Version 7.7.3

• When windows were re-sized, the system was attempting to re-size the items within the window. This was causing problems, so the feature has been removed. Windows may be re-sized, but the items within the window will remain the same size.

Version 7.7.2

• A minor change to attempt to deal with an Error 6 that sometimes occurs when attempting to select a press.

Version 7.7.1

• Custom Calculation change. When using the codes created in version 7.7.0 (#ad5020 and #am5020) the system was adding the totals for all forms on multiple form estimates. This has been corrected, so that the total shown is only for the current estimate.

Version 7.7.0

• Custom Calculation change. You can now get time and dollar totals from other activity codes inside a customer calculation. For example, "#ad5020" will return the dollar amount charged to activity code "5020". The "a" stands for "activity" and the "d" stands for "dollars". Also, "#am5020" will return the time for the activity in minutes.
• Custom Calculation change. Inside a custom calculation you can now set the hourly rate for that calculation on the fly. For example "#rate = 50" would set the hourly rate to $50 per hour for that custom calculation.

Version 7.6.9

• Standards for web presses. Changed maximum number of webs to allow up to 99 webs instead of just 9.

Version 7.6.8

• Added a "Message-Id" to outgoing emails. This was causing some ISPs to block quotes being emailed thinking it was spam.
• Also corrected problem sending HTML email. System hung.

Version 7.6.7

• The paper exception table for papers viewed by point size did not work properly in estimate entry. This has been corrected.
• When changing the Estimate Entry Sequence, it was not affecting all users on the network.
• On press operations were only charging the makeready time to the first quantity in a multiple-quantity estimate.

Version 7.6.6

• When Estimates Become Jobs. The quantities were not showing up correctly which made it difficult to select the desired quantity. This has been corrected.
• RFQ Entry. The program now accepts more than one entry line for the job description. Use "SD02" for the first line, SD03 for the second etc. They are entered as separate lines on the RFQ, but they will appear together in estimate entry.
• Estimate Detail. Lbs of Paper has always shown the # of lbs of paper required to do the job. If the paper vendor requires that paper purchases be rounded up, that amount was not shown. This has been changed to "Lbs of Paper to Purchase" and now includes the rounded total (if "round to" specified).

Version 7.6.5

• Rebuild Estimate Entry. The estimate entry file will now be rebuilt on your personal folder. Storing this on your server created conflicts when other people are in the program. This should eliminate the error message that some people are getting after modifying standards.
• Customer Lookup. If you are searching for a customer name and address, and that customer has not yet ordered a job and is not in the Accounts Receivable database, you can now search the saved estimates for the name and address. The system first does it's usual search, then you can click on a button that says "Search Saved Estimates" to search the saved estimate file. You can also specify a job description and a search date to refine your search.
• RFQ Entry. You can now have drop down lists for RFQ entries. These behave just like they do in regular estimate entry. Go to Setup --> Estimate Entry Tables to create new drop downs for new questions if you like.

Version 7.6.4

• Estimate Entry. If you wish to limit some users so that they can recall and view estimates, print quote letters etc., but not change estimates, this can now be done. Go the user's personal folder, normally c:\personal and create a file called "noeditrights" with no file extension. It doesn't matter what the file contains, just that it is found in the folder.
• Job Tickets (from Quote Letter). There was an error when showing estimated times for activities. If you were showing times for individual forms, the first form was showing incorrect times. This has been corrected. Keep in mind that any times you show which is not inside a (form start) and (form end) area will contain times for the entire job.
• Job Tickets (from Quote Letter). Codes like [es0100] used to show the cost for a buyout. This has been changes to [es0103]. This is the code for the first quantity, but the system will automatically set this to the column selected for the job. Here are the codes that now will pull up prices on the job ticket:
  
  [es0103] - price for buyout
  [sp0111] - price for paper
  [sj01] - quantity
  [sk04] - forced selling price (if any)
  
  
• Custom Calculations. You can now have more than 100 lines of instructions in a custom calculation.
• Note: Version 7.6.3 was used internally and had no significant changes.

Version 7.6.2

• Estimate Printout. The date and time now appears at the top of each page.
• Custom Calc. When you use a custom calc that you indicate is a buyout, the "labor" portion is now the markup % for the buyout, or default if left set to zero.
• Custom Calc. On edit checks, you can now enter a total of 10 characters, like "L1,2,4,8,9" will now limit them to 5 correct answers.
• Modified startup screen so that standards setup within sub-folders are found. This should not matter to most users
• Backup and Restore make sure none of the data files are set to read/only.
• Added the ability to create a Custom Calc which calls a calculation in another company's database.
• Special Commission Calculation. If you need to base your commission based on some formula related to other markups, quantity, # of press sheets, etc, you can now calculate the commission automatically as the estimate is calculating if you wish. If this is a capability you need, ask for instructions on how to turn on this feature.

Version 7.6.1

• Accurate shipping weight is based on finished size, not on customer finished size.
• Updating Job Costing. If the completed date or the invoice amount was already filled in on the job in job costing, the estimating program will no longer wipe it out if you need to re-estimate the job and update job costing.
• Display/Modify Standards. Copy to alternate database introduced in 7.6.0 has been enhanced to preserve the machine code number when copying when possible. This makes the internal code number used for the operation which is needed in job tickets and quote letters consistent after copying.
• Recalling Estimates. When searching for estimates to recall, the system will not return more than 500 estimates as the result of a search. If this limit is reached, the program will now let you know that you need to define your search criteria with more granularity.
• Estimate Entry. When finished size was changed, the customer finished size at the bottom of form layout is no longer set automatically. This was causing some confusion, so it was taken out. The customer finished size is not used in the calculation of the estimate. It can be included on the quote letter if the size that the customer is expecting to see is not the same as the finished size you are entering.
• Modify Entry Sequence, Hiding Entries. In addition to modifying the entry sequence, you can now hide groups of entries if you like. Just start the group name with an asterisk (*) and the group will not be shown on estimate entry. Note that if you recall an estimate that uses one of the data fields that was eliminated, you will get a warning message because the data will not be part of the estimate. Note that this may cause the selling price calculated to be altered. You can always add items back by putting them into a group with a proper name (ie. one that does not start with *).

