How to handle .pdf files containing both B&W and color pages.

Summary:

Visionary products are designed to ignore .jpg files while doing OCR work.  Here is a process to allow you to provide OCR data for both .tif and .jpg files.

This process is designed for production services, vice end-users; so we are going to be using the Visionary Scan program.  This process will only focus on converting one document.  If you have multiple documents to convert, judicious use of IrfanView’s options and Windows Explorer will all the conversion of multiple documents.  That process is outside the scope of this write-up, but can easily be done by a competent computer tech.

Resources:

(Here is a link to the sample file we will be using, Getting Started - Going To Trial)
(We will be using a free program called IrfanView for the image conversion.  You can find it on the internet or use your own favorite program.  This write-up will specifically reference IrfanView.)

Process:

With a Scan project already started, choose File, Import, PDF Files.

Browse to, Select and click the Open button for the sample .pdf file.  The .pdf conversion process converts the .pdf file into trial usable image files.  In this scenario, the majority of the files are .jpg color images.

We can continue at this point as normal and finish our project.

However, if we want to produce OCR data for these files, we will find that we do not get any results for the .jpg image files.

The following is the process to get OCR data for both the .tif and .jpg images.

1. In the Scan program; import the mixed .pdf file.
2. Then select Tools, Delete Empty Folders in Project.
3. Close the Scan program.
4. Use Windows Explorer to Append “Original” to the directory name portion of the deponents .vigx directory.  Leave the .vigx portion alone.
5. Again use Windows Explorer to create a copy of the deponents .vigx directory.  Replace the “Original” with “Working” in the directory name portion, leaving the .vigx portion alone.
6. Launch IrfanView.
7. Choose File, Batch Conversion/Rename.
8. In this window,
1. Check Batch conversion,
2. Output format = “TIF - Tagged Image File Format”,
1. Options = “CCITT Fax 4”,
2. Uncheck “Use advanced options (for bulk resize...)
3. Click the “Use current (‘look in’) directory” button.
4. Use the drop down option in the “Look In:” option select the copied and renamed directory from above.
5. Use the drop down for “files of type:” to choose “JPG/JPEG - JPG Files”.
6. Click the “Add All” button.
7. Click the “Start Batch” button.
9. When the process completes, click “Exit batch”.
10. Close IrfanView.
11. Use Windows Explorer to delete all the .jpg files from the “Working” .vigx directory.
12. Remove the “Working” portion of the .vigx file name.
13. Launch the Scan program and select this Scan project.
14. Choose OCR Doc.
15. When the OCR process finishes, close the Scan program.
16. Use windows Explorer copy the “OCR” directory from the .vigx directory into the “Original” .vigx directory.
17. Delete the non-”Original” .vigx directory.
18. Remove the “Original” from the .vigx directory.
19. Launch the Scan program and select this Scan project.
20. QC and finish the process.

There may seem to be many steps, but in reality, the process can be completed very quickly.

If there are any questions, do not hesitate to contact Visionary Support form the web site, Visionary Legal.

Here is a link to information about the Visionary Scan program.  Scan information.

thank you,
chuck

Easily set Windows 7 for Trial Presentation

This tidbit is also useful when using PowerPoint to make a presentation.

The issue that arises is that Windows 7's really cool Aero scheme will interfere with your dual screen presentation.

Right click on the program's shortcut for your software (in my scenario, that is, oddly enough, Visionary 8) and choose Properties.

Now choose the Compatibility tab.

Check the box for Disable desktop composition.

Choose OK to close this window.

Now whenever you launch this software, Windows 7 will first switch to the Basic color scheme.  When you close the program, Windows 7 will revert to the "really cool" Aero scheme.

Now your presentation should look like you want it to.

Visionary 8 Professional

Thanks,
chuck


www.VisionaryLegal.com

Create an IssueBuilder from a text file

Here is the best method to create an IssueBuilder from a text file.

First, open Visionary, choose your case, create an IssueBuilder and add one text clip from the correct depo.  Export this IssueBuilder using File, Export IssueBuilder.  Save the file as a Formatted Text file.  Open that text file in Notepad.

Next download the Excel spreadsheet from this link:  IBFormattedTextImport.xls  See Note 1 below.

