Style Menu

Fonts (Style Menu)

The Fonts dialog in the Style menu lets you control the appearance of different sections of reports. 

1) Use [Tab] to move to different sections of the dialog. 
2) Use the up/down arrow keys to move within any particular section of reports, such as from Main Title to Column Titles.
3) To change the font, choose which section of Grade Machine's reports you want to modify by selecting that section from the list on the left hand side of the dialog. 
4) Then, choose the Font, Font Style, and Size settings you want applied to that section of reports.
5) The Table Body font is used in most places for Grade Machine's on-screen font, as well as for the bodies of tables on reports.

CAUTION: If you choose a font that is too large, some text may be cut off from the right edge of Individual reports.

NOTES: 

(1) The Font and Size settings of the Column Titles and Possible Points sections of reports cannot be changed directly, because these must be the same as the Table Body settings. 

(2) To change their Font and Size settings, you must change the Table Body settings. 

(3) To do so, choose Table Body from the left hand section of the Fonts dialog. 

(4) Then, select the desired font and font size. 

• Grades (Style Menu)
  
  The settings in the Grades dialog in the Style menu control how grades will be displayed on reports and on the screen. You can also determine whether grades are rounded. 
  
  The parts of the Style/Grades dialog are briefly described below:
  Grade Descriptions, Percentage, and Points
  
  Each grade on a report can be expressed as any combination of Points, Percentage, and/or Grade Description.
  For example, if all three boxes are checked under Individual Scores, then each score will appear in this format: 27 85% B+. 
  
  1) Likewise, each of the three options may be checked or unchecked under Category Summaries, so that each assignment category, e.g., Tests, Homework, etc., may have its own grade, expressed in just the format you wish. 
  2) The same is true for Grading Period Summaries, i.e., grades for each quarter, 6-weeks, etc., and 
  3) For Overall Summaries to cover all areas. 
  
  NOTE: The settings in the Grades dialog determines the format in which individual scores, categories, and grading periods are expressed on reports, with two exceptions, as described in
  
  

• Printed Report Does Not Conform to Settings in Grades Dialog topic. Remember that you control which categories, grading periods, and overall summaries are included by using the Class menu's 
  

•  Categories, 
  

•  Grading Periods, and 
  

• Overall Summaries dialogs.
  

• Display Options
  
  Adjust Each Score
  This option determines whether the raw-score points or the adjusted points are displayed, both in the on-screen Scores window and on reports. 
  
  1) For example, if a 50-point test has been assigned a weight of 2.000
  in the Assignments window, then there are 100 adjusted points possible. 
  2) If a student received 40 out of 50 on the test, then his/her raw score is 40 and his adjusted score is 40 x 2 = 80. 
  3) If the Adjust Each Score box is checked, then his score on the test is displayed as 80 instead of 40, in both the Scores window and on reports.
  
  Decimal Scores
  
  1) If Decimal Scores is checked, then all scores are displayed as decimals rounded to the nearest tenth. 
  2) Otherwise, whole numbers are displayed. 
  3) This applies to both the Scores window and reports.
  
  Grade Description Instead of Points
  
  1) The Grade Description Instead of Points option allows each grade to be displayed in the Scores window as a grade description, e.g., a letter grade, instead of a number. 
  2) Each grade is compared to your grading scale, and the appropriate description is displayed. 
  3) Some notes about the Grade Description Instead of Points option:
  
  

•  It is provided for teachers who are not comfortable seeing grades displayed as numbers in the Scores window.
  

•  It does not affect reports in any way.
  

• Even if this box is unchecked, you can still input scores as letter grades, but the grade will displayed as a number instead of a grade description after you move to a different cell in the Scores window.
  
  Show Percent Sign
  
  1) Show Percent Sign causes the % symbol to be displayed on screen and on reports. 
  2) If you want to omit the % symbol from percent scores on screen and on reports, uncheck this box. 
  
  Rounding Options
  
  Teachers have differing philosophies regarding rounding. 
  
  1) Some prefer reports to show grade summaries rounded to the nearest whole number, while others like to show decimals. 
  2) Some prefer to round the percentage before comparing with the grading scale to determine a grade description or letter grade.
  3) While other teachers like to determine the letter grade based on the unrounded percentage.
  
  For the purposes of the explanation below, suppose that on your grading scale, the lower cutoff for A is 90% and that a student's percentage is 89.7%.
  