Version 7.6.0

• Display/Modify Standards. Added the ability to copy standards from the current database to another database. This is only used if you are setting up standards for multiple companies and you wish to copy standards from one company to another.

Version 7.5.9

• Calculate. Custom calc which used the feature to read from estimate entry fields (eg. #sp0108 for paper caliper) would cause the custom calc to return an incorrect result.

Version 7.5.8

• Calculate. Accurate shipping weight is based on customer finished size if supplied, otherwise based on finished size.
• Still fixing Error 429 when calculating. Hopefully this update will fix it.

Version 7.5.7

• Calculate. Bindery 3 calculation was not processing the # of passes for the run correctly if more than one quantity was entered.
• Still having problems with Error 429 when calculating.

Version 7.5.6

• Error 429 when Calculating. Version 7.5.5 created a problem that prevented the system from calculating. This update should correct the problem.
• Bindery 3 Calculation. The automatic speed calculation was basing all speeds on the quantity in the first column. This has been modified so that the speed is set correctly to each quantity regardless which column contains the quantity.

Version 7.5.5

• Recall Estimates in Estimate Entry. When you have several estimates returned on your search, you can now click on a heading, such as Estimate# and the program will sort based on that field.
• Print Job Ticket (from Quote letter). New command (press start) and (press end) work in a similar way to (form start) and (form end) except that the section between the two commands is repeated for each press form on the job. This allows you to have information filled in for each press form as far as quantity printed etc.
• Custom Calc. Added #press, which returns the press code (eg. 1s for #1 Sheet, 2w for #2 Web).
• Custom Calc. Added #impressions, which returns the total # of impressions on the form.
• Custom Calc. Added recent codes to the help notes, including #press, #impressions, #pressforms, #asw and #plates.
• Estimate Summary. Added full job description and paper description to the job summary that optionally prints after the estimate.
• Estimate Summary. Added a "Summary Only" button at the bottom of the screen so you can see just the estimate summary if you wish.

Version 7.5.4

• Paper Add/Change/Delete. Added the ability to specify multiple envelopes in one paper entry. In the sizes you can enter "#10_4.125X9.5 #9_3.875X8.875 a2_9x12". Note that the underscore (_) separates the description of the envelope (#10) from the size (4.125x9.5). This way the estimator sees the possible sizes as #10, #9 and a2 so they are looking at something familiar instead of a size which does not.
• Paper Add/Change/Delete. If you tried to "Copy to New Paper" and the paper code you were using was not completely numeric, you got an error. This has been corrected.
• Custom Calc. Added #plates and #pressforms so you can read the total # of plates and press forms (sigs) for a form and use the result if your custom calculation if you like.
• Bindery 1 and 2 run speed was backwards. The higher the difficulty, the higher the speed that was shown. Note that this problem did not create an incorrect estimate, only the speed displayed was wrong.
• Bindery 3 in Standards. Automatic speed controls have been added, similar to presses. Keep in mind that # of inserts etc. also affect speed.
• File --> Erase Data data got an error 5. This has been corrected.

Version 7.5.3

• Hone-Offs. The ability to add hone-offs on a press has been added to the standards. You will find it at the end of the sheet fed or web press standards. There are two questions, 1) Minutes per Hone-Off and 2) Activity code to use. If the activity code is blank, the activity code for makeready is used. This option creates a new question in estimate entry. You can move that question wherever you like in estimate entry.
• Cancel Calculation. If you are calculating and you wish to stop the calculation, you can now do so by pressing the ESC key.
• Estimate Display. On Bindery 1 and 2 calculations, the equipment speed is shown on the estimate (as of version 7.5.0). The speed was not being adjusted for the run difficulty factor on the display, even though the calculation was correct.

Version 7.5.2

• Quote Letters for unsaved Estimates. Version 7.5.1 below introduced a new feature where you don't have to save your estimate in order to calculate. It was discovered, however, that this caused a problem with multiple form quote letters in that only the price from the first form was being recognized. After looking into the problem further, it turns out that job tickets and updating other programs all suffer from the same problem if the estimate is not saved. All of these problems have been solved with this update, so you can safely print quote letters and job tickets even though the estimate may not be saved at the time. Keep in mind that if you tell the system that the estimate is a job, the estimate is automatically saved.
• Calculate. On web presses when plate changes are required, the system was not charging to re-burn the plates, just for hanging the new plates. This has been corrected.
• Print Job Ticket (from Quote letter). (form start) and (form end) no longer print a blank line. This allows you to make your job ticket more compact.
• Print Job Ticket (from Quote letter). The code (sj00) will now print the selected quantity.
• Print Job Ticket (from Quote letter). When showing buyouts, codes like (es0100) will show the title of the buyout from standards, (es0103) will show the price of the buyout, picking the correct column.
• Print Job Ticket (from Quote letter). SP0100 was returning the proper paper price.
• File --> Copy. When copying a company, you may get an error message if you have no quote letter files to copy. This has been corrected. This error message causes no problems, just an annoyance.
• Estimate Entry. If you have a checkbox in a custom calc, the system forced you to check the box if other data was specified. This has been corrected.
• Remove Estimates. If you wish to remove the main estimate but leave revisions in the system, you can specify the estimate # as 1234.0, the ".0" means the estimate # with no revision #. This gives you more control over which estimates you can remove.
• Print Standards. Custom Calculations are now printed in their entirety.
• Custom Calc. You can now use anything entered into the estimate in a custom calc. You can use the same codes that are defined for quote letters, but the code must be preceeded with a #. For example #sp0108 will give you the paper caliper.
• Standards. On-press operations have been enhanced to allow for dies, consummable materials and additional press makeready time.
• Update Scheduling. An error was corrected updating duplicate jobs in scheduling.

