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

Need to reset page margins on page 2 (if there is a page 2) back to the one-inch default or some other setting?

Here's how to do it in either the current document or in a template.

Note

The following menu choices refer to the <WordPerfect> menu (right-click on the top menu bar for a choice of menus). If you use a <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.

Method

Step 1.

To modify the default template or a custom template — the most typical items to modify with the method here — see the links in the left sidebar. Otherwise, open the document you wish to modify.

Put the cursor at the top of page 1, then click Format, Page, Delay Codes. Accept the "1" in the "Number of pages..." field and click OK.

[For more on Delay codes see the left sidebar.]

Step 2.

In the Define Delayed Codes editing window that appears (its title is at the very top of the WordPerfect window), click Format, Margins (or click the Page Setup or Page Size button).

Step 3.

WordPerfect 9 and earlier - 

In the Page Setup dialog that appears, set new margins or accept the default of 1" for all margins, then click OK, then go to Step 4 below.

WordPerfect 10 and later - 

If you have not changed any margins on page 1 but you want to ensure that margins are always set back to the 1" default on any second or subsequent page, follow the instructions below. 

If you have changed any margins to a new value on page 1 you should not need these instructions (but please read them before going to Step 4).

Instructions

(a) In the Page Setup dialog that appears, change any of the margin settings a small amount, then click OK to close Page Setup. [This will insert all four margin codes in the Reveal Codes window of the Define Delay Codes screen.)

(b) Then open Page Setup again, and change the margin settings back to your default (e.g., 1") or to some other setting. Click OK to close Page Setup and return to the Define Delayed Codes window.

This extra step of changing margins a small amount in Define Delay Codes, then resetting them to the desired amount, is a workaround for a small change in WP10 and later versions. In WP9 and earlier versions the program would insert the four margin codes -- with a default 1" setting -- by simply clicking OK in Page Setup. If you just click OK in WP10+ to try and insert default margin settings, nothing happens: no codes are inserted because these newer versions remove certain "superfluous" codes in the main document.

(This trick also works for custom styles: see Footnote 1.]

Step 4.

Click Close to exit from the Define Delay Codes window. You should now be back in the main document.

In Reveal Codes, you should see a [Delay] code on page 1. Normally you should move the cursor past this new code before beginning typing your text so as not to push the code downward -- possibly to another page. (See the Tips below for a way to prevent this problem.)

Done!

Tips

Here's a tip to let you "hide" a [Delay] code so it is less likely to be moved or deleted accidentally from the page where it is defined.

Step 1. Open Reveal Codes, and in the main document area select just the new [Delay] code (this is most easily done with <Shift+arrow>), and cut it to the clipboard with <Ctrl+X>.

Notes

¤  Delay codes are actually made up of two codes: the first [Delay] code (usually located at the top of the document) tells WordPerfect what to do; the second [Delay Codes] code appears on the (delayed) page and tells WordPerfect to start doing it.

¤  You can double-click the first code of the pair to open the Define Delay Codes window; if Reveal Codes is open you can see what is inside the [Delay] code, which acts as a sort of container for other codes (and, sometimes, text or other things, such as styles).

¤  The second code of the pair ([Delay Codes]) is not clickable.

¤  Finally, like all paired WordPerfect format codes, if you delete one code, the other is also deleted.

Note

Hiding a [Delay] code only hides the first part of the code pair. The second part (the [Delay Codes] code) will be present in the document at the location prescribed by the delay procedure. Hence it can still be accidentally deleted, thereby deleting both parts of the pair! If this is a possibility with (e.g.) a Header or Footer you wish to delay to page 2, consider using the Suppress feature on page 1 instead of delaying the appearance of the Header or Footer until page 2. Then the resulting [Suppress] code can cut and pasted into the [Open Style] code after the [Header] code, as outlined in the steps below. Neither code is a paired code, so they won't have any presence in the body text area once you hide them.

Step 2. Double-click the initial [Open Style: DocumentStyle] code at the very top of the document; this opens the Style Editor for the document.

Step 3. Paste the [Delay Code] into the Styles Editor's Contents field, then click OK.

Notes

¤  Just remember to look inside the initial style code if you need to revise or delete the [Delay] code!

¤  You can use more than one Delay code in the document's initial style.

¤  Caution: Do not try to create a [Delay] code for a Header, Footer, or Watermark directly inside the document's (or template's) initial style's Styles Editor by using the menu in the Styles Editor dialog, or the program may "hang" on you under some conditions. Instead, either cut the [Delay] code from the document and paste into the Style Editor as explained above, or copy an existing [Delay] code from another document and paste it into the Styles Editor.

¤  Macro writers: You can easily incorporate formatting codes inside a document's (or template's) initial style with a macro. See here for an example.