  1) If you select Grade Description Only then percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number before they are compared with your grading scale to determine a grade description. But percentages on reports will be shown as decimals. So the student's report will show a grade of 89.7% A. 
  2) If you select Grade Description and Percentages, then percentages on reports will be shown rounded to the nearest whole number, and the percentages will be rounded to the nearest whole number before they are compared with your grading scale to determine a grade description. So the student's report will show a grade of 90% A. 
  3) If you select Don't Round, then percentages on reports will be shown as decimals and won't be rounded before determining the grade description. So student's report will show a grade of 89.7% B. 
  4) A subtle problem arises when students' percentages are extremely close to the cutoff point, and you have selected rounding for Grade Description Only. Assuming your cutoff for A is 90%, a student with 89.52% should clearly receive a grade of 89.5% A in this case. 
  5) But what about a student with 89.48%? Is it fair to show this as 89.5% B? The percentage rounded to the nearest tenth is 89.5%, but 89.48% is still technically closer to 89% than 90%, which is a B. 
  6) What would you do if two of your students approached you with their reports, one showing 89.5% B and the other 89.5% A? 
  7) Grade Machine deals with the above dilemma with consistent precision to the nearest tenth. 
  8) First, we round the percentage to the nearest tenth. 
  9) Then, if the Grade Description Only rounding option is checked, we round to the nearest whole number before comparing to the grading scale.
  10) Thus, if you've selected rounding for Grade Description Only, both 89.5% and 89.48% would be displayed as 89.5% A. 
  11) If you've selected Grade Description and Percentages, they will both be displayed as 90% A. 
  12) If you've selected Don't Round, they will both be displayed as 89.5% B. 
  13) In all three cases, these two students are treated equally, which saves you from being accused of favoritism. 
  14) A student with 89.44%, on the other hand, will always receive a B, and his or her reports will show either 89.4% or 89%.
  15) The following table shows some examples of these rounding principles. 
  
  Percentage to
  Actual nearest tenth Description Percentage Description
  Percent (not rounded) (not rounded) (rounded) (rounded)
  -------- -------------- ------------- ----------- -----------
  89.50% 89.5% B 90% A
  89.45% 89.5% B 90% A
  89.90% 89.9% B 90% A
  89.44% 89.4% B 89% B
  89.94% 89.9% B 90% A
  89.95% 90.0% A 90% A
  
  
  NOTE: The grade description is determined by the second column in this table, i.e., Percentage to nearest tenth - not rounded, not the first column. To properly view this table, the Help window should be full screen.

Column Widths (Style Menu)

1) Use the Column Widths dialog in the Style menu to adjust the pixel count of different columns in Grade Machine. 
2) You may never need to use the Column Widths dialog, since you can adjust column widths directly by dragging the column heading dividers.
3) You can use the Column Widths dialog to adjust the widths of the various columns in the Students, Assignments, and Scores windows. 
4) This enables you to adjust column widths precisely to the nearest pixel. 
5) To adjust the width of a column, type the new column width in the appropriate input field. 
6) If you want to adjust the column widths for a different window, click on the down-arrow button to the right of the word Window. 
7) Then choose the desired window from the list box.
8) The column widths as shown on the screen will directly affect similar column widths on reports. 
9) For example, if you are finding that the Points Possible table heading is being cut off on reports because the column is not wide enough, you should widen the Points column in the Assignments window.
10) Also, the width of the scores columns in the Scores window will determine not only the width of the similar columns on reports, but also the width of columns of statistics, e.g., the Class Average column of a table.

NOTE: If you see number signs #... in your printed reports, then your columns are probably too narrow.

Individual Report Prefs (Style Menu)

The Individual Report Prefs dialog in the Style menu allows you to choose whether certain information is included in Individual, Summary, and Multi-Class Reports. 

1) For example, this dialog allows you to create Post Scripts for reports

2) Omit the assignment table from reports, and 

3) Set up reports so that only missing assignments will be included.

NOTE: Not all options in the Individual Report Preferences dialog affect the printing of Summary reports or Multi-Class reports. These options are discussed below:

4) For Summary reports: 

a) The only option in this dialog that matters is the Use Tables for Summaries checkbox. 

b) All the other options are related to information that never appears on Summary reports. 

5) For Multi-Class reports, all options in this dialog are important, with two exceptions: 

a) The One Report Per Page option is ignored, since each student's Multi-Class report always begins on a new page, and 

b) The Reserve __ Lines settings are ignored.

c) If the checkboxes next to Comments and Notes, Attendance Totals, or Attendance Dates are checked, the comments and attendance information will be printed in full on Multi-Class reports, with no extra blank lines.

General Report Prefs (Style Menu)

The General Report Prefs dialog in the Style menu allows you to choose whether or not certain statistics should be included in reports, how student names should appear, margins for reports, and whether zeroes should be counted as missing assignments.

