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Macros, tips, and templates for Corel® WordPerfect® for Windows®
© Copyright 1996-2023 by Barry MacDonnell. All Rights Reserved.

Purpose

LineWrap.wcm very quickly removes single hard returns ([HRt]) at the end of lines in plain-text (ASCII-type) files that have been pasted or otherwise imported into WordPerfect -- or any document containing adjacent lines where each line ends in a single hard return -- and replaces them with soft returns ([SRt]). (See screen shots below.)

This allows "word wrapping" of the selected words, sentences, or paragraphs and makes reformatting such items or other copied material (such as e-mail messages, selected material from PDF files, copied material from Internet sites, etc.) much faster and easier.

Important note

Double hard rerturns are retained since presumably they are used as paragraph separators -- and in fact they must exist between paragraphs for the macro to work properly. If they don't exist before playing the macro, the selected text will become a single, run together paragraph.

Screen shots

•  sample text BEFORE playing LineWrap

•  sample text AFTER selecting that text and then playing LineWrap

Tip

To later remove multiple adjacent hard returns separating paragraphs so that only single hard returns remain see the DelExtraHR.wcm macro here. You should play it after using LineWrap -- but this works best for paragraphs that already have first line indentation (i.e., using tabs, indents, etc., or by using Format, Paragraph, Format, "First line indent").

Instructions

(1) Just select the sentences or paragraphs (or the entire file, with Edit, Select, All) that you want to strip of intra-paragraph hard returns, and then -

(2) play the macro to "fix up" the file and allow the lines to wrap at the margin.

Operation (for the curious)

LineWrap does its work by opening a new document window and pasting your selection into it. Then it temporarily converts each paragraph (i.e., text ending with 2 hard returns) in the selection into a new page (which is just a format code, not a real page), strips out all hard returns on all pages, then converts the new document back into continuous paragraphs -- but without all those pesky single hard returns embedded in them. Finally, it pastes the newly stripped text back into your original document and closes the temporary window.

A cautionary note (for everyone)

As noted above, converting multiple adjacent paragraphs requires that all the paragraphs be separated by two or more hard returns. You may have to edit the document to ensure this is true before using LineWrap.

If the paragraphs are separated by a single hard return, you could use Find and Replace, and try searching for periods followed by hard return codes (.[HRt]), then replace them with a period plus two hard return codes (.[HRt][HRt]). Then select the paragraphs and play LineWrap.

Related macro

See FIXMSGS.