Version 7.5.1

• Saving Estimates. In the Company Name area, Page 2, "Force Estimate Save on Calculate" in the upper right portion of the window. If this checkbox is NOT checked, the program will not automatically save your estimate when you calculate, even if the estimate was changed. Previously, it would still save the estimate if the estimate was changed. This makes it easier for a supervisor to review an estimate and try a couple of "what if" modifications without saving the estimate unless the program is specifically told to save it.
• Estimate Entry. When recalling an estimate you can search for a particular job description. Only the first line of the job description is searched. This first line can be any length. Unfortunately, only the first 30 characters of the first line were being searched. This has been changed to 70 characters of the first line. Note that this affects estimates saved on this version only. Older estimates cannot be searched past 30 characters unless recalled and saved with version 7.5.1 or later.
• Print Saved Quote Letters. The program was not printing or erasing quotes that had revisions. This has been corrected.
• Estimate Display. You can now break out net paper cost from waste cost if you wish. Just go to Setup -> Company Name etc. You will find "Waste Code" and "Waste Dept" on the first screen. Just fill in an activity code and department for paper waste. Naturally, you need to use a different code than for normal paper if you want them to show up differently on the estimate, the department can be the same if you wish.
• Calculation. Press Makeready Sheets. If you used the automatic makeready sheets calculation available in the press setup, it was calculating an incorrect number of makeready sheets for non-book jobs. This has been corrected.
• Calculation. It was found that for web presses, if the # of washups was not forced, the system only calculated washups for each unique ink. It should have been calculating washups for each ink. This has been corrected. Be aware that if you have web presses, this may change your washup calculation.
• Calculation. On Custom Calculations, a TAB in the calculation section would cause the calculation to fail. This has been corrected.
• Calculation. Auto Press Speed. If you use the auto press speed calculation, the program will now run at the maximum rate for the entire run if the impressions is high enough instead of ramping up to that speed.
• Calculation. Forced selling price. If the forced selling price was less than the cost of the job, the selling price was set one cent too high. This has been corredted.
• Standards. Customer Calculations. The system variable #ASW has been added. It is the accurate shipping weight and can now be used in calculations.
• Estimate Entry. Under Preferences a new item has been added called "Estimator for this Computer". Here you can enter the initials for the person doing the estimating on this computer. This way when you recall some else's estimate, it won't change the default estimator to the wrong person for your next estimate.
• Estimate Display. On color separation calculations, if the size entered does not match any of the sizes given, the next larger size is used. This is not new. The change is that the size shown on the display is now the size used in the calculation, not the size entered.
• Paper Add/Change/Delete. Added a "Copy to New Paper" button that allows you to copy a paper you are editing to a new paper entry. This saves you time if you have several papers to enter that are similar.
• Update Scheduling. The program now updates Scheduling for Windows instead of DOS Scheduling.

Version 7.5.0

• New Feature. Saving Quote Letters. In Setup -> Company Name etc, Page 2, there is a new check box titled "Auto Save All Quote Letters". If this is checked, then all quote letters that you print will be automatically saved. If you wish to re-print these quote letters, go to Reports --> Print Saved Quote Letters. From here you can re-print your quote letters. This is useful in cases where the original quote letter was lost and you want to re-print the letter exactly as the original. If you re-calculate the estimate, the price may be different if your standards have changed.
• Estimate Entry. In some cases an error like "Error in Qty 3" would appear after deleting the contents of a particular operation. This happened inconsistently and has been corrected.
• Estimate Entry. In Specify Press, the lookup tables were not working for anything except the presses. This has been corrected.
• Estimate Entry. Different washups for different quantities. In the Specify Press section, if you wish to force washups, you can now force a different washup for each quantity. Just separate each washup number with a space.
• Estimate Entry. The form description (if any) is now shown next to the form number when entering an estimate. This should make it easier to keep track of where you are during the entry process.
• Calculate. Press Makeready sheets calculated automatically via Press setup in standards. This section had some problems. It got confused on the distinction between press sheets and stock sheets and also was charging the first makeready sheets on both sides of a two sided job when one side would have been sufficient.
• Estimate Entry. When switching between estimates, if you had a sub-group within a form on the screen at the time you changed estimates, the "x" indicating which items had data was not reset. This could have caused confusion and possibly an omission in the new estimate.
• Calculate. Bindery 1 and Bindery 2 calculations now allow more than one difficulty factor on the run difficulty. Just separate each difficulty factor bya space. Remember that you can enter a speed (eg. 2500/Hr) instead of a difficulty factor if you wish.
• Calculate. Custom calculation codes "LEFT #PX" and "RIGHT #PX" now correctly return the left and right half of the press sheet size. Also works with the finished size (#FX).
• Calculate. If you choose a press sheet size that does not match the cutoff on a web press you will not get an error message during the calculation.
• Print Job Ticket (from Quote letter). The (page) command does not reset the line count, so the next page prints too short. This has been corrected on this version.
• Print Job Ticket. (repname) was not returning the sales rep full name.
• Print Job Ticket. When displaying the press name, the word "Sheet" or "Web" has been removed. This was redundant on this printout and took up more room than necessary.
• Print Job Ticket (from Quote Letter). You can now insert special print codes inside your job ticket. The command (code 27 12 99) will send out an ascii 27, 12 and 99 in that order. These must be codes specific to the printer you are using. Be aware that you may need to use the Generic printer driver as Windows may filter out these commands on some printers.
• Print Job Ticket (from Quote Letter). If you enter a command like (eh0100) you will get the description of the operation in the standards if that operation is part of the current form. For example, you can now have a line like:
  
  PROOFS: (eh0100 eh0300 eh0200)
  
  If these operations are all proofs, you will see the description of each operation that is specified on the form.
  
