PageFour is a self contained word processor. It does not use files and documents in the conventional sense, simply because most people just do not understand files to begin with. If you do, then well done - give yourself a pat on the back! Moving pages or folders from one Notebook to another is carried out by using the import and export features.

Take an average Joe, or Joanne. She uses PageFour at home to keep a diary full of embarrassing stories about her childhood and libellous opinions about her boss at work. Now Joanne has also managed to convince her IT department to allow her to install PageFour on her work PC, citing all sorts of childhood traumas that may resurface if she is denied.

Joanne uses PageFour at work to keep lists of things to do, write summaries of one project or another, and scribble ideas for her new piece of Harry Potter fan-fiction when she is sure no one is looking. She can do this because her desk is situated in the darkest corner of the office and everyone trusts her.

At the end of the day, Joanne marks a single folder called "HP-FF" (subtle code) for export, exports it to her new 512meg USB memory stick and takes it home with her. After importing this folder into PageFour on her home PC, she spends the rest of the night thinking up new spells in very patchy Latin that she pieced together from a suspect English-Latin translator on the internet, while drinking large amounts of cheap red wine.

Now our average Joe works differently to our average Joanne. Joe is a freelance writer who travels a lot. He works on the move writing pieces for various travel magazines. Joe has PageFour installed on his home PC with a 21 inch TFT monitor (Joe is doing quite well for himself), and on his brand new lap top.

Joe takes notes as he travels and works on expanding his articles on the long train journeys home. After returning home, he imports all his notebooks from his lap top to his home PC - the one with the cool monitor - where he then proceeds to work into the early hours. Joe does not have a social life.

Joanne uses PageFour to maintain two different sets of notebooks with a small amount of common ground between them - in her case, one folder. Joe use PageFour to maintain a single set of notebooks on two PCs, allowing him to work on the same pages and folders on either machine.

Both scenarios are simple to implement.

Importing and Exporting works in two ways. You can completely replace a notebook or notebooks on one machine with the notebooks you are importing, or you can import a portion of a notebook - as Joanne did - adding or replacing a small number of pages in your notebook.

Exporting

Exporting all notebooks is simply a case of going to the Tools menu and selecting Export Notebooks. This will open a browse dialog from which you select the destination to export to. This can be a folder on your current PC, an external drive like a USB stick, or a folder on a Network drive.

You must be allowed to write to whatever destination you select. If you chose a Network location that your IT department are not allowing you access to, or a DVD drive on your PC, you will not be allowed to export.

To export a a small number of notebooks, you should first mark the notebooks you wish to export as selected, by using the Select option from the right click menu in the notebooks list, or using the Ctrl+X shortcut keys.

To export selected pages or folders, you must first mark them as selected. This can be done by using the existing Copy or Cut functionality within the Notebook. Simply select any page or folder you wish to export and press the Copy or Cut buttons on the toolbar, or use the Ctrl+C or Ctrl+X shortcut keys. All the folders and pages to be exported will then appear with a different icon.

Once you have selected everything you wish to export, go to the Tools menu and select Export Selected. All the selected notebooks, folders and pages are then copied and it is safe to close PageFour.

Importing

Importing works in the very same way as rolling back to an archive. The same dialogs are used, the same questions are asked and the same decisions need to be made. Once you have mastered how to handle archives, importing will be painless.

Selecting the Import Notebooks option on the Tools menu will open a browse dialog from which you should select the folder or location you exported to. Again, this may be a portable device such as a USB drive. The Archive Manager will then open, listing all exported notebooks in this location, from which you can select the notebooks or individual folders and pages you wish to import. If the Archive Manager is empty, you have selected a location without any exported notebooks or pages.

The choices to make when importing are explained in detail in the Rolling Back section. Remember, a fresh archive is made every time you do an import, so even if you make a mistake which causes pages in your current notebook to be overwritten, you can always undo any of these changes by simply opening the Archive Manager and doing a complete roll back of all notebooks from the recently made archive.

Tip: Exporting your notebooks to another location is a very handy way of taking a backup of your current work. You can export to a backup Network drive, to a USB device, or simply to another folder on your PC before making a CD backup.