Tips & Tricks

A collection of helpful tips and tricks.

Saving Common Phrases

If you're writing a document for Generic Company Incorporated, you will probably type that company name a lot. You can save yourself some keystrokes by saving long phrases like this to a variable.

You can save up to 10 different phrases to Alt+0..9 for quick entry.

1. Press Ctrl+PgUp.
2. When prompted for a variable enter any single number, e.g. 1.
3. When prompted for a value, enter Generic Company Incorporated.

You can now press Alt+1 and Generic Company Incorporated will be inserted into your document.

Note: These variables are temporary and not saved when you exit WordPerfect.

Quick Dot Leaders

Dot leaders are the the rows of dots that make itemized lists and indexes easier to read.

     Tips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pages 13,14,18
     Tricks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Pages 22,37
     Miscellaneous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .See foo
     Other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Page 54

If you like dot leaders, there is a quick keystroke to insert them, use Alt+F6,Alt+F6.

Line Numbers

By default, the status line shows the current cursor position in inches. If you prefer line numbers, select File > Setup > Environment > Units of Measure and set Status Line Display to u.

Digraphs and Diacritics

You can insert any character from the WordPerfect character set by entering the code from Appendix P into Compose Ctrl+V. However, there are also several digraphs and diacritics -- easy to remember sequences for common character codes.

Here are some of the sequences you can type into Compose:

Code	Result	Code	Result
'e	é	tm	™
ss	ß	ro	®
/4	¼	m-	—
/2	½	L-	£
**	●	Y=	¥
co	©	"u	ü

There are many more, and many of the diacritics (",',~) work on many characters. See the chapter on Compose in the manual.

Printing Codes

It isn't usually possible to print the contents of the Reveal Codes window, but you might want to do that if you're creating documentation or reference templates.

There is a macro that comes with WordPerfect to accomplish this, press Alt+F10 and type codes. A new document will be created with the codes visible as normal text.

Home, Home, or Home?

There is a subtle difference between HomeHome↑ and HomeHomeHome↑.

The former moves the cursor to the beginning of the document after any initial codes, while the latter moves before any initial codes.

Windows Search

If you use Windows and Linux, you can have Windows automatically index your WordPerfect documents so that you can find them from Windows Explorer or the Start Menu.

Try installing wpdfilter.

PDF Links and Annotations

If you're producing a PDF, you can insert links and annotations for your readers. For example, you can make See page 6 a clickable link to page 6.

To do this, press Alt+F10 and enter pdfmark.

You can insert a code that names the current location in the output PDF, and then link to that location from anywhere else in the document.

Note: This feature is experimental, please report any issues!

WordPerfect Magazine

In the 1990s, WordPerfect published a monthly magazine with tips and advice for using WordPerfect. Lot's of the advice is still relevant to WordPerfect UNIX today.

The full archive is available online.