Tax Forms Guides for 2008 Editions of Tax Preparer

HowardSoft Manuals for 2008 Editions

Manuals for 2008 Editions. The following Tax Forms Guides for the current filing season are available for download. To download, right-click the underlined link for the manual you want, then click Save Target As... and save the file to the same location as your Tax Preparer software (usually C:\TAX). The manual will then be accessible from the Documents button on the floating Tax Preparer Control Panel (under Tax Forms Guides) when you use Tax Preparer.

• Tax Forms Guide 2008 Edition for our software for preparing Form 1040 returns. (Adobe Acrobat format, 3,736 KB, revised 3/31/2008)
• Partnership Tax Forms Guide 2008 Edition for our software for preparing Form 1065 returns. (Adobe Acrobat format, 581 KB, revised 3/25/2008)
• California Tax Forms Guide 2008 Edition for our software for preparing Form 540 returns. (Adobe Acrobat format, 810 KB, revised 2/29/2008)

Note that the Premium Level Supplement is integrated into the manuals for the 2008 Edition. No separate Premium Level Supplement exists for 2008. Be sure to read our Tips for using on-screen manuals, below, for easiest access to the page you need. You'll get quicker access than any static index could provide.

IRS Resources for 2008 Filing Season

IRS forms. You can get the latest releases from the IRS for forms and instructions supported by Tax Preparer through links on our Progress Report: IRS Forms for Tax Year 2007, which we regularly update as the IRS releases more forms. We recommend that you right-click each link and choose Save Target As... and save the file to C:\TAX\DOC2008 so that it is available to you from the Tax Preparer Control Panel (under Forms and Publications by way of the Documents button). (If you installed Tax Preparer in a folder other than C:\TAX, the default folder, you will have to replace C:\TAX with your own folder when Saving Target As.)

IRS Publications (and other forms). You can get the latest IRS releases of IRS publications (in addition to all forms and instructions) from their website at IRS Forms and Publications. Like the forms, you should save any publications you download to C:\TAX\DOC2008 so that you can access it from the Tax Preparer Control Panel.

User's Guide

The User's Guide provides general operating instructions that do not change from year to year. This document includes quick guides for getting you started, tutorials using a sample return, and detailed instructions on keyboard controls, managing stored data (including copying or translating returns, removing forms from a return, printing client lists and mailing labels, etc.), high-volume data entry, printing, and program settings. To download, right-click the underlined link and save the file to the same location as your Tax Preparer program, usually C:\TAX.

• User's Guide for all Tax Preparer products. (Adobe Acrobat format, 1,125 KB, revised 1/19/2001)

Once you copy this file to the proper location, you can easily access it from the floating Tax Preparer Control Panel by clicking either Documents or Help, then the name User's Guide.

Tips for using on-screen manuals

HowardSoft manuals and IRS documents are supplied in PDF format for easy on-screen viewing and printing. To view these documents you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer (available free on the internet and included on HowardSoft CD-ROMs). Here are our recommendations on using the manuals and documents in concert with Tax Preparer:

• Access manuals and IRS documents through Tax Preparer. Start Tax Preparer through Windows the way you normally do, then click Documents on the floating Tax Preparer Control Panel. From the drop-down menu you can choose HowardSoft's Tax Forms Guides or the IRS's Forms and Publications. Either way, the document you choose will open in its own Adobe Reader window.
• Position Tax Preparer and Adobe Reader windows side-by-side. Reposition the main Tax Preparer window and the Adobe Reader window by dragging the top bar of each window. Once you have them where you want them, you can resize them as follows:
  • To resize Adobe Reader window: drag any corner of the window to change the size to your preferences. Resize the document within the window by clicking the Fit Page or Fit Width icon (from a Tool Bar or from View on the Menu Bar).
  • To resize Tax Preparer window: Click the icon in the top left corner of the main window. Choose Properties from the drop-down menu, then choose the Fonts tab. Change the size of the font to change the size of the window -- a larger font produces a larger window.
• Use Bookmarks to find a chapter or section. Bookmarks provide a clickable Table of Contents of for all HowardSoft manuals:
  • Click the Bookmarks tab on the left edge of the window (for recent versions of Adobe Reader only), to alternately see the bookmarks or hide them.
  • Press F5 (Bookmarks key) (for older versions of Adobe Reader only), to alternately see the bookmarks or hide them.

  Once you see the bookmarks, click any topic to jump to that section of the manual.

• Use Find or Search to find a word or phrase. Find and Search both let you find the phrase you want, but each functions in its own unique way:
  • Press ctrl-F (Find), enter a phrase, and you are taken to the first occurence of the phrase. Press ctrl-G (Find Next) and you are taken to the next occurence. (You can press ctrl-G as many times as you want until you have viewed all occurences of the phrase.)
  • Press shift-ctrl-F (Search), enter a phrase, and you are shown a list of all occurences of the phrase (along with a few surrounding words). Click any item in the list, and you are taken directly to the corresponding page. (You can return to the list as many times as you want to choose other items in the list.)

  Both options are also accessible through the Edit choice on the Adobe Reader menu bar.