About this page | Copy, cut, and paste directly to and from Windows | LineBreak code | Smart quotes for WPDOS 5.1 | Open multiple copies of WPDOS | Windows-style block selection for WPDOS 5.1 | Change DOS-style short filenames (WPDOS 6.x) | Multiple file-search macro for WPDOS 6.x | Convert merge data files to tables | WPDOS 6.x macro finds two strings in same sentence or context | Font-finding macro for WPDOS 5.1 | Multiple keyboards for WPDOS 5.1 | Macros for Western European languages in WPDOS 5.1 | Easy classical Greek typing in WPDOS 5.1 | Home page
This page will contain macros and other files that allow WPDOS to use features introduced in later versions of WPWIN, or allow WPDOS 5.1 to use functions available in WPDOS 6.x. Please feel free to contact me with suggestions for more items that might belong on this page.
These macros are for use with WPDOS running under 32-bit Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, or 10. If you have 32-bit Windows, you will know that you do. This site's two systems for running WPDOS under 64-bit Windows, vDosWP and DOSBoxWP, both include separate Copy and Paste macros; do not install the macros described on this page into those systems.
A set of macros by Robert Holmgren makes it possible to copy, cut, and paste directly between WPDOS and Windows applications. After installing these macros, you can use a single keystroke (for example, Alt-V) to paste into WPDOS any text that you have selected in a Windows application (for example, Word or your browser) and copied to the Windows clipboard. Another keystroke (for example, Alt-C) lets you copy selected text in WPDOS directly to the Windows clipboard so that you can paste it into a Windows program (for example, Word) simply by pressing Ctrl-V. With these macros, you no longer need to reduce a WPDOS session to a Window and use the tedious Edit/Mark/Paste and similar methods formerly required when transferring text between WPDOS and Windows.
Note: Current versions of Tame provide a convenient Paste feature that may, for some users, be preferable to the Paste macro described on the current page. See the Tame page for details. You may use Tame-based Paste and macro-based Paste in the same system; they do not conflict with each other.
You may download and run a program that automatically installs these macros for WordPerfect 6.x or 5.1, or you may install them by hand by using the instructions for manual installation below.
Warning: These macros may cause WPDOS to shut down when used under Windows Vista or Windows 7. Experiment with them a few times before making regular use of them.
An automatic installation program for these macros: Download and run this InstallClipMacros.exe program. It will automatically install the macros and other required files for your version of WPDOS 6.x or 5.1 (or both). The program runs under all 32-bit versions of Windows starting with Windows 95. If your version of WPDOS 5.1 is too old to support these macros, the installer will refuse to install them.
If your anti-virus program warns you that InstallClipMacros.exe is dangerous, ignore the warning. I used software called AutoIt to put together the installer, and AutoIt has sometimes been used by unruly teenagers to create deliberately misbehaving programs, but AutoIt itself is absolutely harmless. Your anti-virus program's warning is the intellectual equivalent of: "You are trying to borrow a hardcover book from the library; some hardcover books are fictional or subversive; I will therefore prevent you from borrowing any hardcover books."
When the installer finishes, it displays documentation in your browser. Near the top of the documentation file is a line that reads (approximately): "Do not ignore the absolutely essential configuration steps described elsewhere on this page"; that line links to full instructions for the configuration steps required. If you have Windows 95, 98, or Me, and you ignore these absolutely essential configuration steps, then these macros are absolutely guaranteed not to work!
Instructions for manual downloading and installation: Before downloading the macros, make sure that you know which version of WPDOS you are using: either 6.x (that is, 6.0, 6,1, or 6.2) or 5.1, and download only the correct set of macros for your version. The macros for 6.x will not work with 5.1, and the macros for 5.1 will not work with 6.x. Don't even think about using mismatched versions.
Manual installation for WordPerfect for DOS 6.0, 6.1, or 6.2: The set of macros for WPDOS 6.x may be downloaded in this self-extracting ClipWP6.exe file. (Note: Slightly updated, 26 November 2009; users of earlier versions should download the updated files, replace your existing files, reinstall them into any keyboard layout that uses them, and reconfigure the macros.) Before downloading it, run WPDOS and use Shift-F1/Location of Files to learn the exact name your Macro/Keyboard, etc. Personal directory (if two directories are listed, you must use the Personal directory, not the Shared directory; if only a Shared directory is listed, you must also specify a Personal directory, which can be exactly the same as the Shared directory). This directory will typically be something like C:\WP62\MACROS. After downloading ClipWP6.exe, copy or move it into the Macro/Keyboard, etc. Personal directory. Open a DOS prompt or command prompt (Help! How do I open or create a DOS prompt?), navigate to your WP Macro directory and run the ClipWP6.exe program to extract the eight files included.
