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

Styles

□  Styles are design elements — such as bold, italic, extra large font,  colored text, margin settings, etc. — that can be applied to text.

As the term is used here — and as WordPerfect's Help module defines them — styles are a collection of formatting attributes. While the program ships with various pre-installed styles (e.g., Heading styles), you can also create your own styles.

Once created (and saved) they can be reused in other documents by simply inserting the style (or selecting some text and applying the style to the selection) by choosing it from the "Select Style" drop list on the text property bar, or by using Format, Styles, Insert on the main menu.

Though text styles are easy to create and use, some "WordPerfectionists" never use styles, preferring to directly control formatting in the text itself, where all format codes are clearly visible in Reveal Codes. [See Footnote 1.]

Still, styles have several advantages as discussed on this page.

□  Styles are special format codes that act like containers to hold your custom formatting.

They usually hold several format codes (as above) but they can even hold text (but see Footnote 2), graphical items, tables, watermarks, and even other styles ("nested" styles).

Moreover, the items inside a style code are relatively immune from global operations (such as Find and Replace), casual user editing, or accidental deletion.

Since WordPerfect is a "stream oriented" program, styles take effect until either discontinued, replaced, or removed by another code. You can see (in Reveal Codes) just what is happening with such formatting by looking for various On and Off codes for a particular format to verify where a style begins and ends, or to check problems with overlapping or competing codes.

□  Styles are easy to create, edit, or import from other documents.

They are very easy to apply to text in your document and may be suited for a variety of tasks. They can give a consistent look to the document, and they have the big advantage of being globally changed simply by editing any single instance of a particular style in a document.

[N.B.: Such global change requires that a checkbox, "Automatically update style when changed in document," be enabled in the Styles Editor for that style. (See examples below or see the CustomStyle page for more.) Of course, if you share the document with others let them know about this setting or they might be surprised to see global changes when none were expected!]

□  Even some things we think of as separate WordPerfect features are basically just special types of style.

Headers, footers, watermarks, footnotes, endnotes, outlines, margins, comments, etc. — all are built-in styles!

There are three general types of WordPerfect text styles (for some tips on inserting and using graphic styles see here):

The type of style in effect in a document — Character, Paragraph, or Document — should be visible on the code itself in Reveal Codes. Just hover your mouse cursor over the [Style] code (or place the cursor to the left side of the code) and information about the style should appear.

By default, the program stores new styles only in the current document, but they can be saved to your template for future use, retrieved from other templates or documents, etc. (see Custom Styles).

The program displays available styles in the Format, Styles dialog. There you can create, edit, copy, and delete your styles (optionally retaining their formatting in the document). (See also the section below on how to control what is displayed in that dialog.)

Available styles are also displayed in the Select Style drop list on the Text property bar for quick access.

☼  Save them for future use: By default, customized styles are saved with the current document, but you can also save them to your default template or other template so that they will available for all new documents based on those templates. You can also copy styles from one document to another. See the Custom Styles page here.

☼  Adjust what displays in the Styles dialog's Available styles list (and also in the Select Styles drop list on the Text property bar), and/or where to save new styles. (Session-specific settings.)

To do this, click Format, Styles, Options button, Settings.

The Style Settings dialog appears.

Note: Any changes you make to this dialog's settings are operational only for the current WordPerfect session. They are reset to their defaults when you next load WordPerfect. [To manually save specific custom styles to your default (or other) template later, see the CustomStyles page here.]

Left side of dialog:

Example 1 - Create a custom style to automatically convert selected text to UPPER case

(See also Footnote 3)

To give you an idea of how easy it is to create a custom style, let's suppose you want to create a style that turns all selected text into UPPER CASE (a.k.a capital letters) because WordPerfect has no direct way to do this except by selecting some text and clicking Edit, Convert Case. UPPERCASE.

You simply create a style that uses both Small Caps and Large size. Then you can apply this custom style to text that is all lower case. This should give you something similar to all upper case for most fonts and typical sizes.

Example 3 - Create a style using a macro (Advanced users)

Here is a Character style (i.e., one that applies formatting from the current cursor location onward) that a user requested on WordPerfect Universe. It can be used to deploy a custom style on multiple machines, or just apply a custom style when needed by assigning it to a toolbar, menu, or keystroke. (To copy macro code here into WordPerfect, see CopyCode.html.)

Notes and tips

Since WordPerfect 9 was released, you cannot record a style, you have to code it manually.

The macro code below creates a style — named here "SampleStyle" — that applies Arial Black 10-point font, underlining, and red coloring to all text following the cursor location. It also creates the style in the current document only. You will want to change these parameters in your own macro. The items to change are indicated in dark red.

If you want the user to see what's going on in the document, you can force Reveal Codes "on" by using the RevealCodes(On!) command just above the rest of the commands below.

Macro writers can insert a style into a document's (or template's) initial style with a macro. See here for an example.

All commands should be on their own lines without line breaks.

// Macro begins

StyleCreate (Name: "SampleStyle"; Type: AutoCharacterStyle!; Library: CurrentDoc!)

StyleEditBegin (Style: "SampleStyle"; Library: CurrentDoc!)

StyleDescription (Description: "Sample character style")

StyleCodes (State: WithOffCodes!; Library: CurrentDoc!)

StyleEnterKeySetting (Action: StyleOff!)

Font ("Arial Black Regular")

FontSize (10p)

AttributeAppearanceToggle (Attrib: Underline!)

TextColor (Red: 255; Green: 0; Blue: 0)

SubstructureExit ()

StyleEditEnd (State: Save!)

