Palm tips

Make the font bigger

One of the great things about PDAs is their size, which makes them easy to carry around. Unfortunately, this petiteness also means small, hard-to-read type on their screens. But there is a way to increase the font size on devices running the Palm OS.

From a built-in application, such as the date book, select Options > Font from the pull-down menu. Or, as a shortcut, simply draw a diagonal line from the bottom-left to top-right corner of the Graffiti field and then write the letter f. Either way, the Select Font box will pop up and display samples of your three font choices: small, medium, or large.

This procedure changes only the font for the application you’re in, so to change other built-in applications like your address book or to-do list, chose those programs and repeat the above steps.

Focus your Palm’s datebook display

The default setting for the datebook in your Palm-type PDA shows every hour of the work day, whether you have an appointment listed or not. Rather than see a screen cluttered with blank fields that obscure your appointments, set your datebook to display only those times with entries. Choose Options > Preferences from the datebook’s pull-down menu and enter the same time (12 p.m., for example) in both the Start Time and End Time fields.

You can never have too many backups

Would your business suffer if you lost the contacts in your Palm? Guard against this kind of mishap by backing up your data. Although your Palm’s information is preserved on the handheld and your PC, a mistake entered in one place could affect the other copy when the two are synchronized.

Back up your data at least every month to an external medium, such as a CD or floppy disk. Put the backup in your briefcase, so you’ll always be able to recreate your contact list, no matter where you are.

Find the backup files on your PC’s hard drive by right-clicking on the Windows Start button, selecting Explore, and expanding your C: drive; the Palm folder should be listed there or in your Programs folder. Open the Palm folder and locate your user file, which should be listed with your name, and contains your address, datebook, and other Palm data, each in its own folder. Open the folder for the data you’d like to back up and copy the corresponding .dat file to your floppy disk or CD. For example, copy the address.dat file if you’d like to back up your contacts.

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