Note: Users of WordPerfect 6.0, 6.0a, 6.0b, and 6.0c only (not 6.1 or 6.2) must replace the macros in the file above with the revised macros prepared by "Alastair" and available in an attachment to his detailed posting on WordPerfect Universe. Extract the three files from the ZIP archive; rename them with a ".WPM" file extension instead of a ".60" file extension, and use these macros instead of the original macros from the archive above.
The ClipWPD.htm file included in the archive (and viewable in your web browser) gives full instructions. Read and follow the instructions before you run the macros for the first time! See the "Troubleshooting" paragraph below in case of difficulty after you have read and correctly followed the instructions.
Manual installation for WordPerfect for DOS 5.1: The set of macros for WPDOS 5.1 may be downloaded in this self-extracting ClipWP5.exe file. Before downloading it, run WPDOS and use Shift-F1/Location of Files to learn the exact name your Macro/Keyboard, etc. directory. This directory may be something like C:\WP51\MACROS; if no directory is listed, enter the name of your main WP directory. After downloading ClipWP5.exe, copy or move it into whichever directory is now listed as your Keyboard/Macro directory. Open a DOS prompt or command prompt (Help! How do I open or create a DOS prompt?), navigate to your WP Macro directory and run the ClipWP5.exe program to extract the files included.
The Clip5WPD.htm file included in the archive (and viewable in your web browser) gives full instructions. Read and follow the instructions before you run the macros for the first time! See the "Troubleshooting" paragraph below in case of difficulty after you have read and correctly followed the instructions.
Troubleshooting:
If you install the files correctly, but the macros fail to work correctly, then try the following solutions:
WordPerfect for DOS does not support a built-in linebreak code that begins a new line without beginning a new paragraph. The linebreak feature (which has always been supported by Microsoft Word) is useful for indenting or applying other format to large amounts of text like poetry and lists; without it, each line must be formatted as a separate paragraph.
WordPerfect for Windows 8.0 and later supports the linebreak feature through a [Ln Brk] code that can be inserted with Ctrl-Shift-L. If a document is created with this code in WPWIN and is then opened in WPDOS6.x, the code displays as [TSRt], which is the same "Temporary Soft Return" code that WPDOS inserts in special circumstances in order to deal with formatting problems. The [TSRt] cannot be entered directly in WPDOS, but it can be searched.
This self-extracting archive contains a LINEBRK.WPM macro that inserts a [TSRt] linebreak code in WPDOS6.x. It works by retrieving a LINEBRK.SRC document (supplied with the macro) that contains a [TSRt] code created by WPWIN. Copy both files to your macro directory; further instructions are included in the LINEBRK.TXT file included in the archive.
The macro can be run by pressing Alt-F10 and entering LINEBRK, but you may find it more convenient to attach the macro to a Ctrl- or Alt-key in your keyboard definition.
Note: In WPDOS 5.1, a line break may be simulated by inserting a Justification code (Shift-F8, 1, 3) at any point in a line except immediately after an [HRt] code. This has the effect of inserting a [DSRt] code (Deletable Soft Right) which acts as a line break.
The "smart quotes" feature in WPDOS 6.1 and 6.2 (but not included in 6.0) automatically converts straight quotation marks (" and ') into left and right "curly" typographic quotation marks as you type. This feature may be added to WPDOS 5.1 through the use of two macros, very slightly modified from originals by Elden Nelson, and posted here with his generous permission.
Before downloading these macros, run WPDOS 5.1, use Shift-F1/Location of Files, and note the directory listed for Keyboard/Macro Files. Now download the following two files into that directory (you may need to right-click on the links and choose Save Target As... or Save Link As...):
When the two macro files are in your macro directory, open WPDOS 5.1, use Shift-F1/Keyboard Layout and either edit your currently selected keyboard layout or create a new one (perhaps by copying an existing one), and select the new one that you create. Choose Edit to edit the selected layout.
In the Keyboard:Edit menu, choose Retrieve; at the Key: prompt, press the apostrophe (') key; WP immediately displays the Macro: prompt. Enter the name SMQUOSNG. The "smart single quotes" macro will be added to the list of key assignments.