Open this spreadsheet and enter your clips into Column B, starting in Row Five and continuing to the end of your clips or Row 100, whichever comes first.  Your clips MUST be in this format:  page:line - page:line with one clip per row.  (Replace the sample clips in Rows 5-7.)  Save this spreadsheet.

For example:

• 14:1 - 15:3
• 8:14 - 12:23

They do not need to be in order.

(If you already have them in a document, text file or spreadsheet; you can simply copy-paste them into this spreadsheet.)

Replace the sample data in Row Three, Columns D and J only, with the appropriate information from the text file.  It is VERY important that you use the information from the exported IB text file.  Entering data that you think is correct, may not enable the linkage from the IB item to the depo.

After you have entered your clips and filled in D3 and H3, the formula in J5 through J100 generates the lines that you need to add to the text file that you have open in Notepad.

Copy the appropriate Rows from Column J and paste them onto the end of the text file you have open in Notepad.  Save this text file and close Notepad.

Use the File, Import, IssueBuilder option.  Choose the file type of formatted text and select the text file you just modified.

You will see the IB in Visionary twice, the second one is the new one.

For more information about Visionary 8 Trial Presentation software, check us out at www.VisionaryLegal.com.

Thanks,
chuck beckman

Note1.  (At the time the spreadsheet was uploaded, it was virus scanned with a current anti-virus program.  The files are stored on a secured server, but like EVERYTHING on the internet, you should virus scan this file after downloading.  If you are still leery of the file, check out the ancillary posting that describes how you can create your own spreadsheet.)

How do I move my Registration Code from one computer to another

It was the best of times - we get a new computer.  And we grumble, "Now I have to reinstall all of my useful tools".

It was the worst of times  - our computer crashes.  And we wail and gnash our teeth, and say "Now I have to reinstall all of my useful tools".

Ok, so what do we do?

If your old computer is still running and is still available, follow the steps below.  If not, go directly to the Send an e-mail portion.

1. Launch the program on the old computer.  Ensure it is connected to the internet.
2. Go to Help, Register.
3. Very Important, Write Down the Registration Code!
4. Click on the Unregister or Release Registration Code button.
5. After the unregister process completes and the program closes, uninstall the software.
6. Install the software on the new computer.  Ensure the computer is connected to the internet.
7. Launch the program and you should be at the Registration screen.
8. Enter your Registration Code that you wrote down in step three.
9. Click the Register button and let the process complete.
10. You are Operational.

Send An Email

In both instances you are going to need the latest versions of the software.  If you still have the link that was sent to you with your purchase, that link will get you the latest version.  Otherwise a quick e-mail to Support@VisionaryLegal.com, with the following information will get you a reply with the necessary links:

• Who are you?  Tell us who you are.  We can't figure it out from Timothy1897 @ Yahoo.com, sorry Timothy.
• What firm are you with?  Registration Codes are all tied to firms.
• What is a good contact number in case of any issues, or you mis-spelled your e-mail address?  Don't laugh, we do occasionally get returned e-mails, even on replies.
• What software do you need?  Unfortunately, our main software is called "Visionary", so asking us for "Visionary" gets you that, not what you need when you are trying to install V-Print CR.  Your choices are:
• Visionary 8 Pro,
• Auto-Syncer,
• V-Print CR,
• Scan and
• Transcript Utility.
• If you need replacement installation files for the Visionary Viewer or Visionary 8 Free; those can be downloaded directly from our web site.
• If you will be requesting a new Registration Code (because your computer crashed), please include which Reg Code you would like us to cancel.
• A quick comment about what you need and why.
• ALWAYS include a good subject line.  Security programs flag e-mail, without subject lines, as spam.

As pointed out above, if you cannot unregister your current code for whatever reason and need to reguest a new one; we need to know which code or computer to allow us to disable the correct license.

E-mail requests for links and codes are turned around quite rapidly, with most requests handled within an hour

Remember, our office hours are 8:30 to 5:30 Central Time, normal business days.

Thanks,
chuck

http://www.VisionaryLegal.com/

What about this Image Load File Process, Part Two

Ok, we've got our Image Load File (ILF) setup correctly; how do we setup the images themselves?