• Display/Modify Standards. When setting up web presses, the help note for Activity Code 5 said it was for washup instead of run. This has been corrected.
• Display/Modify Standards. The following fields were added to web presses:
  
  Automatic press speed calculation. This had only been defined on sheet fed presses.
  Automatic makeready sheet calculation.
  Free Towers, asks if press is free towers or blanket to blanket.
  Open Web, asks if open web or heat set.
  Max # of Webs, specifies the maximum # of webs that can be run on a press.
  
• Display/Modify Standards. Space required for Gripper, Color Bars and Lateral/Guide Setback have been added. These fields are not being used currently, but may be used in future updates.
• Display/Modify Standards. On-press operations. A new question has been added "Charge Same Hrs as Press Run". If you answer "Y" to this question, then the time for the on-press operation will match the time for the press run plus any makeready time you may have for the on-press operation. This expands the capabilities of the on-press operation and should make it more useful.
• Estimate Display. When using the automatic press speed calculation, the program now shows the press speed for each column instead of just showing the average speed.
• Estimate Display. Bindery 1,2 and 3 now show the running speed on the estimate.
• Job Tickets. When printing special instructions that have more than one line on the quote letter type job ticket, the program was not printing the additional lines correctly. This has been corrected.
• Quote Letter. (m4201), (m4202) etc. now shows the stock quantity including round to correctly.
• Update Job Tracking. When updating a multiple form job, form 1 in job tracking is given the overall job description. All other forms are given their respective form descriptions, unless the form description is blank.

Version 7.4.9

• Entry Sequence. In some cases, the program couldn't find the estimate entry sequence. This happened with the standards were unusually small (few operations) and the program mistakenly thought there was no data present.
• Calculation. If the estimate had paper supplied, but was still being printed, the ink calculation could become confused because it doesn't know if the paper is coated or uncoated. This affects the ink calculation a great deal. The correct way to do this estimate is to enter the actual paper being delivered by the customer, but with a zero cost. This way you indicate if the paper is coated or not as usual in the paper specs. If paper is left out all together, uncoated will not be the default. In the past it was random whether the paper would come up coated or uncoated if it was not specified.
• Calculation. Bindery 3. The calculation was figuring in the cost for "Cover" whether you checked the box or not. This has been corrected on this update.
• Estimate Entry. If you change the drop down list for your presses to something other than the default order, the drop down list was showing the presses correctly, but would then show the press numbers below the list also. This has been corrected. Remember, to change the order, go to Setup --> Estimate Entry Tables. Enter "press" and press Search. Then press Change. In the large text box, enter the press numbers in the order you wish them to appear, each press # on a different line. Consult the manual if you need additional help.
• Estimate Entry. If you start to recall an estimate, the program will ask if you wish to save the previous estimate (if it has been changed). A "Cancel" option has been added so that you can cancel the recall and take a look at the estimate before deciding if you wish to save it or not.
• Saving Estimates. If the detail estimate file became corrupted, it was possible to get a message "Error Adding to Detail File". This part of the program has been modified to try to add the new information to the saved estimate file instead of just aborting the saving process as the earlier versions did.
• Print Quote Letter. The [top] feature which allows you to print a message at the top of each page (after the first page) was not working and has been corrected on this version.
• Print Quote Letter. If you happen to be showing your markups on a quote letter in a coded form, a zero markup will now be shown as blank instead of printing as a zero on the letter.

Version 7.4.8

• Entry Sequence. It has been reported that in some cases, when installing a new program update, your estimate entry sequence has been erased and you have to re-establish it from scratch. I think I found the problem, it should be corrected on this version.
• Estimate Summary. When displaying the estimate summary, where each department's selling price is shown, the program was misbehaving on any form past the first form. The department totals were way off. This has been corrected.
• Estimate Option Summary. This summary was including a "|" character followed by the department number in front of each department description. This is internal information that should have been hidden on the summary. This has been corrected also.
• Calculate. On custom calcs, if you entered a blank (single space) in a field where a number is expected, the calculation result could be incorrect. This has been corrected.
• Please be on the lookout. When entering the # of pages for a book, the program should make an intelligent decision regarding how many signatures are required. If you discover any incorrect results in this area please report them. I have tested several senarios without a problem.

Version 7.4.7

• Job Tickets. You can now show stock sheets including round to on the job ticket. The code is (M4200). The previous code, M0600, is still valid and is given the value of stock sheets not including round to.
• Print/Display Estimate. Under the check box "Include Summary", there is a new check box "with Sell Prices". If this check box is checked, the summary that is shown will show selling prices for each department. If not checked, it will show department costs as before. This is useful if your customer wants you to break down your selling price by department. Each summary is now identified as a Cost Summary or a Sell Price summary so you can recognize one from the other without having to add up the columns to see if they match the total selling price. The selling prices for the departments are arrived at by applying the various markups individually to each department.
• Estimate Entry. If you changed the stock sheet size in the paper area, the # up in the form layout was changing automatically, even if you had over-ridden the default calculation ealier. This has been corrected.

