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Exporting Macros | Sending Macros as E-mail Attachments | Receiving Macros as E-mail Attachments | Importing Macros into Macro Express | Set Up | Macro Editor Screen | Adding and Editing Simple Macros | Adding and Editing Macros Using Capture | Table of Contents (Voyager System) | Table of Contents (Top)]
This document is about sharing macros among users by exporting and importing them from one copy of the program to another. This means that not everyone needs to learn to create them before being able to use them.
Once you have created one or more macros (see instructions in Adding and Editing Simple Macros and Adding and Editing Macros Using Capture), you can export them from your copy of the program. There are two reasons you might want to do this. One is to keep them as a file on your hard drive and in your backup, in case anything happens to the ones in the program. The other is to send macros that would also be useful to others as attachments to e-mail messages, for instance when preparing to work on an e-journal package where several notes must be added to each record. This document covers all the procedures for sending macros to other users; the backup procedure is shorter and will be covered in passing.
The example below is one note for a (fictitious) package, as it appeared on my Modify Directly Editor Screen just before I clicked Okay.
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On my main Macro Express Editor screen, this now shows up on the list with the nickname, icon, and Hot Key I chose to give it.
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Now click the Export Macros button 
. This brings up the Export Macros screen, which is another version of the list of macros. This version is arranged by date of creation, with the most recent at the bottom of the list -- convenient if you have just made up a bunch of macros which are all to be exported. Whether the newest or not, locate and highlight the macro or macros you want to export. (For purposes of illustration I highlighted another one as well as the one I created above.)
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BACKUP:At this point you can choose to Save All. This is a good thing to do from time to time if you use many macros, because it copies your macros into a file. If you accidentally wipe out one or all of your macros you can restore them by importing from the same file. (I found this out the hard way!)
For purposes of this document, we're still exporting a few macros to another user. Click on Save File. A standard windows box appears called Save Macro File.
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Type in a name for the file, and Save. (Note that the filetype must be ".mex".) You now get a little box that says you did it okay. Okay that and the Export Macros screen goes away.
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If you are familiar with sending attachments, you can skip over this section. However, don't skip the section on receiving -- there is a trap!
Open Eudora and fill in the recipient's name and the subject. Then click on the Attach File button
to get the Attach File window. Click the little arrow to go up from Eudora until you reach a menu that includes Program Files, then open that and select Macro Express. You should end up with something like this:
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Select the file you want to export, click on Attach, and your Eudora screen should look something like this. Now you can add any necessary information about the attachment in the body of the message, and send the e-mail in the usual way.
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WARNING: If you receive an e-mail with an attached macro file (i.e. ending in .mex), unlike a .doc or a .jpg, DO NOT CLICK ON IT IN EUDORA. For some reason, clicking on the attachment name causes all your existing macros (except the five basic ones that come with the program) to disappear somewhere you can't get them back from. If there is other information in the message that you need to keep, print it, or copy it into a Word file, and TRASH THE MESSAGE. Instead of clicking, import the attached macros into Macro Express from within the program.
To keep your files orderly, it is recommended -- though it is not strictly necessary -- to open Windows Explorer and move the macro file from your Eudora/Attach directory to Macro Express. The Attach directory tends to get filled up with all kinds of clutter, and files can get lost or accidentally deleted. [Some people have Eudora as a main directory on the C drive, some have it under Program Files/Qualcomm. Macro Express is under Program Files.]
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Open Macro Express and click the Import Macros button 
. This produces a blank screen headed Import Macros. Click the button at the bottom labelled Open File, and the Import Macro Express Files screen will appear. In the picture, my importable files are already in the Macro Express directory; if I had left them in Eudora/Attach I would have to go up and down to find them.
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Choose the file you want to import (you can only do one at a time), click on Open, and the Import Macros screen comes back, with a list of all the macros in that file.
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Highlight as many of the macros as you want to import. Click Ok. They go into the main list on your Macro Express Editor, and they are yours!
A word of caution. You may import some macros which are mapped to Hot Keys you have used for something else. In that case, one of them will work and the other won't, and I don't know how to predict which it will be. If you find that you have two macros on one Hot Key, and you still want them both, use the Change Macro Activation button 
to designate a different Hot Key for one of them. Usually you will want to change the one you haven't already learned.
BACKUP: If something happens to the macros in your program and you want to restore them from your backup file (as created above), the procedure is exactly the same as for importing files someone else has sent you.
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Created by D. Rutherford. Page maintained by Elizabeth A. Read, readel@queensu.ca. Created: May-28-2001 Updated: 10-01-2002 at 12:35:28 PM