Again choose Retrieve; at the Key: prompt, press the double-quotation mark key (on US keyboards, shift-apostrophe); WP immediately displays the Macro: prompt. Enter the name SMQUODBL. The "smart double quotes" macro will be added to the list of key assignments.
(If you ever want to remove these macros, highlight them in the list of key assignements, and choose Original.)
Press F7 until you return to the editing screen, and experiment by typing some text with single and double quotation marks. Double quotation marks will display as blocks, but will appear correctly in Print Preview and on the printed page. To see double quotation marks on the editing screen (full-screen only, not in a window on the Windows desktop), choose Shift-F1/Display/Colors-Fonts-Attributes, and select item 5, 512 Characters, 8 Foreground Colors.
German-language version: The same functions are available in two macros that provide German-style typographic quotation marks. The separate macros are available as SQDEUDBL.WPM and SQDEUSNG.WPM. These macros were prepared with the help of Reinhard Markner.
When a DOS application such as WPDOS displays directory names in its File Manager (F5) screen, it displays the "short filenames" of files that have "long filenames" in Windows. Thus "My Documents" in Windows appears as something like DOCUME~1 in the WPDOS File Manager.
A WPDOS 6.x macro created for this site makes it possible to change the "short filename" to something more friendly than DOCUME~1 (for example, MYDOCS) while leaving the Windows-style "long filename" unchanged. Download SETSFN.ZIP; extract SETSFN.WPM and move it into your WPDOS 6.x macro directory.
To use this macro, start in any editing screen in WPDOS 6.x; it does not matter whether or not a document is open. Run the set SETSFN macro; it will explain that you should now navigate in the File Manager to the file whose short filename you want to change, and press F9 to select that file. You will next be prompted to select a short filename. Then the macro will tell you whether or not it was able to change the short filename. You will not be able to change the short filenames of directories controlled by Windows and not by an individual user, such as the Windows directory, the Users or Documents and Settings directory, and others.
If anyone wishes to write a WPDOS 5.1 version of this macro, I will be happy to post it here.
If, in 32-bit Windows, you want to open more than one copy of WPDOS at the same time, use one of the following two methods:
Either 1... Download the appropriate version of Run-WP.exe for your WPDOS version, either Run-WP.exe for WPDOS 5.1 or Run-WP.exe for WPDOS 6.x. Extract the Run-WP.exe file from the archive and place it in the same folder that contains your version of WP.EXE You can repeatedly launch WPDOS by clicking on one of these Run-WPexe files, and each instance of WPDOS will store its temporary files in a separate temporary directory.
After you place Run-WP.exe in the same folder with your WP.exe file, check what the name of your WP shortcut (PIF file) is. That name is probably WP (and you'll see it under that name in the same folder that contains WP.EXE). If, however, you renamed the PIF file to something like WP62, then rename Run-WP.exe to Run-WP62.exe. It will launch the PIF file whose name matches whatever comes after "Run-" in the name that you gave the Run-WP program. Make sure that your PIF file does not use the /d-d:\path switch which sets the location of temporary files. Then run Run-WP.exe (or whatever you named it), to launch WPDOS. Then run it again to launch another instance of WPDOS. You can create a desktop shortcut to this file that includes any WP startup switches you like, except the /d- switch. You can, of course, drop files on the shortcut to open them in WPDOS.
... or 2. Download, edit, and run this MULTIWP.BAT batch file. After downloading the file, edit in a text editor (for example, Windows Notepad or ED.EXE), following the instructions near the top. Create a desktop shortcut for the batch file (Help! What's a shortcut?) and modify it, adapting the procedure for creating a WPDOS shortcut outlined elsewhere on this site.
In Windows applications, you can select a block of text by holding down the shift key and moving the arrow or other direction keys. A pair of keyboard definitions by Timothy J. McGowan make it possible to use similar keyboard selection in WordPerfect for DOS 5.1 with "extended" (101 or more keys) keyboards. Download this self-extracting SHFTBLOK.EXE archive. Move it to a temporary and empty directory and run it to extract the files. Read the Readme.txt file very carefully. Then copy or move the files into your WPDOS 5.1 macro directory. You can identify the directory with Shift-F1/Location of Files. This macro works only with WordPerfect for DOS 5.1 versions dated 06/29/90 or later. You can determine the date of your version by pressing the Help key (usually F3); the date appears in the upper-right-hand corner of the screen.