(From our ILF:
201,Box001,00\01\exh001.001.tif,Y,,,
202,Box001,00\01\exh001.002.tif,,,,
203,Box001,00\02\exh002.001.tif,Y,,,
204,Box001,00\03\exh003.001.tif,Y,,,
205,Box001,00\03\exh003.002.tif,,,,
206,Box001,00\03\exh003.003.jpg,,,,
207,Box001,00\03\exh003.004.tif,,,,
)

We need to copy our image files into our case like this:

<drive letter>:\vs_data\CaseID\Image\Box001\00\01\exh001.001.tif
etc.

We should have received a disk with a directory named "00" on it.  In that directory should be another directory named "01", through "03".  And within each of these directories should be files named (for instance) exh001.001.tif.

If we are lucky the "00" directory is within a directory named "Box001".  If so, we simply copy the Box001 directory into the Image directory within our caseID directory.

If we just have the "00" directory, then we have to create a new directory called "Box001" within the Image directory within our caseID directory.  The copy the "00" directory into this new directory.

And we are all done.

chuck


http://www.visionarylegal.com/

What about this Image Load File Process, Part One

"We have several bankers boxes of documents that need to be added to our case!"

"I just got a cd (or even worse, a dvd) from the opposing counsel with tens of thousands of images."

"We were just called in to take over from a previous firm and I found a drive full of images."

Whatever the situation, now you have to try to get all these documents into your case and go to trial.

What you need is an Image Load File.

An Image Load File allows you to populate your document database in an automated process, rather than adding one document at a time.

There are many different formats; however you will find that many so-called "image load files", are not actually Image Load Files.  Rather they are document load files or, even worse, a simple directory structure.

I am going to be discussing the most basic Image Load File (ILF), called an Opticon-type load file.  Ever scan shop should be able to produce this format.

First, let's take a look at a sample file.

201,Box001,00\01\exh001.001.tif,Y,,,
202,Box001,00\01\exh001.002.tif,,,,
203,Box001,00\02\exh002.001.tif,Y,,,
204,Box001,00\03\exh003.001.tif,Y,,,
205,Box001,00\03\exh003.002.tif,,,,
206,Box001,00\03\exh003.003.jpg,,,,
207,Box001,00\03\exh003.004.tif,,,,

Let's pull this apart and understand what is going on here.

Since we are loading a database, each line in this file represents one record in the Image Database.  Therefore there needs to be one line (record) for EVERY page of EVERY document.  Visionary needs to be able to find and display the image file (in this case, the .tif or .jpg files) for each page of each document.

We can see that there seems to be four fields in each record.  Each field is separated by a comma.  (This is generically called a CSV file, Comma Separated Values file.  Obviously, your data CANNOT contain any commas.)  In the case of an ILF, there is NEVER a need for the data to contain commas.

Database Key Field or Page ID value

The first field (201) must be unique within each case.  You cannot have two lines with "205" in the first field.  This is the "key" that the database uses to find a specific record or image.  Since it is the key field, every database will have specific constraints on it.

For Visionary, these are the constraints:

• It must be less than 21 characters
• It can only consist of letters
• Lower, Mixed and Upper are treated the same; exhibit, Exhibit and EXHIBIT are the same.
• Digits 0 through 9
• Leading zero's are stripped
• and these characters "+", ".", "-", and "_"

Volume Label

The second field (Box001) is a holdover from the days when hard drives were not large enough to hold all the data, and the CD Label was used to find the correct optical disk to use.  Now it refers to the directory within \vs_data\CaseID\Image directory.  It, obviously, does not need to be unique and will most likely change with each scan job iteration.  There can be multiple different entries in this field, even within one ILF.

Path To and Image File Name

The third field (00\01\exh001.001.tif) is where the actual image is located in relation to the Volume Label.  It does NOT contain drive letter information, such as "c:\".  So within the directory with the Volume Label name, there should be a directory named "00" and within that a directory named "01" and then a file named "exh001.001.tif"

First Page Indicator

The fourth field is a "Y" if this record is the first page of a document, otherwise it is left empty.


There are no other fields.

chuck

VisionaryLegal.com

Use of the Visionary 8 Professional QuickSync Feature

The QuickSync feature in Visionary 8 Professional allows the creation of text-to-video synchronized depositions.

First, what do you need?

Visionary 8 Professional, installed and registered, obviously.

The Visionary Auto-Syncer.  This ONLY needs to be installed.  You cannot register it if you have Visionary 8 Professional

An electronic text copy of the transcript.  This should be an ASCII text file, in the Amicus format.

