Now that you've figured out how to deploy SBP and have started working on the Unidades, it's time to take a closer look at some of the tools you have at your disposal. The one which you will use most frequently is probably Diccionario, which you can open by clicking on the button on the bottom of your main dialog window. The first card you see when you open the dictionary is called the search card. At the top of the search window you will see the word Búsqueda (search) with an arrow pointing to the right. That arrow is pointing to the text field where you enter a word you would like to search. Enter your word, English or Spanish, and press return. SBP will search the dictionary for all occurrences of the word and insert them into the scrolling field in the middle of you Diccionario window.

To illustrate how you might search for words, let's suppose that you typed in the English word protocol. You would get many responses, including protocolo, Protocolo Internet, Protocolo de Control de Transmisión/Protocolo Internet, Protocolo de Oficina de Correos, Protocolo de Transferencia de Ficheros, Protocolo de Transmisión de Hipertexto, Protocolo Punto a Punto, and so on, along with an English translation of each. At this point, you may want to find out more about what all these words mean. You can click directly on a word inside the scrolling field, and your dictionary will do an expanded search. If you clicked on the word punto, for example, your dictionary would find punto (point, period), punto de equilibrio (break-even point), punto de sutura (suture, stitch), and análisis de punto de equilibrio (break-even analysis). You can click on any of one these new words, and your dictionary will search again in the same manner.

If you wish to browse the dictionary alphabetically, click the next button on the far right of the row of buttons on the bottom of your dictionary window. If you want to speed browse, click the double arrow just to the left of the next button. To see a previous card (for instance, if you're looking at words beginning with the letter d and you want to see words beginning with the letter c), click the previous button on the far left of the button row at the bottom of the dictionary window. To go back to the search card, click the arrow bar button just to the right of the previous button. Notice as well that there is a list of all the letters in the alphabet near the top of your display. Click on any letter, and you can go directly to the corresponding card in your dictionary.

The search card in your dictionary also has buttons for Notas and Save. If you click on Notas, the results of your search will be copied directly to your note pad. If you click on Save, you can save the results of a search as a text document, and open it later with any Macintosh word processing software.

Note: The Notas button and the Save are enabled only on the search card. They are disabled elsewhere in your dictionary.

Two more reminders are in order. First, don't forget that underlined words in your dialog window are hyperlinked to your dictionary. Any time you click on an underlined word, SBP will automatically search the dictionary and say the word out loud for you. Second, any time you click on the section symbol § inside your dictionary, SBP will automatically open the grammar window and find a related grammar tip for you.

The Gramática window is a concise summary of the most important aspects of Spanish grammar. You can open and close Gramática by clicking on the corresponding button in your dialog window. Gramática is arranged by parts of speech. Rules pertaining to nouns are listed under section 1, adjectives under section 2, verbs under section 3, adverbs under section 4, prepositions under section 5, and conjunctions under section 6.

The first card in Gramática lists all grammar topics. Click on any one to go straight to a topic and read a grammar explanation. Since many of these short grammar lessons are closely related to other relevant grammar points, you may come across a section symbol (§) and section number in green text font. These are more hyperlinks. Click directly on them, and SBP will take you straight to a related topic.

As is the case in your dictionary window, you can save a grammar explanation in one of two ways. If you click on the Notas button on the bottom of your window, the contents of the scrolling field will be copied directly to your note pad. If you click on Save, you can save a grammar explanation as a text document on your hard drive or on a floppy disk.

Indice (Index) helps you move around quickly and easily within your program. You open and close your Indice window by clicking on the corresponding button on the bottom of your main dialog window. If you look at the top of the Indice window, you will see four tabs:

1) Lecciones is your table of contents. It lists all introductory cards and the grammar, cultural, and commercial tips which appear in your SBP Volume.

2) Ejercicios allows you direct access to the exercises for each unit.

3) Reciente is a list of cards you have visited during your current session. These entries are arranged chronologically. The card visited most recently appears at the top of the list, followed by the card you visited just before that one, and so on.

4) Alfa lists the cards in alphabetical order.

The index works in the same manner regardless of which of these four you choose. You simply find a card you would like to visit and click directly on the corresponding line in the index window.

Each window inside SBP has a question mark in the upper right corner. Clicking on the question mark is how you open your Help. You won't have to jump around from one help index to another to find the help you need. In most cases a click on the help icon will find exactly what you're looking for.

The small arrow in the lower right of the help window takes you to a previous help card.

The small arrow/bar button takes you back to the first card, which is your help index.

The search field in the lower middle of the window allows you to search a particular topic. Enter a topic of your choice, and press return.

The small arrow in the lower left of the help window takes you to the next help card.

Finally, don't forget about the green globe in your help window. Use it to copy a help note to your note pad.

The Notas window in your SBP software is a note pad which has many of the features you'd expect to find in a full-blown word processing application. When you click on a grammar, commercial, or cultural note inside your dialog window, SBP will automatically open Notas and save the note for you. If there are any other notes you would like to take during a session, click on the Notas button in the lower part of your dialog window. Here are some of the features you will find on the menu bar of your note pad:

• The File menu allows you to open an existing document, print the current document, save your document, and even Mail it using SBP built-in e-mail capabilities. If you select this last option, SBP will copy your current document to the e-mail card; and from there, you can send it to a correspondent.
• Edit allows you to select all text inside your current document, copy the current selection, and paste the current selection.
• Font allows you to set the font of any selected text. You may use any of the fonts currently inside your system fonts folder.
• Size allows you to set the font size of selected text.
• Color allows you to set the color of selected text using a 256-color palette.
• Style allows you to set the text style to plain, bold, italic, underline, outline, or shadow.

Other features in your Notas note pad include:

• icons on the upper left part of your window (just above the ruler bar) to left align, center, or right align your document.
• tiny arrows in the upper middle of your window which allow you to adjust line spacing and the right margin.
• three fields just below the ruler allow you to add a left header, center header, or right header.
• fields and buttons at the bottom of your window allow you to find, change, and change all.

You will also notice two other icons in the upper right of the Notas window. These are the Mail and the Internet icons. Clicking on the mail icon will take you to SBP's built-in e-mail feature, which you can use to send mail or to check mail others have sent to you. The internet icon takes you to a card inside the Notas which allows you to download daily news and financial information from México. The next web page in this manual explains how to set up and use your internet capabilities.