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Barry MacDonnell's
Toolbox for WordPerfect

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

 Page updated May 30, 2022

WordPerfect Tips
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The Suppress feature
Some pages on this site that use Suppress or are related to it:

•  SUPDELAY (macro) - Automatically set up "second pages" with "page identifiers" using both the Suppress and Delay features

•  Delay Codes (tip) - What are "delay codes"? Why and when do they appear in the document?

•  EMPTYPGS (macro) - Clean up empty pages (suppress numbering on blank pages, etc.)

•  LETTERHD (template) - An automated letterhead template

•  Transcript (tip) - Formatting a legal Transcript document

•  How to delay headers, footers, or watermarks to another page (tip)

•  Page Numbering in Books (tips)











Note

 WordPerfect menu choices (below) 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.

What is "Suppress"?
The Suppress feature is a special format code that lets you stop the display of a header, footer, watermark, and/or page number on the specific page where Suppress is used.

If there are any pages preceding or following the page where Suppress was used, then the chosen suppressed element(s) on those preceding/following pages will still display on screen (and they will still print).

In short, Suppress tells WordPerfect: "Do not display <chosen element(s)> on this page".
Tips

To supress the display of a header, footer, watermark, and/or page number (or other items) on multiple pages — e.g., to delay their onset for "x" pages — or to delay the application of the Suppression feature until a certain page, see Delay Codes here.

In recent versions of WordPerfect, if you are not already on the first page -- i.e., the cursor is further into the document -- the [Suppress] code created by this feature is often (but not always) automatically placed into a [Delay] code located on the document's first page. (See the linked page in the tip above about the "two-codes" nature of Delay codes.)


How to use Suppress in a document or template

Suppressing certain items in a document
Example:
There may be times when you do not want a page number to appear on a particular page (e.g., on page 1) in the current document. If so, you can manually suppress numbering on that page:
•  Place your cursor on the desired page.

•  Click on Format, Page, Suppress.

A dialog appears:

The Suppress dialog

•  Enable (tick) the Page numbering check box, and click OK.
Important information about page numbering inside headers or footers

¤  The Suppress feature works only with normal page numbering (see here for more). It does not suppress page numbering you may have placed inside a header or footer. For that situation you can replace the header or footer on the appropriate page with a new one of the same type (A or B) that doesn't have the page numbering codes in it. Then insert another new one after that one, but which has the same contents as the original header or footer.

¤  Also, if you use the Property bar button (or other method such as Format, Page, Insert Page Number) to put page numbers inside a header or footer (described in footnotes here), you probably will want to turn normal page numbering off (if it was turned on) with Format, Page, Numbering, Position: <No page numbering>. Otherwise you will get two numbers on each page, one in the header or footer and one on the page itself.


Suppressing certain items in a template - Suppress or Delay an item?

Since templates are generally made up of a single page, you can simply suppress (for example) page numbering on that first page using the method above in either new templates or existing templates.

However:

For templates, a better idea might be to simply start page numbering on a subsequent page with a [Delay] code. [For more on delay codes see here.]

Using a delay code has several advantages:

(1) You can have the program automatically start the beginning page number — or other format changes — on any subsequent page, if and when such page will exist in a document created by that template.

Hence, if you use only page 1 of a document spawned by the template, then the delayed items will (naturally) not appear. If you use more than a page (and you have delayed the appearance of certain items by one page) then the items will appear on page 2 and following pages.

(2) A delay code can make switching between one type of header or footer to another type (e.g., A to B, or B to A) automatic — such as when using "second page identifiers" that differ from your first page identifiers. (For an example, see the letterhead template here.)

(3) Because delay codes are created in their own special Define Delayed Codes window, you can delay several format items with the same [Delay] code — i.e., more than just headers, footers, watermarks, and page numbers — which also might be a better way of keeping them together.

There is a small downside to using delay codes;
As with [Style] codes, you cannot use Find and Replace (or the macro equivalent commands) to search inside a [Delay] code. Hence, you will need to open the [Delay] code for editing to see what is inside it. See here for how to do this and some other information.


Notes and tips

☼  Some formatting can benefit from using both Suppress and Delay. For example, these are used in the SupDelay macro, which helps automate the insertion of these codes in your document or template.

☼  To use Suppress in new templates: Create a new custom template with File, New (or New from Project), Options button, Create WP Template. A new document will open, named Template1; you can create everything there, or import a previously created (one page) document with Insert, File. (See also "Custom Templates" for more information.)

☼  To use Suppress in existing templates: Edit the template file with File, New from Project and select the template by name, then click the Options button and choose Edit WP Template. (See also "Custom Templates" for more information.)