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Macros, tips, and templates for Corel® WordPerfect® for Windows®
© Copyright 1996-2013 by Barry MacDonnell. All Rights Reserved.

Migrating from Microsoft Word to WordPerfect

Microsoft Word menus vs. WordPerfect menus

If you are using a WordPerfect program that was set up with Microsoft Word compatible menus, toolbars, and/or keyboards you might find some program tips or advice puzzling if they refer to menu selections, toolbar buttons, or keyboard shortcuts that are absent from these three features. The features have not actually been removed from the program; they are merely hidden from view (probably on the theory that they might confuse long-time Microsoft Word users who are new to WordPerfect).

• The menu options discussed on various other pages on this site are always available on a WordPerfect menu. If you don't see them, right-click on the top menu bar (the "main" horizontal menu) and choose a <WordPerfect> menu from the pop up list.
• Later versions of WordPerfect (version 12+) have a Workspace Manager (on the Tools menu) that allows users to quickly set up WordPerfect to simulate a MSWord environment (it does not actually run MSWord, and in any case it was designed to be used temporarily). Unfortunately, this feature hides many standard WordPerfect functions and, in the case of keyboards, it hides many useful keyboard shortcut assignments. However, the Workspace Manager lets you quickly flip back and forth between various WordPerfect and MSWord environments to help Word users adjust to WordPerfect. [See WordPerfect's Help (F1) feature, Search tab, and search for "Simulating the Microsoft Word workspace".]
• Later versions of WordPerfect have help available for MSWord users who are using WordPerfect: Click Help, Microsoft Word Help.

Basic differences between the two programs

You may want to visit http://www.wpvsword.com/. That site contains comparisons of the various versions of each program. For example, for a comparison between WordPerfect 11 and Microsoft Word 11: http://www.wpvsword.com/wp11vsword11/. It is especially useful to note the fundamental difference in the way the programs are structured: http://www.wpvsword.com/wp11vsword11/index.php. The brief discussion there on "stream formatting" in WordPerfect can help you solve many formatting problems in WordPerfect. [Hence the reason why Reveal Codes (click View, Reveal Codes on any <WordPerfect> menu) is so valuable in troubleshooting formatting issues in WordPerfect.] A good example is using WordPerfect to set up mixed text justification (left-center-right) on the same line, which is much easier to do in WordPerfect.

Is WordPerfect more cost-effective than MSWord? A very experienced user of both programs compared certain features of both programs in a "production environment" in TechnoLawyer (2006); see this thread in WordPerfect Universe.

Tips on applying fonts and other formatting to a WordPerfect document

[The following references to particular menu choices assumes you are using a <WordPerfect> menu, not a <MS Word> menu. However, the information about formatting documents applies to either menu.]

When applying new fonts or other formatting to a WordPerfect document, problems can appear that might seem mysterious because users often have trouble seeing how WordPerfect structures a document and how it applies formatting.

[Note: As noted in the previous section, a good (and brief) overview of the fundamental approach that WordPerfect uses, stream formatting, can be seen here: http://www.wpvsword.com/wp11vsword11/index.php. The site also describes how Microsoft Word differs in its formatting approach from the one used by WordPerfect. This might help those who use both programs or who are making a transition from one to the other.]

Basically, formatting is carried out in WordPerfect by special format codes, which are visible in the Reveal Codes window, along with your text. (Click on View, Reveal Codes to open the Reveal Codes window pane.)

If you visualize all the things you can type (or otherwise insert) into a WordPerfect document -- including WordPerfect symbols using <Ctrl+W> and standard format codes like tabs and margin settings -- as existing in a sort of stream, where any particular item can be "downstream" from some things while simultaneously being "upstream" from others, then you understand the core of the stream formatting idea.

Some format codes are single codes, which simply switch on the desired formatting at that point in the document, while others are paired codes where one code turns the formatting on and the other turns it off.

Let's follow the stream from its beginnings.

In WordPerfect all documents are based on a template, a special file with a .WPT filename extension. The template itself is upstream from the document, and is used to create ("spawn") an unlimited number of duplicates of itself when you use File, New (or New from Project).