The media files in MPEG-1 format, VCD standard. (Your videographer should be providing you with these files. If they are providing you with anything else except VCD standard mpeg-1 files, they are doing you a tremendous dis-service.)

With those prerequisites set, we are ready to start.

Launch Visionary and open your case.

Use the File, Import, Transcript option. 

1. Browse to, select and Open the ASCII transcript.
2. Enter the First and Last names of the Deponent.  Ensure the spelling is correct.
3. Enter the Date of the deposition.  Again, ensure the information is correct.
4. Click the Import button.

If you do not see your deponent listed, in the Visionary Shortcut bar, Case Explorer portion, click the Refresh Case Explorer button (looks kind of like the Green Recycle icon).

Click the plus sign in front of your deponent and double click the date of the deposition to open the transcript.

Next, copy the video files to the <drive letter>:\vs_data\CaseID\video directory.

Now choose QuickSync, Sync.

In the Select Deposition for Syncing window, use the drop down list to choose your new deposition.  Click Ok.

The Auto-Syncer launches with this deposition loaded.

We are now on step three of the Auto-Syncing process.

3. Associate your video files.
4. Sync the deposition.
5. QC the project.
6. Publish the depo.

Click the To Visionary button to load the synced depo back into your case.  You will receive a message about replacing an existing depo, choose yes.

http://www.VisionaryLegal.com/

Digital Signatures vice Graphical Signatures, Not Part Two, But an Interlude

In this post we discuss the digital signature process.

(Check out the first part to find out about Graphical Signatures, as we won't be discussing them here.)

A (not so short) digression into the world of Certifying Authorities.  Read it for more information on the flow of certificates.  There will be some reference in part two, to some of this information.

A Digital Signature is designed to re-assure the end user that YOU really signed this document or sent an e-mail.

It is based on the same technology that is used to assure web users that they really are at their banking web site or are at the Amazon store.

What we are talking about are Certificates and Certifying Authorities.  When a web site wants to assure their users that they are at the true web site, the site owners get a certificate.  This works on a Trust basis.  There are several Trusted Root Certificate Authorities built into your browser.  Perhaps the most well known is "VeriSign".  GeoTrust and Thawte are two others that are installed in almost every browser.  Any firm can purchase a certificate for their domain to allow them to be "trusted"  When a certificate is purchased from a VeriSign, they conduct some type of check to see that the requestor actually is who they present themselves to be.  Depending on the level of certification (usually based on the amount of maney paid), that may include a phone call, e-mail or maybe checking the firm with a source such as Dun and Bradstreet.

The Certifying Authority then sends the file and it gets installed on the web server.  It is not a root certificate, but it is something that says that someone else believes they are who they say they are.

If you check your browser, you may have dozens of certificates, but there are only a few Trusted Root Certifying Authorities (TRCA).  Almost every country has their own, simply because of country pride.  Most of the other certificates, are chained or intermediate certificates.  These certificates include the TRCA certificate indicating this chained certificate is backed by someone else.

Two other classes of certificates are self-signed and Trusted Root Certificates.

If a web site owner does not want to pay someone to vouch for them, they can create a self-signed certificate.  This certificate basically says, "hey, you can trust me because I said that I am me."  It's is the end-users choice whether to make that assumption or not.

Finally, a Trusted Root Certrificate can issued by an individual firm.  Anyone can create a Certifiying Authority and become just like a VeriSign.  They can choose their own level of verification and start issuing certificates to individuals (or firms for that matter).  In this case, the browser would give a warning that a firm wants to install a Trusted Root Certificate onto the computer.  It's the end-users  choice.  Once that certificate is installed, any of the certificates issued by that firm are trusted.

And finally there is the self-signed Trusted Root Certificate.

A self-signed Trusted Root Certificate allows a vendor to become a Certifying Authority.  Suppose a vendor wants to be able to sell certificates to their clients.  But they do not want to go through the hassle and cost of paying one of the real Trusted Root Authorities to be able to resell certificates that are automatically recognized by everyone.  The vendor sets themselves up to be a Trusted Root Authority and starts selling certificates to their clients.

