FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions

How do I insert pictures?
How do I annotate a picture?
Can I create custom headers and footers?
How does Auto Summary work?

How do I insert pictures?
To add an image to a comment, first place your text cursor at the point where you want to insert an image. You then either click on the "Insert Image" toolbar icon, or select "Insert Image" from the Edit menu. When the image is inserted, it will appear that the image was actually embedded into the comment, but in reality it only added a link to the file on your hard drive. Please note that starting with version 3.2.a36, when an image is inserted, a copy of the original image is added to the WhisperPI database and the link is pointing to that file; therefore, your original can then be deleted if you desire.

How do I annotate a picture?
You can use our own free ImageEditLite software or any image editor of your choice, like the one that comes with Windows (MSPaint).

To invoke an editor within our program, you will need to select the image once you have it inserted in the comment... do this by simply clicking on it. You should see sizing bars appear around the image. Now, right click on the image to pop up a menu and select "Edit Image" from the menu. This will invoke the default image editor that Windows has associated with the type of image you inserted. Note: double clicking on the image is a shortcut... it invokes the image editor in one simple step... no need to 1)select image 2)right Click 3) select Edit Image.

Windows XP's mspaint program can edit JPG images, but if you have Win98 or WinME, it might not (depending on whether you installed a certain version Microsoft Office). If this is the case, you can have WhisperPI automatically and temporarily convert it to BMP for editing, which will be converted back to JPG upon exit from the image editor. To have WhisperPI do this temporary conversion, bring up the preference dialog and choose the "Images" tab page. You will see a checkbox on that page you need to check: "Edit JPG Images as BMP Images".

In this same dialog screen, you can also select a different image editor than the one Windows has associated with the image type. You might need to do this if Windows only invokes an image viewer rather than an editor, or you might have a better image editor you prefer to use other than the default mspaint. (FYI: mspaint.exe can be found in Windows\system32 on WinXP).

Can I create custom headers and footers?
This feature is available with WhisperPI Version 3.2.a16 or later. Custom Headers/Footers can be created using the same technique as creating prepared responses/templates... in fact, that is where you create them.

1. Bring up the Prepared Comments/Templates dialog (by selecting Browse Prepared Comments/Template" from the Tool menu.

2. Expand the "General Information" tree in the "Table of contents" area. In there you should see at least three folder entries, two of which are the "Custom Title Page Header" and "Custom Footer for Pages 2-n".

3. Click on the folder where you want to create a custom entry and then click on the "New Comment" button on the right.

4. Give the new entry a name (you can create multiple headers and footers, but the one that is used is the one at the top of the list. To use a different header/footer at a later date, you simply drag the one you want to use to the top of the list in its respective folder (header or footer folder). I don't suspect you will create more than one each, but the ability is there in case you need to use it.

5. Then click in the comment area to create your custom header or footer.

By default, the setting under Preferences is to use the custom header/footer if it exists (see the Printing tab page in the Preferences dialog (under Setup menu). You will see a checkbox for using the custom title page header in the Title Page section, and the checkbox for using the custom footer in the Header/Footer section for pages 2-n.

How does Auto Summary work?
To use Auto Summary, you need to add an auto-summary "Tag" into the summary section. Simply go to the summary section of the report, optionally key in anything you might like to add to the summary, like "here are the items in need of repair" for example. Place the text cursor where you want to add the auto-summary tag, and then click on the "Insert Tag" button on the toolbar.

In the pop-up menu that will appear, select "Inspection Report" followed by "Auto Summary" then "Full Text" then "In Need Of Repair" then "All Systems". This will insert a tag into the summary page. When you print preview or create the report, the program will see this tag and replace it with all comments that have the "In need of repair" checkbox checked.

If that is too much information to have in the summary, you could use the "Linked Text" menu item instead of the "Full Text" item as described above. This however requires that you mark the text that you want to show up in the summary. In this case, only the marked text will be used to replace the respective auto summary tag.

To mark the text, you do it just like you would do to set something as Bold or Italic... but you would click on the "Globe with chain links" symbol in the toolbar instead (the popup hint for that symbol will say "Link to AutoSummary". If properly linked, it will display a gray double underline for the text that will appear in the auto summary generated report.

Under the Auto Summary tab page in Preferences, you can select various headings to add to the auto summary data. The font used for the headings is the font applied to the auto summary tag itself. In other words, if you set the tag as bold and 18 pt, the headings will all be bold and 18pt.