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Macros, tips, and templates for Corel® WordPerfect® for Windows®
© Copyright 1996-2008 by Barry MacDonnell. All Rights Reserved.

Download SoftWrap.zip (v1.01; 01/11/08; 7,344 bytes)

Compatible with WordPerfect 8-X3+

Downloading, Documentation, Modifications, and Support

WordPerfect 11 users: See important information about using macros in the first release of WP11 (11.0.0.233) at the top of this page.

Web site and e-mail addresses normally don't have spaces in them, so WordPerfect treats them as a single block of text. Wrapping such long text strings can result in a large empty space left behind in the line above. Also, if margins are narrow it can create a wrapped address that is split in the middle of a component word.

To prevent this from happening, use a hyphenation soft return [Hyph SRt] after each slash mark and double slash mark in an internet or e-mail address. (See below for other "break" characters.)

Note: In WordPerfect a hyphenation soft return is not a hyphen, it is a soft return placed where a hyphen would be inserted. If the line that contains these codes should break apart because of the length of the web site address (the URL) or the e-mail address, it will do so without adding a hyphen.

As The Chicago Manual of Style's FAQ website explains (http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/cmosfaq/ -- see under the "URLs" section):

Q. Have you established any rules for breaking Web addresses at ends of lines? I would be inclined to break at the slash where possible, with no hyphen (keeping the address intact), but what about the “dots”? Example: eic.edu.gov.on.ca/html/dsbmaps.html (I’ve got another one that’s a line and a quarter long!).

A. Your instincts are the same as ours -- when a URL must be broken over a line in a printed work, breaking after a slash is preferable (also break after a double slash). On the other hand, breaking a URL after a dot (leaving what looks like a period at the end of a line) might cause difficulties for the reader. It would be better to place the dot at the beginning of the next line. Using a hyphen to break a long word at the end of a line is not a good idea, since some URLs contain hyphens as part of the address; moreover, a hyphen that’s part of a URL should never appear at the end of a line. Further rules are as follows: break before a tilde (~), a hyphen, an underline (_), a question mark, or a percent symbol; or before or after an equals sign or an ampersand.

SoftWrap is a macro that does all this automatically. Simply select the address and play the macro. It places a hyphenation soft return after all slashes (single or double) and ampersands (@), and before a period, tilde (~), hard or soft hyphen(-), underscore (_), question mark(?), percent sign(%) or equals sign(=). It is useful for bibliographies, etc.

Thanks to "peterm" for comments that led to the idea behind this macro.