// If you want to immediately apply the style (otherwise delete the next line):

StyleOn ("SampleStyle")

One of the big advantages of WordPerfect compared to Microsoft Word is that you don't need [custom] styles in WordPerfect. As Seth Katz said in a post on WordPerfect Universe:

"... It's fine to depend on styles when you yourself created them and know their details. Another person may not, and that person will either have to spend time excavating the document to determine the formatting of each style, or will give up and use direct formatting. If you're a mechanic you could rearrange all the controls and instruments in a car and on the dashboard to make them more efficient; don't expect anyone else to be able to get in and just start driving. Since WordPerfect [unlike Microsoft Word] doesn't depend on styles you can just apply the formatting [in WordPerfect, these are controlled by in-line codes] as the program is designed to do out of the box, and the next person will do the same. ..."

Some Microsoft Word users might say that WordPerfect codes are a drawback, that they proliferate in a document in a confusing manner. Seth continues:

"The proliferation of codes in WordPerfect is a *FEATURE*, not a bug. Each code is discrete, controlling just one aspect of formatting. Word ... aggregates its formatting because it's part of the object. You can't copy, move or delete just one part of the formatting; it's all or nothing. These discrete codes are why you can search for formatting *CHANGES* in WordPerfect [e.g., with Find and Replace], unlike Word. ...

Actually codes in WordPerfect really don't proliferate, because they don't have to. The stream-based architecture means one code controls that format aspect for all downstream text until superseded by another code [of the same family type]. Contrast that with Word, where every character, paragraph and section contains formatting.

The flush-right discussion [about how to create a small bit of text that is flush with the right margin, or mixing text justification on the same line] points out many of Word's shortcomings. Yes, you can do flush-right in Word, but that's not the point. If you had to you could type your document on a typewriter. The point is how easy, fast and convenient it is to do it. In Word, you have to customize to do it by either manually setting a tab stop or including that tab setting in a style. Later, you will not easily be able to tell which method was used. If you include it in a style, you get all the other formatting included in the style, whether you want that or not. You do not know whether it's available unless you look at the ruler or know ahead of time that it's there. If for some reason you don't want it, you have to change the tab setting or revise the style. If you revise the style, that revision takes effect for every other paragraph formatted with that style, whether you want that or not. And it's available only for that particular paragraph or when using that particular style.

One last thing: If reveal codes is so bad, why has Microsoft done everything it can to emulate it?"

Footnote 2

Starting with WordPerfect 10, Corel included Text Variables (Insert, Variable), a form of WordPerfect style that lets you place the same text in multiple document locations. 

Note that you can include text inside any style code by editing the style and including text characters along with the style's other format codes. But Text Variables can be more convenient, especially with larger blocks of text.

Caution:

In either case, if you want to convert documents that contain such complex styles to Microsoft Word, you should be aware that, since Word has no comparable feature, the text in the style will be lost after the conversion to Word. Similarly, tabs (but apparently not tab settings) inside WordPerfect styles might be lost, too.

Further, it has been reported that including text inside a Style can prevent the document from being opened in ("ported to") Microsoft Word, so it's probably best to use such styles only in WordPerfect documents that are meant for other WordPerfect users -- or for other uses, such as simply printing the document or publishing it to PDF.

Footnote 3

You can, of course, convert selected text's case with a macro.

For example, here's a macro that will convert the current sentence to all UPPER-case. (To convert just the current word, replace the parameter in the SelectOn command with WordMode!. You can also add other commands immediately after the ConvertCaseUppercase command, such as AttributeRelativeSizeToggle (Size:Small!).)

The first segment of the macro takes into account the possibility that something greater than a sentence might already be selected, such as the current paragraph. In that case, the macro will position the cursor at the beginning of the selected text before processing the text.

To copy macro code here into WordPerfect, see CopyCode.html.

// Convert the current sentence to upper case.wcm

// To convert just the current word, replace the parameter in
// the SelectOn() command with WordMode!

OnError(End@)
If(?BlockActive)
  PosSelectTop
  SelectOff
Endif

SelectOn (SentenceMode!)
PosSelectBottom
ConvertCaseUppercase
SelectOff
Label(End@)

And here's a macro that converts the currently selectred sentence to all lower-case, taking into account the possibility that the first letter of the sentence bight be automatically capitalized by WordPerfect's QuickCorrect Format-As-You-Go feature. Moreover, it takes into account the possibility that (1) something greater than a sentence might already be selected, such as the current paragraph; and (2) the sentence begins with a format code or non-alpha (i.e., not an A-Z or a-z) character. (To copy macro code here into WordPerfect, see CopyCode.html.)

// Convert the current sentence to lower case.wcm

OnError(End@)

// Position the cursor at the top of the selection -
If(?BlockActive)
  PosSelectTop
Else
  SelectOn (SentenceMode!)
  PosSelectTop
Endif
SelectOff

// Move past codes and non-letters until an upper or
// lower alpha text character is reached -
While (?RightCode>0 or
  ((not(CtoN(?RightChar)>64 and CtoN(?RightChar)<91)) and
  (not(CtoN(?RightChar)>96 and CtoN(?RightChar)<123))))
  PosCharNext
EndWhile

// Convert the first alpha character to lower-case -
SelectCharNext
vSel:=ToLower(?SelectedText)
Type(vSel)
PosCharPrevious

// Convert the rest of the sentence -
SelectOn (SentenceMode!)
ConvertCaseLowercase ()
SelectOff
Label(End@)

You could add code immediately after the ConvertCaseLowercase command to change the selected text to all caps, etc. See the ConvertCase and AttributeAppearanceToggle commands.