Your First Horoscope

You have just run ZET for the first time. Naturally, you want to see your own horoscope. This is what to do:

  • Click the  "Data" button on the Toolbar. (If the Toolbar is invisible, select "Horoscope" from the main menu, then "Event Data..." - or hit F3). Notice how you get a popup hint when you pause the mouse pointer over a button - this help tooltip is available for most tableau objects and icons. This brings up a window for you to enter birth details. It is the Event Data window - the place where you will most often input dates, times, and places for creating ('casting' or 'erecting', as astrologers say) horoscope charts. A blinking vertical line shows which entryfield your typed text will go into.

  • Click in the top field and type your name, and if you want, surname. (It is ok to enter something else, or nothing at all). Press the Tab key to move to the next field (right), or click with the mouse where you see the gender.
    • Indicate your gender by selecting from list or pressing on one of the keys: M, F, -. (This is advised for the horoscope reading). Press the Tab key to move to the next field below, or click with the mouse where you see the date.
      • Don't delete the existing date; simply overtype it with your date of birth, in the order: day.month.year. If you were born on, say, the 4th of July, 1976 type the digits 04071976. The keyboard cursor keys move the insertion point left and right. ZET will not allow you to leave the date entryfield unless the date is valid. When you are ready, press the Tab key to go to the time field, which is across from the date.
        • Enter your time of birth in this format hours:minutes:seconds using the 24-hour clock. If you do not remember the time precisely yourself, and Mom has told you that it seems it was during the daytime, enter it as 12:00:00. (There is no need to type the colon characters - just press the Space bar).
          • Click the  "Open Atlas" button. The Atlas window appears, from which you can quickly obtain the geographical coordinates (and other required data) of the city where you were born.

            Select "World Atlas" and "All" from the middle and the right drop-down lists respectively. Then click in the left field at the top of the window and type the first letters of the name of a city, for example, liverp. In the cities list the blue highlighting bar should jump to the Atlas entry for Liverpool, England. If not (say you see instead 'Liverpool, New York, USA'), use the cursor keys to look thru the Atlas for your city. If your place of birth is not in the Atlas, you can try looking in the larger atlas: select your country from the top-right drop-down list, then select "World Atlas II" from the middle list. If this does not contain your place of birth either, for now choose the nearest large town - you can edit the Atlas later.

            To select a city, double-click on the highlighted line, or press the Enter key. The Atlas window is closed, and you revert to the Event Data window, in which you can see that your selected city, its latitude (North or South of the equator) and longitude (West or East of Greenwich), and any time difference (if applicable - in the field labelled "GMT") have all been entered automatically for you.

            Time difference - or Time Zone - is the number of hours by which local civil time at a place is ahead of (or behind) Greenwich Mean Time, which is the basis of calculations. For more information about this topic, see Your Location. NOTE: Time Zones are in European format, not American format. Easterly locations are indicated with a '+' sign, those west of the Greenwich meridian with '-'.

            TIP: If next time you want this city, there is no need to use the Atlas. Cities that were selected for previous calculations will be recognised if you type their first letters directly in the City field. Or, make your selection from the drop-down list. (This list is called the Operational Atlas).

          • Click the Execute button to cast the natal chart:

            • If you want to read the computer interpretation of your horoscope, click the Text button on the Toolbar or select "Horoscope" from the main menu and then "Interpretation..." item to invoke the "Interpretation Setup" wizard:

              Make appropriate settings in this window: kind of interpretation (e.g. "For the displayed Natal Chart"), the output format (e.g. "Plain text"), the order (e.g. "Collate in house order") and others. Also you can select the collection of interpretaion sourses (books) from which the citations will be extracted: click "Library" button and proceed.
              • Select Click "OK" button and your horoscope will appear. Read it:

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