The parts of the Style/General Report Prefs dialog are described below:

Include in Reports

1) Checkboxes allow you to include or exclude several assignment characteristics from reports, such as Points Possible, Weights, and Adjusted Points Possible. 
2) Likewise, a variety of class-wide statistics may be included or excluded: Class Average (Mean), Maximum & Minimum, Median, and Standard Deviation. 

Print Reports in

1) You can choose the language in which you'd like to print your reports. 
2) Grade Machine will not translate words and phrases that you have entered, i.e., Category names, Student IDs, Notes, Comments, etc. They will appear in reports just as they were entered. 
3) The language feature only controls certain key-words and phrases on reports: the words and phrases that are not user-definable through dialogs. 
4) For example, in the table of scores on a Group Report, the Name column heading will change according to the language you have selected. 
5) But the Misc. 1 column heading will not automatically change because it is controlled by your settings in the Style/Student Data dialog. 

Show Student Names

1) If you select First then Last, then each student's name will be reversed when printed on reports, so that the part of the name after the comma will be printed first. This depends on your having entered student names in the Last, First format in the Students window. For example, if you have entered Horse, Charlie as a name in the Students window, and if you have checked First then Last in the General Report Preferences dialog, then reports will show Charlie Horse. 

2) If you have selected Last then First, then reports will show names in the same format that you've entered them into the Students window, e.g., Horse, Charlie.

Count Zeroes as Missing Assignments

The Count Zeroes as Missing Assignments checkbox controls whether zero scores, including Special Scores with a designated value of 0%, will be counted the same as missing assignments, in the following situations:

1) if you select Students with ___ or more missing assignments from the Report menu's dialogs, or
2) if you check Missing Assignments Only in the Style menu's Individual Report Prefs dialog.

Report Margins

1) Please note that the margins you enter here will be added to any minimum margins that are built into your printer. 

2) For example, if your printer won't print any closer than 0.25 inches to the left edge of the page, i.e., in normal Portrait orientation, and you enter a left margin of 0.5 inches, then the resulting left margin will be 0.75 inches, which is suitable for hole-punching reports to put into a binder. 

3) A right margin of 0 inches means the report will print as close to the right edge of the page as the printer will allow which is usually about 0.25 inches. 

4) Likewise, any top or bottom margin you specify will be added to the 0.5 inches top or bottom margin that many printers require.

NOTE: If you want to change the report's orientation on the page, e.g., from Portrait to Landscape, or if you need to change the paper size, go to the Print Setup option of the File menu.

Screen Prefs (Style Menu)

The Screen Preferences dialog in the Style menu controls what grade is displayed in the Grade column of the Scores window. 
1) This dialog also allows you to set the Safety Factor and 
2) to choose if a warning appears when a score is changed.

Grade to Display
This option controls the Grade column that is displayed just to the right of the student names in the Scores window. 

None
1) If you select None, then the Grade column will be eliminated from the Scores window. 

2) This can speed up Grade Machine considerably, since large classes take some time to re-calculate grades whenever there is any change that affects grades, such as a change in the grading scale.

Overall Summary
1) If you select Overall Summary, then the overall summary grade will be displayed in the Scores window. 
2) This combines all assignment categories and all grading periods.

Grading Period
1) Select the Grading Period option, and 

2) Choose the correct Grading Period from the list box, if you'd like the Scores window to show the grade for a particular grading period.

Category
Select Category if you want the Grade column to display the grade for a particular assignment category in a particular grading period.
The Grade to Display option actually affects four areas of Grade Machine:
1) the Grade column in the Scores window,
2) student tallies in the Grading Scale dialog,
3) sorting by rank in the Sort Students dialog,
4) and the Students with percentages less/more than options in the Report menu's dialogs.

Student Data (Style Menu)

The Student Data dialog in the Style menu allows you to control which student information is included in reports.

Assignment Data (Style Menu)

The Assignment Data dialog in the Style menu allows you to control which assignment information is included in reports.
The parts of the Style/Assignment Data dialog are described below:

Include in Report

Assignment Description
Check this checkbox to include the Assignment Description name of assignments on reports.

Miscellaneous
Determines whether the information contained in the Miscellaneous field from the Assignments window will appear on reports.

Assignment Number
Determines whether a sequential number, i.e., 1, 2, 3, ... etc., appears in front of each assignment on reports.

Category
Determines whether each assignment's category name is included on reports.

Key to Special Scores
Check this box to include a list of Special Scores on reports.

Misc. Column Title
Fill in the Misc. Column Title with any description you wish, such as Date/Pages.

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