User`s guide

W TO USE YOUR PALMTOP
Web-enable Your 1-2·3 Data
Use Lotus 1-2-3's ability to print to a file to create dynamic
World Wide Web page templates
By Carl Merkle
T
he growth of intranets and
their powerful potential to
enhance the way people work and
communicate adds a whole new
dimension of value to the version
of Lotus 1-2-3 on the
palmtop that
didn't exist before the populariza-
tion of the
Internet/intranets.
This article explains why, and
gives you some ideas how you can
use the ultra-portable, low-cost
PC
that is with you or your employees
anytime, anywhere to create and
update useful Web pages to facili-
tate communication, to deploy cor-
porate knowledge
and to efficiently
execute methodologies
on a private
network.
Web Page Background
Web pages are documents on the
Internet and intranets (which are
private networks based on Internet
standards). Web pages are just sim-
ple plain-text files like the ASCII
files
produced by MEMO or the
note sections of PHONE, DATA-
BASE
and NOTET AKER on the
palmtop.
When viewed with a Web
browser, the most popular of
which is Netscape Navigator, those
plain text documents can appear to
be richly formatted - sometimes
taking on the fancy graphical
appearance of a high gloss maga-
zine advertisement.
Since browsers are fun and
easy to use, by putting a Web face
on corporate data many of the
paper reports currently used in
business today can be replaced
with an electronic version in its
place. The electronic report can be
viewed by any authorized person
from anywhere in the world . The
high costs of distributing and stor-
ing paper-based information can
then be eliminated.
On the palmtop, a freeware
graphical Web page browser
known as HV • is available which
was created by author Dr. Andreas
Garzotto. HV stands for the first
characters of the words "HTML
Viewer." If you don't have this
browser, I highly recommend it.
And of course the price is right -
it's free!
An introduction to HTML
Web pages are called HTML files
or HTML documents. HTML
stands for HyperText Markup
Language. HTML files contain
nothing but letters, numbers, punc-
tuation marks and other plain
printable characters.
What distinguishes HTML from
any other plain-text file is the pres-
ence of
markup codes called tags.
These tags tell the Web browser
that you are using how to display
the formatting and layout of the
document on your computer, spec-
ify hyperlinks to areas
in the docu-
ment or to other documents on
your intranet, and how to do many
other things. Of course, different
Web browsers render the same
document in different ways -
color, font types, font size,
and so
on.
The really nice thing about
Web pages is that any currently
popular or previously popular
computer can see them. That
makes a single Web page univer-
sally viewable by a widely distrib-
uted group of people which can
even be international in scope, each
using different types of computers
and different browsers.
Also, large documents can
have links to other parts of the doc-
ument or links to other documents
on different computers within the
intranet,
making it fast and easy to
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carl Merkle is the Director of Corporate Projects for Shier
Systems & Software, Inc. and is responsible for managing deliv-
ery of ultra-mobile computing and communications business
solutions to corporate accounts. A CPA by background, previ-
ously
he was a senior manager with Ernst & Young, LLP. Carl
lives
in Irvine, California witfi. his wife and three children, where
the use of handheld PCs is woven into the fabric of their daily
activities.
He can be reached bye-mail at: [e-mail] or by
voice-mail at 714-559-1142.
26 THE HP PALMTOP PAPER SEPTEMBER/ OCTOBER 1997