Version 7.4.6

• Network Installation Change. A change has been made to the installation procedure to make it easier for network users to install the program automatically on all work stations without having to install on each one. This requires the use of ID113 or later, which is the security program most people use to get into the programs on a network. For more information, see the User Support --> On-line Manuals area on www.press-tige.com/p2000.
• Calaulate. If printing a work and turn on press one, but only printing one side of the sheet on press 2, the program became confused and tried to print a work and turn on press 2 as well, which required that both sides be printed. The result was too many impressions on press #2. This has been corrected.
• Estimate Entry. When manually entering paper prices, if you just enter an amount, an M (price per thousand) was automatically added. The program has changed to ask you to specify M,C or E rather than having the program default to M without a word.
• Estimate Entry. When saving and recalling estimates, the date and time last modified are now shown in the lower right corner of the window. This allows you to better monitor what the program considers the date and time last modified.
• Estimate Entry. An error was corrected which caused the program to think that the estimate was modified if you went into "editing mode" on a line, even if nothing was changed.
• Internal Changes. Several internal changes were made to allow automatic installation on multiple computers once an update was installed on one computer.

Version 7.4.5

• Calculate. A minor error was introduced in 7.4.4 which caused a message "StandToNote, Exceeded Max # of Questions". This error occured on web presses only and did not cause the calculation to be in error.

Version 7.4.4

• Calculate. # of Cartons for packaging. The # of cartons was being calculated based on the total pounds of paper when it should have been calculated on the accurate shipping weight instead. This has been corrected.
• Calculate. When calculating tables, the program was not differentiating between "end if" and "end table" when defining a table inside an IF statement.
• Calculate. When calculating tables, if you re-defined a table with the same name within the same calculation, the first table was not erased. This has been corrected on this version.
• Estimate Entry. Form Layout. If you manually changed Press Sheets per Stock Sheet or Finished Sheets/Impression from the default, the program was setting it back to the default by itself when you exited estimate entry. This has been corrected so that the # you enter will stay as it should.
• Quote Letters. When using the "fancy" option for quote letters the ".right" command was enhanced in version 7.3.4 below. This inadvertently caused problems when you wanted to right justify a long line of text. To solve this problem, the command ".right all" was added to allow you to right justify an entire line regardless of which 'words' were numeric or not. The ".right" command still behaves as described in 7.3.4 below.
• Estimate Entry. When entering paper, if you just press ESC to enter the paper manually, the program put the cursor down at the bottom of the screen instead of on the first question. This has been corrected.
• Estimate Entry. Added a comment field after the RFQ# in the Estimate # portion of the main information section. This is a comment that the estimator may enter which will not be seen by the customer. If also is included on the Estimate Response Analysis report if the "wide" format is selected.
• Request for Quote. When converting a request for quote to estimate entry, the main information section was being loaded correctly, but most of the form items were not. This has been corrected on this update.
• Estimate Response Analysis report. Added an option to display a wider format which includes the customer name and a comment. This is too wide to print or display and it primarly intended for export to a spreadsheet.
• Check for Errors in Data. Added the ability to check and rebuild the customer file that is within estimating. This does not modify the A/R Customer File (if present).

Version 7.4.3

• Calculate Estimate. In a multiple signature job when the number of signatures is specified as 8S or 8F (8 is used as an example only) instead of the # of pages, the accurate shipping weight could be incorrect. This has been corrected.
• Calculate. Further refinement was done in the calculating of overrun sheets for the press run. Fractional sheets are carried as fractions until the end of the calculation so that rounding does not produce higher than desired results for screen printers. Each parent sheet counts a great deal in screen printing, where it is not as important in commercial printing.
• Entering Request for Quotes. If entering a request for a new customer that does not exist in A/R, the program was causing problems and trying to enter a customer number where none should exist.
• Estimate Entry. If you were editing paper prices manually, sometimes a zero price would be inserted in the price for column 2,3 or 4. If you tried to delete the price it would come back as a zero instead of remaining blank. This has been corrected.
• Estimate Entry. The paper description length has been changed from 40 to 60 to allow a full description of some of the stranger papers.
• Estimate Entry. If you have screen printing terminology enabled, the word "plates" was changed to "screens" when modifying an entry, but not when just displaying an entry. This was confusing and has been changed.
• Company Name etc. A new checkbox has been added to page 2. "Skip Auto Customer Address Change", if checked, will bypass the new code added in version 7.4.1 which made sure that the estimate has the same address as in the A/R customer file (if A/R installed).

Version 7.4.2

• New Feature - Request for Quotes. You can now have your sales reps enter request for quotes directly into the estimating program. The estimator can then take this information and have it automatically inserted into the estimate. This should save a lot of time and reduce the cost of getting information from the sales rep to the estimator. I suggest you first go to Estimate -> Enter Request for Quote. This will pull up a sample input format to play with. Later, go to Setup -> RFQ Entry Format to modify the format to fit your particular needs. Hopefully the on-line help information along with the sample provided by the sample format will help you in setting up your own format. Feel free to ask questions if anything does not make sense..
• Setup Quote Letter. When you edit a quote letter, the program wants to load the printer fonts so you can tell which fonts are valid for your printer. Unfortunately, on some systems this can take quite a while, up to 10 minutes. Since is not an acceptable delay and appears to be completely up to windows, I have added a button that says "Show Printer Fonts" that you can click if you need to see the printer fonts. This way you only have to wait for the fonts when you actually need them.
• Rounding Paper. In estimate entry, the help notes say that you can enter 100# to round to 100 lbs instead of 100 sheets. However, when you tried to enter this in estimate entry, the program gave you an error message, forcing you to enter sheets. This has been corrected.
• Company Name etc. Added "Default Inches per Lift on Cutter" to the bottom right portion of this option. You can use this value to override the default # of inches per lift for cutting in estimate entry. If not specified, the default is 4 inches
• Estimate Entry. Recalling estimates by customer. This feature has been modified to allow you to enter a customer # or part of the customer name. When you enter a customer number, the program will lookup that customer in the customer file, get the name and then perform the lookup by name.The custome name must be exactly the same on the saved estimate as it is in the customer file, otherwise a match will not be made. If you are having difficulty finding estimates by customer #, try using part of the customer name instead.
• Budgeted Hourly Rates. Due to popular demand, a budgeted hourly rate calculation report has been added. You will find it under Miscellaneous. Make sure that you setup your yearly costs in each department before using this report.