The new, open document is now (effectively) downstream from the template, but it carries with it ("inherits") the formatting that exists in the parent template.

Essentially, the template's fonts and other formatting are carried into the new document by means of a special container-like code at the very top of all WordPerfect documents. If you open Reveal Codes you will see this code as [Open Style: DocumentStyle]. The document retains this initial style code and its contents when you save it. (But it easily can be edited, as we shall see.)

"Open" style here means that this special style code -- or more precisely, the settings inside the code -- stays in effect for the rest of the document, unless the settings inside it are removed or changed, or unless they are superseded by other settings (e.g., new fonts or format codes, such as a new page margin) that are farther downstream from it.

This [Open Style: DocumentStyle] code can be edited by double-clicking directly on it in Reveal Codes, or by using File, Document, Current Document Style. Either of these methods opens the Styles Editor dialog for the current document's initial style. Sometimes you might want to remove, change, or add new format codes inside this document code. To do this you typically would use the menu and/or toolbar you will see inside the Styles Editor dialog. (You can even copy and paste things from a document into the Styles Editor's Contents pane, but that's another story.)

The important point is this: If you edit the Open Style code, your changes will take effect in the document and all its substructures -- headers, footers, footnotes, endnotes, text boxes, etc. -- unless and until some other similar code is inserted farther downstream in the document itself (or inside a particular substructure), in which case the newer code will supercede the older, upstream one.

[Note that these changes are just for the current document. However, you can save the changes to the template itself with the checkbox, "Use as default," at the bottom of the dialog. (Be sure to reset the box so that future changes are not automatically added to the template.) The changes then will become part of the template and they will be active in each new document based on that template.]

You can, of course, return to the document and select the entire document with your mouse (or the Edit menu), and then apply new formatting globally to the document using the main WordPerfect menu or perhaps a property bar (if visible). The new format codes will replace any existing codes of the same type (e.g., a new [Font]) that might be in the document. This is an easy way to change the format for the entire document's body text area. (To change a substructure's font, such as a footnote, you will need to modify either the font in each footnote, or edit the [Open Style] code and apply the new font there so that it is inherited by all substructures in the document.)

You can also select smaller sections and apply formatting to just those sections. Notice there will now be one or more beginning and ending codes -- a code pair -- surrounding the previously selected material. Again, these paired "on" and "off" codes are downstream from any codes inside the initial [Open Style] code, and will take precedence over them if they are the same type of codes (e.g., a [Font] or [Font Size] code).

Finally, these codes can be found and replaced with Edit, Find and Replace (but see Footnote 1). In the F&R dialog, use the menu to Match Font or Match Codes. More simply, you can use a macro to replace or augment the codes, such as Ron Hirsch's REPLACE CODES macros.

Related tips

• See the main Tips page and the Tips List page.
• Delete all  codes: If you want to strip out all format codes from the current document or from a current selection of material to produce "pure text," first copy the selected text to the Windows clipboard (Ctrl+C), then immediately paste the copied text back with Edit, Paste Special, Unformatted text. [Be aware this can change some format codes you might wish to retain, such as (in WP11 and later versions) hard spaces, regular hyphens and soft hyphens. (See http://wptoolbox.com/tips/PSpecial.html for more.) Still, this can be a useful technique, especially to convert outlines and numbered or bulleted lists to plain-text versions.]
• Delete just some codes: See the DelCodes macros.
• Change format codes into text markers: See the Code2Txt macro.
• Replace or augment format codes with other codes: See Replace Codes - Plus by Ron Hirsch.
• Replace one [Style] code with another: See the ReplStyle macro.

There is an exception to this: Find and Replace (or the macro equivalent commands) cannot find a code within another code -- such as inside [Style] or [Delay] codes. (This includes the initial [Open Style: DocumentStyle] code at the very top of a document., created by the template that spawned the document] These codes act like little containers, and you will need to edit them manually (double click on the code in Reveal Codes) to see if a code you are looking for exists in them.