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Macros, tips, and templates for Corel® WordPerfect® for Windows®
© Copyright 1996-2024 by Barry MacDonnell. All Rights Reserved.

Download SPLITTER.ZIP (v1.01; 07/24/21; 17,626 bytes) Written in WordPerfect X5 and updated in WordPerfect 2020, but should be compatible with other versions. 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. Downloading, Documentation, Modifications, and Support

See also Clipper - A macro that lets you select material in the current document (or any open WP document) and automatically clip (copy or move) it to a separate temporary document.

Download and extract the macro from the ZIP file (◄- left sidebar), and place it in your default or supplemental macro folder. (See the "Downloading..." link in the left sidebar if you need help.)

Make a copy of your original document as a backup. Then -

[1.] Insert temporary "separators" into the current document.

Place a WordPerfect symbol (with Ctrl+w) or any special character string not otherwise used in the current document (e.g., @#$%) at the end of every section you wish to save as a separate new file.

Be sure to include one separator at the very end of the current document if you wish the last section of the document to also be included as a file in the storage folder (described in step 2).

Careful placement of the separators is recommended. You probably do not want to split material that belongs in the same new file, so be aware of anything that connects one item to another further down in the current document, such as footnotes, endnotes, cross-references, headers, footers and watermarks.

Even with close attention to where the current document should be split, you might still need to edit the split documents to reestablish the placement and function of these "spanning" items.

Example: Headers are started on a given page and only display on subsequent pages until stopped or replaced. Splitting a document containing a preexisting header into another document qualifies as "stopping" the header in that new document. Solution: Just copy the original header's contents into a new header in the new, split file.

Notes

☐  The macro will start from the top of the document and select everything up to — but not including — the first separator. It will then save that selection to a new, numbered file on disk. It then skips over that separator and repeats the process, thereby splitting the current file into the desired sections, each in its own new file on disk.

☐  Here, the default separator expected by the macro is a single heart symbol (i.e., which is symbol 5,0 using Ctrl+w), but you can use any other symbol or symbols. (See also step 5 below.)

☐  The current file is not affected by the splitting process. But note that it will still contain the separators you inserted. These can be removed with Edit, Undo or by simply closing the original without saving it — or if it's a copy of the original, the copy can be discarded.

[2.] Create a special storage folder on your computer to contain the new files.

Use Windows File Explorer (or similar file manager) to create the new folder in any convenient location.

The folder can be named anything but generally you will want to use a fairly short path to it and a short folder name.

[3.] Enter the full path to that storage folder at the top of the macro's redlined User Modification Area. Be sure to include the drive letter.

For example, the default used by the author is -

    C:\Users\Barry\Documents\Temp2\

You can also change the root portion of the filenames — i.e., the part without the incrementing number — and/or filename extension (.wpd is the default) to use for the new files to be stored in that folder. (See the User Modification Area.)

[4.] Specify the File Type for the split files in the User Modification Area. You can choose one of four types to use for the split files:

•  WordPerfect (.WPD) (<= the default)
•  Rich Text Format (.RTF)
•  ANSI Windows Text (.TXT)
•  ANSI (Windows) Generic Word Processor (.TXT)

Notes

You should always test the output of these choices by opening the resulting split files in their intended program (e.g., WordPerfect, WordPad, etc.).

☐  The WordPerfect file type of split files should be identical (or nearly so) to the original document's selected segments. Some manual editing of split files may be required in complex documents (e.g., if a footnote/endnote/cross-reference calling number is in one split file and the note/reference is in a subsequent split file).

☐  The Rich Text Format (see Wikipedia for more) file type retains text attributes (e.g., bold), graphics, hypertext links, tabs, indents, word wrap, etc. However, it strips out WordPerfect styles (e.g., Heading styles) and the text to which the style was applied when the split file is opened in another program (e.g., WordPad). Hence, some editing of these split files may be required.

☐  The ANSI Windows Text type is what you might expect in Windows NotePad and similar plain text editor: It strips out almost all WordPerfect formatting (replaces tabs and indents with spaces), and there's no word wrap.

☐  The ANSI (Windows) Generic Word Processor type also strips out WordPerfect formatting but retains Tab codes, converts Indents to Tab codes, and retains WordPerfect's end-of-line SRt codes to preserve word wrap.

In many instances this choice produces a preferred "plain text" output since its content is often closest to the content (minus most formatting) in the original WordPerfect document.

[5.] Enter the same symbol(s) or character(s) (discussed in step 1 above) in the User Modification Area — see the vSplitter variable there.

The macro uses the value stored in this variable to search for the same symbols or characters in the document itself.

Recommendation

Try to use a single symbol or character as the separator — although the macro should compensate for multiple symbols/characters.

If you use multiple characters, you need to be sure that the full string of symbols exists at each separation point in the document (as separators) and in the macro itself (in vSplitter).

[6.] Set any other macro options in the User Modification Area.

[7.] Save your changes to the macro with Save & Compile on the macro toolbar (image) or with File, Save.

Play the macro on any open file that has the appropriate separators (step 1 above) in it.

Tip: Once the separate files are created they can be used as Subdocuments in a Master document (See MakeSubs in the Library.)