Version 7.4.1

• Quote Letters (html). The internals of the html format makes it tricky to insert information without creating errors in the html code. This version has inserted extra internal checks to try to make sure that the output is always correct and will produce proper emails for the quote letters. Also, to print this type of quote letter on your printer:
  
  1. Display the email on the screen
  2. Right Click with your mouse on the email itself
  3. Select Print from the menu that pops up
  
  When printing emails in this way it is difficult if not impossible to precisely control the placing of items on the page. Sometimes the program will print one line on a second page when it seems like it should have been able to fit on the first page. Unfortunately, any time you print an html coded page, you cannot control the output as precisely as you could if it were a word processing document. My suggestion is to keep the letter fairly simple and as short as possible while still achieving the desired result. If you are primarily emailing the letters, it is not usually as critical what it looks like when it prints.
• Estimate Entry. When you recall an estimate and you have Press-tige Accounts Receivable installed, the program will lookup the customer information and automatically update the estimate with any changes. The program let's you know if this update was necessary. This should solve the problem of recalling an older estimate that has out of date address information and not realizing that the address is out of date.
• Estimate Entry. When entering paper, if you just press Enter to enter the paper manually, the program put the cursor down at the bottom of the screen instead of on the first question. This has been corrected.

Version 7.4.0

• When you select "Estimating" from the main menu, there are now two choices, Estimate Entry (shortcut CTRL E) or Compare Selling Prices (shortcut CTRL P). See below for more information.
• New Feature. Compare Selling Prices. This is an important new feature that can greatly enhance your ability to correctly price jobs. This option allows you to compare the current estimate with other estimates that became jobs. You can tell the program to look for jobs for the same customer, on the same press, or with the same # of colors. The jobs being compared are then listed, showing the description, selling price and value added %. The value added % is the key value as it gives you the best way of comparing the price of the current estimate with the prices of previous jobs. Once you determine the optimal value added % you can change the estimate and instruct estimating to price the job so that the value added percent is the desired percent (see next item). Note that if you change your company policy regarding whether markups are excluded from Value Added (see Company Name etc.) you may be comparing apples and oranges with past estimates. To take full value of this feature, you must tell the program that an estimate is a job using the "This Estimate is a Job" feature in the program after calculating. The first time you use this option, be aware that there will be no database of previous jobs, that database will be established starting with this update. However, the program will automatically start calculating similar jobs and building the database for you when you start asking for comparison jobs. Once this database is built, the program will not need to perform the calculation step, so the comparisons will pop up much quicker.
• Estimate Entry. A new "markup" has been added to the markup section, Value Added %. If you fill in a value here, the program will adjust the selling price so that the value added with be the desired percent. You may have a different value added % for each column if you like. Naturally, if you force the selling price, then this feature is ignored.
• Estimate Entry. In the main information section, where the estimate # is stored, there are two new items of information, 1) The date the estimate was requested, and 2) the time the estimate was requested. These could be useful later if you wish to measure the time between when an estimate was requested and when it was completed (see Estimate Response Analysis Report below).
• Estimate Entry. A new data field has been added to the Form Layout, "Customer Finished Size". You will see it at the bottom of the form layout. The original "Finished Size" should contain room for bleeds or other production related information so that the # up can calculate correctly. If, however, you wish to show the customer a different finished size, use this new field. This prints on the estimate as "CFin" and will only show if it is different than the original Finished Size. You can also include the customer finished size on quote letters if you like, the code is (SN11).
• New Report - Estimate Response Analysis. This report works with the date and time the estimate was requested to give you a report indicating the elapsed time, in hours, between the time the estimate was requested and the time the estimate was completed. When you display this report, you will also be given a chance to output the report in a spreadsheet format. Very handy for moving the data to an Excel or other spreadsheet. Look in the lower right hand corner of the display window for the Export command button. The output file is a comma separated value file (csv) which is a common format that any spreadsheet program could use. The first record in the file does not contain data, but the names of the columns.
• New Report. Estimates Won. This report lists all estimates that became jobs and shows the estimate #, job # and selling price. Note that you must specifically tell the system that the estimate is now a job in order for it to show up on this report. This report also allows you to export in a spreadsheet format if you wish.
• New Feature. Misc -> Export Standards. This option is used to copy the standards from your current database to one or more other databases. This feature is useful if you have more than one database of estimates, but you want the standards to be consistent among the different databases. Be careful when using this option!
• By the way. In making the above changes, I found what I felt was a problem in calculating commission % when the commission was % of value added and one or more of the markups was excluded from the value added (see Company Name etc.). The commission was being calculated as if the markups were part of value added when they were not. This has been corrected on this update.

