This writeup is based on one prepared by Mikeyc21 who did all the work of grabbing the images, too.

Step One: Create a DP Folder

You need to create a folder on your hard drive to store both Guiguts and the files you are post-processing. We'll assume you are going to call this folder C:\DP.

To create a C:\DP folder, open My Computer and open the C: drive. Right-click an empty space and choose New> Folder. The new folder is created with a name of NEW FOLDER, but the name is highlighted for editing. Replace the name by typing DP.

You will frequently refer to this folder, so you might like to right-click on it, choose Create Shortcut, and drag the resulting shortcut icon to the desktop for handy reference. (N.B. you don't create the folder on the desktop in the first place because if you did, its path would be C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\DP.)

Step Two: Download and Unzip Guiguts

To download the Guiguts package as a zip file, click on this link. Unzip it into the C:\DP folder, where it will create a folder named guiguts.

To unzip Guiguts, right click the zip file that you've downloaded, and choose Extract all.... Click Next; then enter C:\DP as the destination directory. Click Next and wait for the files to be extracted. Click Finish to close the wizard.

Screenshot of Windows XP archive extraction wizard

Step Three: Download and Unzip Perl Libraries

To download the a zip file of Perl libraries on which Guiguts depends, click this link. Unzip them into the C:\DP folder, creating a prl folder.

Right click the zip file that you've downloaded and choose Extract all.... Press Next, and then enter C:\DP as the destination directory. Press Next and wait for the files to be extracted. Press Finish to close the wizard.

Check the downloaded files.

Check to make sure that the files unzipped correctly by making sure that the following files are present in the specified directory. Note that not all files are shown here:

C:\DP
guiguts

gg

gutcheck

header

scannos

winguts

wordlist
prl

lib

perl

perl58

Step Four: Make Guiguts Executable

Guiguts is in the file guiguts.pl and you would like to launch it as an executable program. However, Windows does not know it is executable. You need to associate Perl with the .pl file extension. Then, when you double-click any file of type .pl, Windows will launch Perl to execute it.

[this is the Win98 version. Can somebody please tell me if Win XP is very different?]

To perform this association go to Start > Settings > Folder Options...

win98 folder options
Scan the rather lengthy list of filetypes for anything mentioning "Perl." Possibly the association has already been set up. If not, click New Type. In the resulting dialog, enter Perl Script as the description and .pl as the associated extension.
Add New Filetype dialog
Under actions click New... and in the ensuing dialog enter an action of open and then click Browse and find the perl.exe file you downloaded earlier.
Defining an Open action for Perl
Click OK, and Close, and Close.

You should now observe that the file C:\DP\guiguts\guiguts.pl has magically acquired a new icon, the Perl lizard thingy. When you double-click it, Guiguts should start running (it takes several seconds to come up).

Experiment briefly with Guiguts: open some menus; load a text file and try editing and saving it. Then use File> Exit to end it.

Optional: Make Winguts Executable

Included with Guiguts is a program named Winguts.exe. This program can potentially start Perl to launch Guiguts—but it probably doesn't work right now. If you make Winguts work, you can then associate Winguts with some other file suffix, for example .dp. Then whenever you double-click a file of that type, Windows will launch Winguts, and Winguts in turn will launch Guiguts and have it open the file you clicked on. In this way, if you name your work files with that suffix, you can get Guiguts launched whenever you want to open one.

Double-click on Winguts.exe now. It might run, but more likely it will immediately terminate with a Windows error message about a missing .dll. That tells you that the PATH variable needs to be extended. The PATH variable lists the folders in which Windows searches for executable libraries when a program is launched. You need to make sure this list includes C:\DP\prl\ so that the Perl interpreter will be found when Winguts asks for it.

Setting the PATH in Windows XP

Open the System Control Panel as follows:








System
Select the Advanced tab. Select Environment Variables. You should see a dialog like the following:
Path settings screenshot

If no PATH variable is listed, click New, enter PATH as the variable name and C:\DP\prl as the variable value.

If you can see a variable name of PATH, select it and click Edit. Append ;C:\DP\prl to what is already there (if there is already a semicolon there, do not type another; there should be just one semicolon preceding C:\DP\prl).

When you have created or extended PATH, close all the dialogs.

Setting the PATH in Windows 98

In Windows 98, the PATH variable is set in the file C:\autoexec.bat. Let's use Guiguts to modify it. Launch Guiguts again. Use File > Open and type the file name C:\autoexec.bat.

This file should exist but may well have only one line in it. Look to see if it has a line beginning SET PATH=. If it does, append ;C:\DP\prl to that line.

If there is no such line, insert the following line as the first line of the file:
SET PATH=C:\;C:\DOS;C:\WINDOWS;C:\DP\PRL

Save the file; exit Guiguts; and restart Windows 98.

