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Getting NAMN reports to line up (was Re: (meteorobs) Strange Quadrantid Night, Report Hopefully To Come)
Mark Fox writes:
>However, I may try using a NAMN reporting form this time if I finally can
>get everything worked out right, including ALIGNING everything correctly!
You are right that getting your report to line up on a computer screen -
and then making sure it STILL lines up on the other end, on your target
audience's computer screen - can be a very hard thing to do, Mark!
For meteor observers who use PCs, some people suggest using 'Notepad' to
compose your report, then cutting and pasting it into an email app. But
this can still result in misaligned (and therefore unuseable!) tables.
For folks new to this kind of reporting, here's a simple trick to be SURE
your NAMN report will look nice (and also be useable) to recipients. This
SHOULD work regardless of which application you are using to compose your
email (Notepad, TextPad, Eudora, Outlock, OutlockDepress, Netscape, Micro-
squish Internet Destroyer, emacs, or whatever you prefer.)
1) Bring up a new email (or document) for your report.
2) Select the menu item for changing Text Preferences (variously known as
"Text Properties" or "Text Style") and be SURE you select a "FIXED WIDTH"
font. (Among the common fixed-width fonts on PCs are: Courier, Monospace,
Fixedsys, and Terminal. Note "System" is often *NOT* a fixed-width font.)
3) Verify that you are REALLY using a fixed-width font, by doing a simple
test: On the first line of your document, type in the letter lowercase-l
5 times in a row, as I have done on the following line:
lllll
Now on the second line of the document, type UPPERCASE-M 5 times like so:
MMMMM
If these two lines do not line up EXACTLY with one another, then you are
not using a fixed-width font, so go back and try step (2) above again.
4) If all else fails and you just can't figure out how to make the darn
tables line up, then just don't USE tables! Instead, for example, when
you want to report your magnitudes, don't use a table like this:
1 2 3 4 Total
QUA 1 2 4 1 8
Spor 0 0 2 1 3
Instead, just report your data using a NON-TABULAR form, like this:
QUA: +1(1), +2(2), +3(4), +4(1), Total(8)
Spor: +3(2), +4(1), Total(3)
This has all the same data, with no worry about formating it to line up!
Thanks again for your efforts to record what you are seeing! And remember
that once you get the hang of it a few times, recording and reporting get
to be just as natural as staring at the beautiful night sky... :)
Clear skies,
Lew
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