that they can get away with not reading documentation.

The fact, though, is that reading documentation can save both time and money, and also increase productivity. The next time you buy new software, RTFM! And insist that your employees do so too.