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Macros, tips, and
templates for Corel® WordPerfect® for Windows® |
Page updated Mar 17, 2018 |
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WordPerfect
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Do you share your WordPerfect documents? If so, you probably should change your
Undo/Redo History options, and/or remove confidential
revisions or deletions before distribution. You may also want to remove all other metadata from your document before sharing it. [Metadata is data that describes other data. -Netlingo.com.] WordPerfect X3 and laterversions: You can remove most metadata
directly from a choice on the File menu. But see Microsoft Word users: MSWord has similar issues with metadata in its .DOC files. Disclaimer |
Undo/Redo HistoryWhen WordPerfect saves your document, it might also be saving much of your Undo/Redo information.If you send that document to someone they could peek into this bit of document history and see what you had cut, copied, deleted, etc. You probably don't want this to happen, so here are some solutions. ☼ Create a PDF from the document (File, Publish to PDF in WordPerfect 9 and later versions) and send the PDF to the recipient instead of the WPD original. A PDF is essentially a graphic image or
"snapshot" of the document, so WordPerfect's Undo/Redo information will
not be included in it.
☼ Change two settings in Edit, Undo/Redo History, Options. • Set the Number of Undo/Redo items to "1" (the minimum).
• Disable (un-tick) the option, "Save Undo/Redo items with document." [See also Tips below.] ☼ Remove other "metadata". If either of the above two options are not desirable,
you should at least remove some information that might have been stored
(internally) in the document. (It's a good idea anyway.)
WordPerfect X3 and later versions can remove various metadata directly from a choice on the File menu ("Save Without Metadata"). WordPerfect's built-in Help (F1) in those versions has more information: Search its Index for "Metadata". Note that not all items you might consider as metadata are removed this way and some items might be undesirable to remove such as headers and footers, or hyperlinks. See the Definitive(?) Word on Metadata below. ☼ You can also use Corel's free file repair program, WPLOOK.EXE, to remove Undo/Redo information. WPLook is included with recent versions of WordPerfect (since WordPerfect X5; see more here). If you have an earlier version of WordPerfect, an older version of WPLOOK.EXE can be downloaded from a Corel site at ftp://ftp.corel.com/pub/WordPerfect/wpwin/10/ (see also the ReadMe file there).
WPLook will work on documents created with WordPerfect 6 (Windows) and later versions. Once WPLook is downloaded and placed in a convenient folder, close the WordPerfect document that you want to process with WPlook. For detailed information on using it effectively see here. Note that you can also remove unused styles from the document with WPLook. This might help make the file smaller. Check the appropriate box on the main screen.
☼ Undo/Redo information in older WordPerfect versions (WordPerfect 12 and earlier): • Click on Edit, Undo/Redo History,
then click the Options button.
• Remove the check mark in front of "Save Undo/Redo Items with Document." • Click OK, then Close. Important: Be sure to save the document again, and then either (1) play the author's Updater macro on the file, which uses the "X-Retrieve" method of rebuilding the internal file header ("prefix"); or (2) use the X-Retrieve method on the file: The "X-Retrieve" method mentioned
on the Corel support site is often effective since it rebuilds the
internal header for the document. However, the instructions are a
little sketchy. Here's how to do it: Open a new, blank document. Type
an "x" (actually, any character); insert the problem file with
Insert>File; delete the "x"; save the file. This rebuilds a critical
internal component of the document.
Also, from Charles Rossiter (Corel
C_Tech): "My macros NewSave and
CleanSave [part of Rossiter.zip
on this site] will do the removal of all metadata for you. NewSave is
an automation of the X-Retrieve process [as is Updater]. CleanSave is similar, but
adds options to maintain file data, document summary, current document style".
☼ From Jim Shackleford: "... you may also want to change environmental settings/preferences [in Tools, Settings, Environment] to 'Format document before saving' in WP9 [and later versions]. In WP8, set the environmental setting to "Slow save". [Note: The "Slow Save / Format document before saving"
feature, if the checkbox in Tools, Settings, Environment is left
unchecked, speeds up the process of saving a document by saving only
the changes that are made to a document. Enable (check) this option to
save the entire document each time a save is performed; this will help
ensure that deleted material is not also (internally) saved along with
the document. The slower speed of such saves should not be an issue,
especially given the benefits.]
Jim has posted a macro, nometa.zip, on WordPerfect Universe's Code Snippets Forum here. It is designed to strip out metadata from Wordperfect documents (not tested by this author). • If you want to store your revisions with
the document when it is saved, you could leave "Save Undo/Redo Items with
Document" enabled as the default. If you don't share your documents
(or you share it as a PDF document) this isn't much of an issue, other than increasing the .WPD file's size
(sometimes quite a bit).
However, and more importantly, it can be hard to remember whether this setting was left enabled.
Hence, if you plan to distribute a .WPD document to others, you might want to remove metadata first. Alternatively, play the Updater macro (or Charles Rossiter's macros mentioned above) on it before sending it to someone. You can play Updater on the current document of on any stored file. Along with its other functions, Updater -- which uses a technique known as "X-Retrieve" -- will remove the Undo/Redo History which may contain confidential revisions or deletions. • As noted above, WordPerfect X3 and later versions can remove various metadata directly from a choice on the File menu ("Save Without Metadata"). WordPerfect's built-in Help (F1) in those recent versions has more information: Search its Help Index for "Metadata". • However, if you are really concerned about security, read the next section.
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