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Grid Snap

Before you start moving and sizing windows, you should be aware of grid snap. Grid snap assists you in sizing, moving and aligning windows. The program provides the a background grid to which window borders will snap.

By default, the grid snap feature is active. As you begin using the program, you should leave the grid snap feature on. This will help you keep the borders of windows within the boundaries of your screen while you are learning to resize windows. Keeping the borders of windows within the boundaries of your screen is important because color monitors can convert color images to monochrome.

In standard VGA mode, there is no limit to the number or size of windows on the screen. However, there is a limit on the total area that can be drawn in color, including overlapped windows and those parts of windows that are beyond the edges of your screen. If you have too many overlapping windows or the amount of window beyond the edge of your screen becomes too large, any new windows added will be drawn in monochrome rather than color. In super VGA mode, you can allocate expanded memory for use as video memory. As a result, tiled and oversized windows will remain in color. You can, however, turn grid snap off. Turning grid snap off enables you to size windows for use in complex page layouts.

The only way to turn grid snap off is to use a command. You will learn more about using commands later in this chapter. For now, note that to turn grid snap off, you enter the .SNAP OFF command. To turn the grid snap back on, you enter the .SNAP ON command.