Testing the PATH

If you have successfully set the PATH variable, you should now be able to launch Guiguts via Winguts. First terminate Guiguts if it is running from your previous test. Then double-click the Winguts.exe icon in the C:\DP\guiguts folder. After a few seconds, Guiguts should open its document window.

Step Five: Install Aspell

Install Aspell Executables

Click on this link to download a program to install Aspell 0.503. Double-click the downloaded file and proceed through the install wizard to this point:
Aspell install wizard path choice
Click Next to accept this default location for Aspell.

In the following panel, do check the option "Don't create a Start Menu folder" (unless, of course, you would like to access Aspell from the Start menu for use with files other than DP books). Click Next.

In the following panel, do not accept the offer of "Additional Tasks"—unless, of course, you would like to have an Aspell icon on your desktop, etc. These things are not needed for use from Guiguts. Click Next. In the final panel, confirm that the Destination directory is the default one:

Aspell install wizard final
Then click Install. The Aspell program files are installed.

Install Aspell Dictionaries

Aspell is of no use without at least one dictionary. Dictionaries are available for many languages and variants. You can view the list of dictionaries packaged for Windows on this page.

Almost certainly you will proof texts in English. To download the English dictionaries (including US, British, and Canadian spelling variants), click this link. Double-click the downloaded file; it opens an installation wizard much like the one for Aspell. Just as before, click Next, and Next, and accept the default Destination Directory of C:\Program Files\Aspell.

As before, decline the offer to create any Start menu folders or desktop icons, and finish the installation.

Step Six: Install XnView

The XnView program is a free image viewer that supports a variety of image formats. You can read about it on its home page. XnView works well with Guiguts to display page images. To download XnView for windows click this link. Double-click the resulting file, which launches a typical Windows install wizard.

Click through the wizard accepting the license and the default destination of C:\Program Files\XnView. For Guiguts's use it is not necessary to install either the MPEG or JPEG2000 components; however the full installation uses little disk space. Continue through the installation process.

After XnView has been installed, use Start > Programs > XnView > XnView to start it up. Use Tools > Options to open its detailed Options dialog. For best Guiguts work, set the following options:

Close the Options dialog and terminate XnView.

Optional: Install Tidy

The open-source HTML Tidy program is a utility that reformats HTML and finds errors in it. If you have a Tidy executable, Guiguts will invoke it for you from the HTML Palette.

To learn about Tidy, visit the Tidy Project Page. To download the executable, click this link. You will be offered a choice of "mirror" servers; click on the Download icon for one that is geographically near to you. The result is a file tidy.exe of quite modest size. You can drag this to your DP folder.

Step Seven: Set Up Helpers

You need to tell Guiguts where to find the programs that it will call. Start Guiguts by double-clicking C:\DP\guiguts\guiguts.pl. Select Prefs> Set File Paths> Locate Gutcheck Executable.

Browse to find C:\DP\guiguts\gutcheck\gutcheck.exe. Click Open.

Select Prefs> Set File Paths> Locate Aspell Executable. Browse to find C:\Program Files\Aspell\bin\Aspell.exe. Click Open.

If you downloaded Tidy, select Prefs> Set File Paths> Locate Tidy Executable. Browse to find tidy.exe, wherever you put it. Click Open.

Select Prefs> Set File Paths> Locate Image Viewer Executable. Browse to find C:\Program Files\XnView\XnView.exe. Click Open.

Your Guiguts installation is now ready for use.

Optional: Install DPCustomMono2 Font

Viewing your etexts in the DPCustomMono2 font helps find typos. Likely you have already installed this font for use with your web browser when proofreading. If so, nothing further is required to use it with Guiguts.

If you have not yet installed the font, see this forum topic for directions. After you've installed the font in Windows, you use the Guiguts Preference menu (discussed on this page) to use it.

Updating to a New Version

Thundergnat often updates Guiguts with fixes and new features. You can find if there is a new version by selecting Help> Check for Updates. When you learn that a new version is available, go to the Guiguts site and click on the link to download guiguts.zip. (Alternatively you may see a link to the new version in a forum posting.)

The downloaded guiguts folder is basically a duplicate of your C:\DP\guiguts folder except for one, possibly two, files that you have modified:

To update Guiguts, open both the old and new guiguts folders on the desktop. Select all the files in the new folder, drag them and drop them onto the old folder. When Windows asks if you want to replace a file click Yes To All. This sequence updates the distributed files without replacing settings.rc.

If you had modified header.txt, you must first open the old and new versions in an editor, figure out what has changed, and resolve any updates so that the new version contains the class-names on which Guiguts depends with your styling.