1. Open and fill input track(s): Any number or combination of the four tracks can be used.
   
   Click on the track view button to open the track viewer for a specific track. Placed next to the track view button, the track indicator button is green when words are to be drawn from a given track. Even when the track view window is closed, words will continue to be drawn until the track indicator button is clicked to the off (red) position.
   
   Each of the four input tracks and the output mix text area can filled with words in a number of different ways:
   1. File or paste: either opening a file or pasting text from the Windows clipboard. (Only plain text files can be loaded, but you can paste directly from word processing applications.)
   2. Web Page Fill: if your computer is connected to the Internet, clicking the "GO" button will grab words from the web page specified by whatever URL has been typed or pasted into the "http://" text input. This function strips out as many formatting codes as possible from the fetched page to try to get a clean sample of the content words.
   3. Random word fill: A random selection of words are inserted into the track text area.
   4. Author's words fill: The user selects from a choice of 50 classic authors. A selection is retrieved from a pool of words randomly drawn from one of the author's books. Each time the same author is reselected, the pool of words will be different.
   
   
2. Adjust the input track settings: The way in which words will be drawn from each track is influenced by two settings, snip size and probability fader: The "snip size" determines how many consecutive words will be included in each cut. The "probability fader" increases or decreases the probability that random picks will be made from the relevant track (when weighed against the probability settings for all of the other active tracks).
   
   
3. Execute Mix: Each time the mix button is clicked, a new, unique mix of all open tracks is created. Words (or word clusters in cases where snip size is greater than 1) are randomly drawn and inserted into the output text area. Alternately, the random selection process can be defeated and replaced with sequential selection by toggling the "sequential mix" indicator underneath the mix button. The sequential process draws words or sentence fragments from tracks 1 to 4 in sequence (ignoring the probability fader positions).
   
   
4. Output Effects: The contents of the main text area can be processed with the use of different output effects:
   
   
   • 
     Shuffle - The words currently displayed in the main text area are randomly rearranged. Depending on the "snip size" setting, the text will be scrambled in clusters of 1,2,3 or 4 words. The larger the sentence fragments, the more likely the output will retain some semblence of meaning.
   • 
     Morph - Slightly skews the meaning of text by replacing each word with a randomly selected synonym (a word which means the same thing or at least something similar).
   • 
     Replacer - This effect analyzes each word in the output area and assigns it to one of several predefined categories. From within the identified category, a randomly selected replacement is made.
   • 
     Virtual Cut-up Board - Works like the popular "fridge magnet poetry". The first 100 words from the main text area are sent to a different interactive window where they can be dragged around with the mouse. Click and hold down the left mouse button over a word to drag it around the cut-up board.
     
     
     This provides a quick way of intentionally reordering the words (or word fragments) in any output mix. In the top right hand corner of the board there is a button to take a snapshot of the reordered words in the sequence which they are currently displayed and copy them to the Windows clipboard: This clipboard copy is the same as doing a copy operation of selected text in any word processing application (the standard method won't work in the Cut-up board because the new sequence is not recognized). After closing the cut-up board, the copied, reordered text can be pasted back into the Cut 'n' Mix output text area or into another word processing application. (Other Cut 'n' Mix functions are not accessible while the Cut-up board is open).
   
   *Note* - because computer resoures are heavily taxed by these effects, only a limited chunk of the output text is processed each time. (Allowing large text samples to be effected would tie up the computer's CPU for long periods of time).
   
   
5. 
   Lyrics/Poem - Takes the current text area contents, analyses each word, and then reassembles according to the use settings found in the "Lyrics/Poem" section: If "Haiku" is checked, a traditional Japanese 3-line haiku poem is created with the standard 5 syllable / 7 syllable / 5 syllable structure. A variety of other poetic structures can be programmed using differnet combinations of the "Beats per line" (syllable count) and "Rhyming" selectors. Regardless of the settings, Cut 'n' Mix injects randomly selected words to achieve the desired rhyming and rhythmic structure in each generated poem.
   
   
6. Output functions: The input tracks and the main text area have several common text editing options. Aside from the familiar cut/copy/paste there are three functions that will work a little differently than in a regular word processing application:
   
   
   1. Fonts - Any font changes apply to the whole output area. Because the words are rearranged constantly, it is technically beyond the capabilities of the application to maintain multiple font formatting options within the output text area.
   2. Printing - The output area is routed directly to your default printer. No formatting options are available.
   3. Open file - Only plain text (.txt) files will load. If you want to use files saved in other formats, you can resave them first as plain text from within your main word processing application. Only the first chunk of large texts is loaded into the output (and input) areas - this prevents excessive wait times for processing functions.
   4. Saving - Files can be saved either as plain or rich text. If you want to retain the font formatting for further editing in other word processing apps, save as rtf . If you want to keep an output for further processing in a future Cut 'n' Mix session, it is preferable to save as txt . (You can also paste back into the output area after reloading rtf into another application to retain the font formatting).

For technical support or more information about Cut 'n' Mix visit: cutnmix.com