Everything is fine, until one of the clients end-users gets a digitally signed file and it it says the certificate is not recognized (or something similar).  What has just occurred on the end-users computer is that the certificate used, does not have a chain back to a recognized Trusted Root Authority.  So what the vendor does is include in the certificates that they sell to their clients, is a copy of their own Trusted Root Authority.  The end-user has to install that vendors certificate and all the trust that entails.  Once that occurs, any more certificates based off that Trusted Root Authority, will now be recognized.

This means that every single certificate that an end-user sees, must trace it's path back to a Trusted Root Authority.  Either directly or via Intermediate certificates.

As you can see, digital certificates are not a simply concept.  They are also fraught with potential issues.  What happens if the TRCA itself gets compromised and duplicate certificates are issued?  What if a client loses their certificate, how is revocation handled?  These and many more questions should be considered before getting a certificate from someone other than one of the few recognized Trusted Root Authorities.

thanks for hanging in there through this long missive.

Go out and certify something!

chuck

http://www.VisionaryLegalTechnologies.com/

Digital Signatures vice Graphical Signatures, Part One

There is a lot of confusion about Digital Signatures (DS) and Graphical Signatures (GS).

Graphical Signatures

First, about Graphical Signatures.  These are just scanned in images of your handwritten signature.  You write your signature nicely on a blank piece of paper and scan it into your computer.  You open the image in an image editing program, such as Microsoft's Paint.Net.  In here you are going to crop it and make sure the background matches the color of the paper that you would use, typically white or transparent.  You can have your graphics person do this for you.

(If you are real good with your mouse, you can try creating your graphic directly in Paint.net.)

Save this new image for future use.

You can now add this nice copy of your signature to things like Microsoft Word documents, Adobe pdf files, the bottom of all your e-mails, etc.  It is simply an image, a picture that you can add to any file that allows images or pictures. 

Here is a my non-official Graphical Signature.


It looks nice, well maybe not mine; but I am sure you have very nice handwriting and have created a beautiful signature that you sign things with.  Having it available as an image is handy for making documents, letters, e-mails; pretty much anything these days look nicer and more personal.

However, it provides no security at all.  If I have a check or a birthday card that you signed, I can scan in your signature.  Once I have it scanned and go through the above steps; I can start signing anything I want with "your" signature.  For instance, I could go on-line and try to get a loan.  When they send me the electronic form, I could paste in your signature and be all set.

Heck, I could scan in a signature from the Declaration of Independence and try to make a forged document signed by John Hancock himself.

In the real world, that cannot happen, because of Digital Signatures.

Check back for Part Two

Explain this Characters Per Line stuff for V-Print CR

A page is 8.5 inches wide. To make the numbers easy, if the font that you use, can fit ten characters per inch; you have 85 columns on one line.

Now we have to subtract margins, borders, and gutters from the 8.5 inches/85 columns. With left and right margins set to 1.5 inches each, you are down to 55 columns. Subtract borders and gutters and you are left with about 51 columns. As long as no line of text has more than this number of characters (including line numbers, timestamps and various spaces), there will be no wrapping of lines.

So the question is, how can I get more than about 50 characters per line.

First is number of characters per inch. This is determined by four factors.

1. First and most obvious is the font size. The larger the font size, the fewer characters per inch.
2. Next is a proportional font as compared to a non-proportional font. You can fit more characters per inch using a proportional font.
3. Not as obvious is font family. Some font families are simply larger than others. For instance, Garamond fits about 25% more characters per inch than Verdana.
4. Finally, bolded or not. Bolded text takes more space, yielding fewer characters per inch.

Second is size of your margins, simply reducing from 1.5 on each side to 1 inch per side adds ten characters per line.

Next would be borders. Not having borders allows that space to be used for text.

Finally, would be what goes on a line. Obviously, adding in timestamps decreases the amount of text that can be on the line.

http://www.VisionaryLegal.com/

The Great Dallas Blizzard of '11

WOW!
The "Worst Storm of the Century" really hit Dallas hard.

This is the view from our front door.  Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we had to deal with icy roads.  Then Thursday night/Friday morning, we covered the icy roads with four inches of snow.

While school kids are enjoying not being in school, it has been too cold for most of them to be outside enjoying the snow day.


Meanwhile the adults have been between a rock and a hard place with having to decide to work and buy groceries or remain off the roads.

For those of us from the frozen northland (I'm from so far north, I still occasionally say "eh"), it truly has been old home week.