Version 7.3.9

• Quote Letters - HTML format. You can now generate an HTML quote letter. This allows you much more control over fonts, graphics etc. to make your quote letters look more professional. To test this new feature, just go to Setup -> Quote Letter format, create new quote letter format and click on "Default HTML Format". You will "File:" followed by a file name. The program automatically created a sample HTML quote letter for you as a starting point. You can edit this format to make it yours. Keep in mind that sophisticated web pages are not necessarily trivial to design, so take your time. Look at the raw HTML in the sample for clues on how it is done. Here is a sample.
• Quote Letters. Job description lines that begin with a dash (-) will not be included on quote letters. This allows you to insert extra information on the job description that the customer does not need to see.
• Estimate Printout. On sheet fed presses you are allowed to have a different difficulty factor for each quantity, but on the estimate printout only the first difficulty factor was being displayed even though the calculation was correct. The program has been changed to show all press run difficulty factors.
• Quote Letter Setup. The program now lists the valid fonts for the current printer in the lower right hand portion of the screen.
• Screen Printing Terminology. If this feature was activated (see Company Name etc., Page 2) the paper description was not showing up in estimate entry when you did a lookup from the paper file.
• Update Scheduling 2.0 (DOS). The estimating program was not properly storing the Sales Rep in the scheduling database. This has been corrected.
• Update A/R. If you select the option "Price all options as one total", then the entire job description will be stored in the invoice. There is also a feature where a job description line beginning with a dash (-) will not be sent to A/R.

Version 7.3.8

• Important. In case you haven't heard, there was a serious problem with version 7.3.7 below. The result was that data entry reverted back several months to where work and turn was not combined with Form Layout, among other things. Here is a simple double check that you should do after installing 7.3.8 to make sure things are correct:
  
  1. Start the program and make sure it says version 7.3.8 at the top.
  2. Click on "About" and verify that the "EM Master File Version" is 2/8/00 or later.
  3. Go to Estimate Entry and look at "Form Layout". If you see work and turn information here, you are in good shape. If not, do step 4.
  4. Go to Misc --> Rebuild Estimate Entry. Then try Step 3 again. If this doesn't work, then let Press-tige know right away.

• Security (ID program). Estimating is now setup to work fully with ID program Version 1.1.2 or later. You can now have full control over who uses estimating and which options they are allowed to use.

Version 7.3.7

• Job Tracking Update. The program has been modified to update the newer Job Tracking (version 1.0.9 or later). This version of JT includes estimated time for each deptartment that is defined in Job Tracking. You must make sure that your department numbers agree between the two programs. If you are using Job Tracking, you must update to JT Version 1.0.9 or later.
• Calculation. Makeready Sheets. On fractional sheets the program now rounds up instead of down. This is most important on small jobs and screen printing jobs.
• Calculation. If a custom calc table lookup fails, the program will now show an error message instead of just returning a zero result with no message.
• Estimate Entry. When switching forms with the "busy screen" option turned on, the form information was not changing even though the actual data in the form was correct.
• Estimate Entry. If you recall an estimate and set the estimate # to zero to basically start a new estimate with the same starting data, the estimate status will now be set to "P" automatically.
• Quote Letter. On some single form estimates, the pricing information was not showing up on the quote letter.
• Quote Letter. If you wish to insert the full name of the sales rep on the quote letter even though just the sales rep's initials are entered in the estimate, just insert the code (repname) in the quote letter. This will work only if you have defined the sales rep in the sales rep file, see Setup.
• Quote Letter. Added the ability to print multiple line special instructions on the quote letter. In the past this would print on one line with funny characters where the new line should start.
• Special Instructions. Somehow, while I wasn't looking, the internal setup for special instructions was taken out of the master setup file. The result was that special instructions were not showing up on estimate entry as they were supposed to. If you have this problem (although no one has reported it), this update should fix it.

Version 7.3.6

• Estimate Entry. Colors and Sides. If you tried to make side 2 the same as side one, but the "focus" of the program was already at side two, nothing would change. This has been corrected.
• Removing Estimates. If you enter an estimate with a revision # (ie. 4022.1), the program will now take into account the revision number you specify. Previously, the program would remove all estimates with the base estimate #, regardless of revision numbers.
• Quote Letter. If printing something like (M0604), which is # of stock sheets, the program was not properly clearing previous estimate information. If you had a 4 column estimate followed by a 3 column estimate, the second estimate's quote letter would show the # of stock sheets from the previous estimate by mistake. This has been corrected.
• Quote Letter, centering text. When centering text, the program was taking into account the "offset" you specified for the letter. This made the text center between the printed "margins" instead of on the actual 8.5" wide paper. This has been corrected so that centered text looks correct, even with a fairly large horizontal offset.
• Job Tickets (quote letter version). The command (page) will now force a form feed. Now you can have each form on a new page if you wish.
• Job Tickets (quote letter version). You can now incorporate data directly from the customer file with commands like (c.3) for field #3 in the customer file (in this case the company name). This means you can pull data directly from a/r customer records instead of an older estimate which may have out of date information. For a complete list of codes look in the "Other Insertable Fields" when editing the "quote letter".
• Estimate Entry. If you use the "busy screen" feature, the program was not refreshing the screen automatically after recalling an estimate. This has been corrected.
• Custom Calculation. Error in table setup was corrected. To define a table:
  
  table ace
  1 5
  2 10
  3 20
  end table
  
  $answer = %ace 2
  
  Should return "10"

Version 7.3.5

• Recalling Estimates. When an estimate is recalled, the paper price in the estimate is compared to the paper price in the paper file. If they are different, a warning is displayed to make sure you have the current paper price. This section was not working correctly if you were using a different price per Cwt for each paper weight. This is a relatively new feature that estimate entry hadn't incorporated in this warning. The result was that a paper price warning was being displayed when the price was already correct. This has been corrected.
• Quote Letters. Expanded the functionality by adding ".fontitalic true/false" and ".fontunderline true/false" to the list of valid printer commands on quote letters.
• Update Scheduling. When updating scheduling version 2.0 (DOS), the program was not updating the customer # or company name correctly. This has been corrected.

