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Barry MacDonnell's
Toolbox for WordPerfect

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

Page updated Nov 10, 2018

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Using "Other Codes" in WordPerfect
(
Format > Line > Other Codes)

Related pages -

Hyphens, hard hyphens [a.k.a. "hyphen characters"], soft hyphens, and hyphenation soft returns . . . What they are and how they work

Indent paragraphs with dot leaders

Please note:

The menu choices below refer to the <WordPerfect> menu (right-click on the top menu bar for a choice of menu). If you use an older <Microsoft Word> menu, the choices might be absent from your menu (but not from the program) or they might be found under another menu selection. See here for more.


When you use Format, Line, Other Codes
you should see this dialog:

The Other Codes dialog

[Some of the above format codes can be inserted with existing shortcuts or assigned to a <shortcut key>.]

  • Hard space [HSpace]. Hard spaces, like hard hyphens [a.k.a, "hyphen characters"], are useful in several circumstances, to "glue" words, numbers or dates together to prevent them from splitting to the next line by word wrap. The default shortcut key to insert a hard space is <Ctrl+Space>.

    • [See also HSPACER, a macro to convert regular spaces in a selection of text to hard spaces. See also "Pasting as unformatted text": WordPerfect 11 and later versions converts hard spaces to regular spaces when you paste this way, but you can use a macro to avoid this.]

  • Hard tabs and Hard tabs with dot leaders. Hard tabs do not change when you change regular tab settings. Use a hard tab when you need to insert a tab without changing the tab type or affecting the tabs for the rest of the document.

    • For example, you can add a hard tab to one line in a paragraph and not change the tabs set for the other lines. You can also insert a hard tab with a dot leader. [For more on indenting paragraphs with dot leaders see here.]

    • You can use <Ctrl+Shift+Tab> or <Shift+Tab> to enter a hard back tab (a.k.a., "margin release") to outdent the first line of a paragraph.
       
    • Tips

      ▸ You can also add a button to a toolbar or property bar for a hard back tab. It's under the Format drop list in the Toolbar Editor (named "Back Tab"; its icon is an arrow pointing leftward toward a vertical bar or margin). To add it to a toolbar or property bar see here.

      ▸ See also Tab settings in WordPerfect.

  • End centering/alignment [End Cntr/Align]. This code is often used with line centering (Format > Line > Center), right tabs, or decimal tabs. It doesn't turn off justification, it simply stops previous text alignment when you insert it in a line of text, up to the next alignment code or up to a return to ordinary text.

    • For example, if you want to add text to the end of the centered line without also pushing the other text leftward, you would type some text, insert a line-center code ([Hd Center on Marg]) with <Shift+F7>, then insert the End centering/alignment code from the dialog (see above), then type the new (non-centered) text.

    • Another example: If you want to line up numbers or words in a tabbed list with a right tab, but you want to add an asterisk (*) to the end of a number/word (which would normally throw the items out of alignment), just insert the End centering/alignment code [End Cntr/Align] after the number/word and immediately type the astersisk or other material. [Thanks to Jycast, Robin, and Noal Mellot at WordPerfect Universe for this tip.]

  • Hyphens. See "Hyphens, hard hyphens [a.k.a., "hyphen characters"], soft hyphens, and hyphenation soft returns . . . What they are and how they work" here.

  • Cancel hyphenation of word. This codes wraps words that span the hyphenation zone to the next line.

  • Thousands separator. You can change the character used to separate hundreds from thousands.