Maintain Abbreviations

You can maintain your abbreviations to by clicking on the "Maintain Abbreviations" option from the "Maintainance Menu" will bring up the screen shown below. (Quick Key Press CTRL + B)

Click on the column headers to sort the list in descending alphabetical or numerical order, click the column header again to sort in ascending order.

Why use Abbreviations?

You can reduce the amount of text you enter on the PAT machine in the Appliance Description field. Rather than entering Hewlett Packard, you can enter an abbreviation HP for exmaple. SimplyPats will then replace the abbreviations for the Full Text. To make this feature easy to use, you can set up your own abbreviations for ones that you can remember easily when testing. After you have tested an appliance, depending on which PAT Tester you use, you are given the opportunity to enter an appliance description. See PAT Setting for how this works for each PAT Tester. (See Also - Before Testing With Your PAT)

Abbreviations are a quick way to enter appliance names while out in the field testing. A good example of this would be a DUST EXTRACTOR, instead of typing in the word DUST EXTRACTOR after the test, it`s much quicker to type DE. When you then download your tests to SimplyPats, just go to the "Tools" menu and choose "Replace Abbreviations" . You will notice that in the Appliance field all the abbreviations have been changed to their full names.

Ok

Saves the changes that you have made and closes the Maintain Abbreviations screen.

Cancel

Abandons any changes you have made and closes the Maintain Abbreviations screen.

New

Click New and a new line will appear, you can now enter your own abbreviation. Make sure you complete both the Abbreviation and the Full Text.

You can enter up to 2000 abbreviations and full words in the list.

Delete

Click on delete and the currently highlighted item will be deleted. Note you won't be prompted before the deletion happens.

Find

Find allows you to find a specific Abbreviation or Full Word. See Also Find In Grid

Print

You may wish to print out your abbreviation list to take with you when you are out testing. This serves as a quick "lookup guide" and ensures that you always use the same abbreviation for each appliance. See Also Print Preview

The abbreviation list is printed in the order it is sorted on screen, so click on the column headers to sort the list to the desired setting prior to printing.

Technical Note!

The abbreviations are stored in a plain text file SimplyPats Abbreviations.ini stored in the C:\Program Files\SimplyPats 6\ folder which can be edited with a word processing program or text editor if you desire. Make sure you dont add quotes " to any words or abbreviations, or you may find you have problems when editing the abbreviations again.

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(This Topic Last updated 15/07/2011)