Version 7.3.4

• Quote Letters. When using the "fancy" option for quote letters where you can control the font type, size etc. there was sometimes a problem when using the ".left" and ".right" commands to left and right justify text on a line. If you wanted to right justify numbers but left justify text on the same line, there was no way to do it. The program has been changed so that it will right justify any "word" containing a dollar sign ($) or a number and left justify the rest when "right" is turned on. When "left" is turned on, then all words will be left justified.

Version 7.3.3

• Estimate Entry. This feature of "passing over" the account number to automatically update contacts, phone numbers etc. is not working for most people. Too many times the program was changing information that the estimator did not want changed. Therefore, I am changing this back to the way it used to be. When you recall an estimate, all information will stay the same unless you specifically to into the Account Number field and re-type the customer number. In this case it will change the customer information to whatever is in the customer file and will change the markups to whatever is normal for that customer.
• Estimate Entry. When switching forms, the program now shows the form description, making it easier to tell which form is which.
• Calculate Estimate. If you entered a press difficulty factor of "200 " where there is a space after the 200, the program got confused and set the difficulty factor to 100 for the second and following columns.
• Printing Saved Quote Letters. An option under Reports has been added which allows you to print quote letters saved previously. This allows you to save several quote letters and print them all at once if it is not convenient to print them one at at time.
• Options on Job Tickets. If you had 10 options (the max) and they all had long descriptions, the system became overloaded and lost the last option or two. The program has been changed to reduce the descriptions slightly to make it fit. If you run up against this problem a lot, you will need to a) limit yourself to 8-9 options, or 2) make your option (form) descriptions shorter

Version 7.3.2

• Estimate Entry. Starting in version 7.2.9, when you "pass over" the account number in the main information section, the program looks up the customer name and address, re-checks the outstanding invoices (if A/R installed) and sets the markups to the correct defaults. Unfortinately, if you had specified a different markup for this particular estimate, it was wiped out and replaced with the standard markup for this customer. This has been changed so that if you just pass through the account #, it does not change the markups. The other updates are still performed.
• Estimate Entry. When going into "Specify Press" you could get an error 52 if you had nothing defined in your estimate entry tables with the word "Press" in it. This was an error and has now been corrected. This bug will not affect most people.
• Creating Job Ticket / Updating Other Programs. If no quantity was entered on the estimate, it was possible to get an error 380 at this point, it didn't do any harm, but was a nuisance. This has been corrected.
• Calculate. Added a new field in company name etc., called "Stripping Time When Film Supplied". This is found on the bottom right portion of page 1. Since most people do not have camera operations and only occasionally strip jobs with film supplied the previous method of looking up the stripping time from the first camera operation will not work for most people. Therefore, we have added the above item to the company name etc. area. Just fill in the number of minutes to strip per piece of film supplied.
• Calculate. Problem with makeready time on Direct Image presses when running identical forms (not signatures). The program was charging a makeready for each form, which was not correct for identical form jobs.
• Print Estimate. For those of you who long for yesteryear when you could print the top of your estimate in large print and the body in small print, we have a change for you. In the company name etc. area, on page 2, there is now a checkbox called "Print Estimate Start in Large Type". If you check this, the top of the estimate will print in large type and the rest will print in small type. However, if you are using a dot matrix printer I'm afraid there may not be hope for you. In order to print at full speed we must use the "Generic" printer driver in Windows, which does not allow font changes, so this will not work on that type of printer.
• Estimate Entry. This applies only to those who are using a custom calculation to lookup items in the paper file within an estimate. If you lookup such an item and there has been no job description, form description or quantity entered for the estimate, then the program fills in the form description and the quantity from the custom calculation. 99% of you don't need to know this.
• Paper Ordered report. Added "Cut To" field on the printout which shows the press sheet size. Note that there was no room to add this to the screen, but it was added to the printout.

Version 7.3.1

• Calculate. The net press sheets were being miscalculated in some cases, mainly when the stock sheet and press sheet were different. The problem apparently originated in the older DOS version, but became apparent with the recent change (7.2.9) in which the net press sheets were changed to not include the press makeready sheets.
• Estimate Entry. Minor change to entering colors and sides. When you go to the ink coverage to manually override values, the entire entry will now turn blue, allowing you to easily erase the value and enter from scratch if you like.

Version 7.3.0

• Calculate. On jobs where the stock size is greater than the press sheet size and you have selected "Omit Makeready from Press Run" in Company Name etc., the number of impressions was being calculated incorrectly. This has been corrected.
• Estimate Entry. Completely re-worked the colors and sides section. You can now specify specific pms colors and it should be easier to maneuver around.
• Calculate. If using a flat commission with a forced selling price, the program was miscalculating the commission. This has been corrected.
• Display/Modify Standards. An error in the new price lookup feature in Custom Calculation has been corrected. The price lookup was not working for items priced per M or per Each.
• Paper File. You can now specify a different price for each basis weight when pricing by hundred pounds (cwt) if you like.
• Update Accounts Receivable. You now have the option of sending a total price for the job to A/R or a separate price for each option. This choice is given to you are you are about to update A/R so you can change it depending on the job. Keep in mind that if you specify that each form on the job is an "Option" form (see Form Description), each form will be a separate option and the option description will default to the form description.
• Update Other Programs. When an estimate becomes a job and you are updating other programs, the screen now automatically clears when you are finished instead of waiting for you to clear it yourself after the updates are complete.
• Quote Letters. The (form start), (form end), (option start), (option end) commands in the quote letter were each causing an extra blank line to print. The extra blank lines have been eliminated