Split Words Perfect - Aug/Sep '03

Split Words Perfect
A look at what’s new, hyphenation and symbols in WordPerfect.
By Richard C. Belthoff, Jr.

What’s New? Corel WordPerfect 11 is now shipping. I have not received a copy yet, so I can’t tell you how well it works, or how useful the new features might be, but some of them sound interesting.

The “Publish to PDF” feature has been enhanced to allow you to print to Adobe Acrobat 5 format. Now you should be able to print your “Reveal Codes” window so you can view your formatting selections in hard copy. I have a vague recollection that this could be done in some earlier version, but I don’t recall it working very well. There is a new WordPerfect Classic Mode so you can work with the original WordPerfect 5.1 blue screen and keyboard. It must be an effort to get those old DOS diehards to convert to the Windows version.

There are other changes, but I will wait to describe them until after I get my copy to play with. In the meantime, here are some answers to common questions when using WordPerfect.

How do I word wrap two words with a slash?
If you separate two words with a slash (e.g., “and/or”), WordPerfect treats the combination as one word, and word wraps the entire combination to a new line if there isn’t enough room for the combination at the end of a line, even if you have hyphenation turned on. This can be a problem if you combine two long words with a slash. What can you do about this? WordPerfect has a “Hyphenation soft return” feature that will break the combination at the slash without inserting a hyphen.

To insert a hyphenation soft return, place the insertion point after the slash and select “Format,” “Line,” then “Other Codes” to display the “Other Codes” dialog (see Figure 1). Click the “Hyphenation soft return” button, and then “OK.” If you turn on “Reveal Codes” (“Alt+F3”), you will see the [HyphSRt] code after the slash.

Figure 1

By the way, there is no corresponding feature in Microsoft Word for WordPerfect’s “Hyphenation soft return” feature. However, there is a trick that will allow you to achieve the same effect. If you insert an empty “Advance code” after the slash, the empty “Advance code” will allow the slash combination to word wrap at the slash without inserting a hyphen.

What are the other hyphenation options?
If you look at the “Other Codes” dialog (Figure 1), you will notice there are other hyphenation options available.

The “Hyphen” option inserts a hyphen in a word or word combination. This type of hyphen will always appear on screen and will word wrap at the end of a line. This is the same hyphen you get when you press the hyphen key on your keyboard, so there really is no reason to enter it from the “Other Codes” dialog. This is just an example of how WordPerfect makes all features available on its menus just in case you need them. In “Reveal Codes,” this hyphen code appears as [- Hyphen].

A soft hyphen is used to insert a hyphen within a word that might not be in WordPerfect’s hyphenation dictionary. The soft hyphen remains hidden unless it falls at the end of a line (i.e., the end portion of the word containing the soft hyphen wraps to the next line). You can enter a soft hyphen from the “Other Codes” dialog, or press “Ctrl+Shift+-” (that last character is the hyphen key on your keyboard). The soft hyphen code appears as [- Soft hyphen] in the “Reveal Codes” display.

What if I don’t want a word to hyphenate?
WordPerfect includes two options for not hyphenating words: the hard hyphen and the “Cancel hyphenation of word” function. The hard hyphen can be inserted between two words you want to remain together, even though there might be a hyphen between them. You can insert a hard hyphen from the “Other Codes” dialog by clicking on the “Hyphen character” button, or you can press “Ctrl+-” as well. In “Reveal Codes,” you will see a “-” character for a hard hyphen. When a hard hyphen falls at the end of a line, it doesn’t break the two-word combination and the entire combination wraps to the next line. The “Cancel hyphenation of word” function can be used to prevent a single word from hyphenating at the end of a line, even though it would usually break at the end of a line.

This feature is used sparingly, usually when WordPerfect’s hyphenation defaults put a hyphen in the wrong place in a word, or when there are too many hyphens in a row in a paragraph. To insert a “Cancel hyphenation of word” code, put the insertion point in front of the word and enter the code from the “Other Codes” dialog, or press “Ctrl+/” on your keyboard. In “Reveal Codes,” the code appears as [Cancel Hyph]. As far as I can tell, there is no corresponding “Cancel hyphenation of word” function in Word other than for an entire paragraph. If anyone knows of a way to mimic this function in Word, please let me know.

How do I insert fancy symbols?
In legal writing, commonly used symbols include the section symbol, the paragraph symbol, the trademark symbol and the copyright symbol. There are several ways to insert each symbol into a WordPerfect document.

All symbols can be inserted using the “Symbols” dialog. To do so, go to the “Insert” drop-down menu and choose “Symbols” (see Figure 2). At the top of the dialog, you can select the symbol set (e.g., iconic, typographic, etc.). The legal symbols are found in the “Typographic Symbols” set. To insert a “§” symbol, click the symbol in the dialog and then click either “Insert” or “Insert and Close.” “Insert” will insert the symbol and leave the “Symbols” dialog displayed in case you need to insert other symbols. “Insert and Close” will insert the symbol and close the dialog.

Figure 2

The alternative to using the “Symbols” dialog is to use the “Alt” key plus the numeric keypad on your keyboard (not the number keys across the top of the keyboard). On most Windows systems, “Alt+21” will insert a “§” symbol and “Alt+20” will insert a “¶” symbol. Typing “(c” will insert the “©” symbol. The “™” symbol doesn’t appear to have a keyboard shortcut, but you can use the “QuickCorrect” feature to create a keyboard shortcut for it.

To do this, first insert the “™” symbol from the “Symbols” dialog into a document. Select the symbol and copy it. Select “Tools,” and then “QuickCorrect” to display the “QuickCorrect” dialog (see Figure 3). In the “Replace” box, type “(tm)” (or whatever keystroke trigger you want to use to insert the “™” symbol). In the “With” box, paste the “™” symbol you copied to the clipboard. Then click “Add Entry” and “OK.” When you type “(tm)” in your document, WordPerfect will then substitute the “™” symbol.

Figure 3

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Richard C. Belthoff Jr. is vice president and assistant general counsel at Wachovia Corp. He can be reached via e-mail at Richard.Belthoff@Wachovia.com.