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One way to learn how to use TPM is to try some of the features and commands with some real data. By using a few of the basic commands you will learn the principles behind the operation of all the commands in TPM. The way TPM is designed means that the skills learnt for one command can be applied to other similar commands with predictable results.
In this tutorial you will learn how to:
- Create a markbook file
- Enter classes, students, tasks, and results
- Save a markbook
- Print a class mark sheet
- Use the Average calculation
Creating your first markbook
When you run TPM what you'll see is the menu window, menu and tool bar, and status line.
Choose the File|New command to create an empty markbook, the markbook has no classes, students or tasks. 
To add students to the markbook you must first create a class. Click on the Edit menu and select the Class command. Type,
10S1
and press the Up arrow key. Then type,
Green
and press Tab. The type,
Sue 
A class with that name is added to the markbook. If you want to make another class, do the steps again.
You can now add students to the class. Click on the New menu and select the Student command. Type the student's family name of,
JONES
and press Tab and then type the given name,
LEONIE
By repeating these steps, type in the following list, pressing Tab after each family name and then entering the given name.
You do not have to use the mouse to choose the New|Student command you can use the keyboard by holding down the Alt key and pressing N. After releasing the two keys press S.
MILGRAM MIKE
JACKLIN JEAN
ALI MOHAMAD
WIRTH NIKLAUS
BLAISE SUSAN
ABBOTT JOHN
LARSON GARY
CHEN STEVEN
MCMAHON SCOTT
PAK TRISHA
CRAWFORD JOAN
ELLUL JACQUES
SILVA DAN
Here the names are in no particular order, but TPM will sort the names for you into alphabetical order the next time a command is used that causes the window to refresh. Also the class that you want the students to be entered into must be selected along the bottom of the window before you start adding the students. 
If you already have the student names in another application like a spreadsheet it is most likely that you will not need to re-type them to get them into a markbook. Normally the Edit|Paste command is the easiest way to copy information into a markbook, but for this tutorial the manual method is explained to keep the steps simple because the pasting of names does depend on the format of your data.
Saving your first markbook
After typing some data, it's a good idea to save it to disk. To do this, choose the Save command from the File menu. An easier method would be to use the shortcut for File|Save, which is Ctrl+S. Another shortcut is the fourth button on the toolbar below the menu.
The first time a new markbook is saved you must give the markbook a name, so in the File Save As pop-up type the name 10Science and press Enter. You may note the name and location where the markbook is saved is shown along the top of the TPM window. 
Entering results
To enter results, you must first create some tasks to store the results. To create a task, click on the New menu and select the Task command. A new task is made called Task name.
In the grid, type the name of the first task,
Exam one
and press Down arrow. Then type,
100
and press Enter. The task maximum sets the upper limit for a result in the task.
You can create another task now by choose New|Task again and typing another name,
Exam two
press Down arrow to move to the Maximum line. Type,
50
You could create more tasks by repeating the steps, but for now two tasks is enough.
Since there are now some students and tasks, a dotted line appears around appears the cell that is the current student and task. Press the arrows to move the current cell around the markbook. Try pressing the arrows and watch how the outline moves. Move the current cell to the top student and the first task.
To store some results click on the row of the first student in the first task.
Type the following results, pressing Enter after each one. Don't press Enter after the last result.
61
78
91
45
49
57
82
Absent
66
79
74
50.5
60
78
If you have made a mistake with one result you can press the Up arrow to move to the previous student. By pressing the arrows you can move to where you want enter results. See how the result for Trisha has been rounded to the nearest whole number. With TPM you can set the number of decimal places shown for a task, so even though 50.5 is stored it is shown as 51. 
Move to the first student and the second task and enter these results.
45
31
49.5
29
34
21
47
12
35
28
32
40
38
44
After entering the results, press Ctrl+S to save the markbook.
Doing a calculation
Now you're going to do a simple calculation on the results that you have entered. Suppose you want to add the two tasks together to create a new set of results. You want the total to be an average of the two tasks as a percentage.
The Calculation Assistant, is the easiest way to do a calculation. It leads you though the steps in setting up a calculation.
Choose the Help|Calculation assistant command. This command begins with an introduction and has a button labelled Next. Read the introduction and click on Next.
You can now select the two tasks to be added as percentages, you do this by clicking in the small rectangle next to the name of each one. In this example there are only two tasks to choose from, although if there are many tasks in the markbook you may need to scroll through the list to find the tasks required.
Now click on Next, here you choose whether to make a new task to store the calculation, which is the Yes option which is already selected, so just click on Next again. 
In the next step type,
Average one two
as the name of the task to be created and used to store the calculation results. You can see the task maximum is 100, which is the maximum required, so click on Next. 
The type of calculation you require must now be selected. We want to average the tasks as percentages, so select the second option Add the tasks as percentages. 
Generally, most calculations in markbook affect the results in all the classes, so on the next step leave the Yes, affect all classes selected and click on Next. 
The last step shows a summary of the all the steps so far. To average the tasks Exam one and Exam two, to do the calculation on all the classes, and to store the results of the calculation in a new task called Average one two.
You may also notice that the Next button has changed to Finish. If you wanted to go back and change any of the steps of the calculation you could choose the Back button to return to a previous step. You may look at the previous steps now, by clicking on Back a few times, but don't actually change anything. Then click on Next until you return to the step with the Finish button. 
Click on the Finish button and TPM immediately averaging the two tasks and storing the results in the new third task. After a moment the command is complete and the new task is filled with the results. Now is a good time to save the markbook.
Printing results
For TPM to be useful, it is often necessary to print the students' names and results onto paper. The Print menu has several commands that can print the information in different ways. Click on the Print menu, Marks is the most useful print command.
Before actually choosing any of the print command you must select the tasks to be printed. The way you select tasks is by tagging them. There are commands in the Action menu that can tag different items in TPM.
The tags are shown on the top row of the main TPM window. If a task already has a tag, choosing the Action|Tag task command again removes the tag.
There is an easier way to tag a task that doesn't require the commands in the menu. Instead, click on the row above each task name for each of the tasks. Tag each of the three tasks by clicking in the top row for each one, and you will see a small tag appear for each one.
Choose the Print|Marks command. 
The page preview appears and shows you what the printed page will look like. 
On the toolbar of the preview move the mouse over the buttons and keep it still above each one. After a second, small note pops up indicating what each button does. For now find the button labelled Show grid lines, it is near the Help menu, and click on it. The preview then has lines added to it. 
Make sure that the printer is on and then choose the Print button. The page is then sent to the printer and after a few seconds it starts printing. If you do not have a printer attached you should skip this step.
Now you have an idea of the type of operations you can do with TPM. To leave TPM, choose the File|Exit command. |