I do understand that it has been playing havoc with the Super Bowl expectations.  The visitors just aren't too excited about leaving their hotels to frequent the DFW offerings.

I hope everyone has a pleasant weekend and may your favorite team win the Super Bowl.  Or if they aren't playing, may your temporary favorite team win.

chuck

Visionary Legal Technologies

V-Print CR Deliverable Files Information

When you choose the Delivery menu option, V-Print generates the files that you need. It also allows you to automatically e-mail and/or print the appropriate ones.

But it’s main purpose is to generate the necessary files. With that in mind, you would only use the Delivery option once per depo. In fact, you can choose to never use the automatic e-mail generation and printing from the Delivery window and be just fine.

Once you have used the Delivery option to generate all the files needed, you can close V-Print and complete all your printing, e-mailing, uploading, burning to cd/dvd, etc. without using V-Print.

You can generate an e-mail from your e-mail program and attach just the files needed by one client and create another e-mail and attach only the files needed by another client. You can open the full page .pdf file and print as many copies as needed. You can open the condensed .pdf file and print it once with the word index and once without the word index for different clients.

Once you have used the Delivery option, unless the depo is changed; there is never a reason to re-generate the files.

Does that explanation kind of give you a better overview of the Delivery process as implemented in V-Print?

The files that most of your clients are going to want, would be:
• The full page .pdf file, with the word index; for easy reading.
• The condensed .pdf file; for easy storage.
• The .vdf file for use in the Viewer program.
• The .txt file for use in trial presentation software and copy/paste into documents.
• If you have exhibits, the .vig file for use in the Viewer program or a trial presentation program.
• If you have exhibits, the .pdf files of the exhibits for easy storage or use in a trial presentation program.
http://ping.fm/0o14c

To print out the deposition with the designations highlighted, you must set up and use the Fact DB.

Here is the process:

1. Open your case, obviously.
2. Choose the Facts tab on the Shortcut bar.
3. Click the “Display Designations/Events/Issues/People table” icon next to the “X” for Delete.
4. Select the Designations tab on the Fact window.
5. Select one of the existing Descriptions and click the corresponding entry in the Font column.
6. Choose how to visually discriminate these entries by selecting a Font, a Color and a Style.
1. While a Color may be all that is needed, if you print on a B&W printer, your choice of Style will allow your printout to be useful.
7. If you make any changes, so that you get a pencil icon, click on any other entry to write that record to the database.
8. Now select the appropriate Q&A pair(s) for a designation.
9. Right click on the selected text and choose, Fact Database, Added Selected Text.
10. Accept the default description.
11. On the Fact itself, select the Designations tab, then choose the appropriate entry; such as, Defense Direct, etc.
1. Continue until all the designations that you are interested in, have been entered.
12. Choose File, Print Transcript.
13. Choose your printer.
14. Choose the appropriate transcript.
15. Set the Print Style to Mini 4 page Transcript.
16. Choose all pages or only some.
17. Check the box for Annotate Designations.
18. Click the Print Preview to ensure you have chosen correctly.
19. Print.

Thank you,
Chuck
http://ping.fm/p1Crt

Special Character usage in Visionary

Hex codes are base 16 vice our daily base 10 decimal system. These characters or hex digits are, 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F. They are listed like this to make it obvious they are not decimal numbers, “x00” for zero decimal, through “xFF” for 255 decimal. Basic ASCII text usage is the first 128 characters; hex 00 through 7F. The first 32 hex codes are of interest only to us geeks, and are called the non-printable characters. From hex 20 (x20) or decimal 32, through x7F or decimal 127; are all the valid ASCII characters. This consists of the digits, the upper case letters, the lower case letters and about 34 special characters (such as the period, comma, plus sign, etc.)

Since this stops halfway to xFF, there are many other possible two character hex codes. Everything from x80 through FF. It has become a non-standard “standard” practice to map these to other characters. This mapping depends on what character set you are using. For instance, there is a mapping for the Cyrillic alphabet, the Greek alphabet, etc. Each of these character mappings use the hex codes greater than x7F. Word processing programs and other text generation programs can use a default character mapping and add in 128 more characters. But they are not ASCII text files and rely on the use of the appropriate character mapping.


All Visionary software is designed to use the ASCII character set.