Note: Similar capabilities are built into the final version of WPDOS 6.2 available by applying the patch file available from this site.
SRCHFILS.wpm, by Robert Holmgren, is a macro for searching multiple files in WPDOS 6.x, and optionally searches for complex combinations of strings such as "string1 AND string2", "string1 OR string2", and "string1 BUT NOT string2". For many uses, this is a faster and more convenient alternative to the built-in QuickFinder Search feature (F5, F4). Download the macro and explanatory text in this SRCHFILS.ZIP archive file; copy the macro and optionally the explanatory text into your macro directory, and experiment.
Recent versions of WordPerfect for Windows can convert WP merge data files into tables. This CONVDATA.FRM file, slightly adapted from a file written by Debra Earle, adds this ability to WPDOS 5.1 and 6.x.
Download the file by clicking the link above (you may need to right-click on the link and select Save Target As... or Save Link As...). Open the downloaded file in WPDOS. Full instructions are included in the file. The file is in WP 5.1 format, and may be opened and used in WPDOS 5.1, 6.x, or any version of WordPerfect for Windows.
Reinhold Grünendahl has written a macro that solves this problem: Where in my document do I find String1 followed by String2 either (a) in the same sentence or part thereof (marked by final .,?! or any punctuation marks of my choice) or (b) within the next n characters following String1 (maximum range: 254 characters)? To use the proverbial example: How do I find "apples" and "pears" in context if they are not found adjacent to each other? An additional advantage: By entering "apple" as String1 and "pear" as String2, the context search encompasses "apple ... pear", "apples ... pear", "apple ... pears" and "apples ... pears". The macro may be downloaded in this SRCHCONT.ZIP archive file. (Note: Revised and corrected version posted 21 February 2006.)
These are some macros that may be useful for finding and replacing fonts under WPDOS 5.1.
(a) WPDOS 5.1 does not have the ability to find and replace specific fonts. The FINDFONT.WPM macro in this self-extracting FINDFONT.EXE archive provides the ability to find and replace fonts in documents, styles, or both. Run the FINDFONT.EXE program to extract the macro file, and move the macro file into your WPDOS 5.1 macro directory. You can identify the directory with Shift-F1/Location of Files. (A similar macro is supplied with the Macros keyboard in WPDOS 5.1+.)
Note: I do not want to treat this site as a repository of miscellaneous macros, but having worked very hard to write this font-finding macro in 1990, I thought it might still be of some use, and have therefore posted it. The section of the code that modifies the macro itself is based entirely on pioneering work by Gordon McComb.
Note: A corrected and internationalized version of this macro was provided by Niek Campagne and posted on 10 June 2006. Font-replacing macros that work in both left-to-right and right-to-left documents (Arabic and Hebrew) may be found elsewhere on this site (see item (d) below)
(b) The WPDOS 5.1 macro described above cannot search and replace specific point sizes. Niek Campagne has written a Shell 3.0 macro that can search and replace fonts with specific point sizes in WPDOS 5.1. Download this SHELLFINDFONT.ZIP archive, which contains the Shell macro, two additional files, and an instruction file. Important reminder: To run this macro, do not launch the .SHM macro file directly; instead run the WPDOS 5.1 macro LAUNCHFF.WPM (by typing Alt-F10, LAUNCHFF, then Enter).
Note: If you use Hebrew or Arabic WPDOS, you may need to use Shift-F1, Colors/Fonts/Attributes, and temporarily switch away from 512-character mode to "Normal Font Only" before running this macro.
(c) Not a font-finding macro, but a useful WPDOS 5.1 macro for changing the font of blocked text; FNTBLOCK, by Alan Smith, in this FNTBLOCK.ZIP archive.
(d) Two font-replacing macros by an unknown author, slightly modified by Alan Smith for use with Arabic or Hebrew WordPerfect, may be found elsewhere on this site. They are also suitable for any version of WPDOS 5.1, in addition to the Arabic and Hebrew versions.
WordPerfect normally allows you to use only one custom keyboard layout at a time, although you can switch back to the default layout by pressing Ctrl-6 (and back to your custom layout by pressing Ctrl-6 twice). A utility by David J. Klawiter, WPKEYS, lets you assign three separate WPDOS 5.1 keyboard definitions at the same time; the two supplementary definitions are used for typing WP characters, not macros. The program takes the form of a TSR (terminate-and-stay-resident) program that must be run before WP is loaded into memory, together with a separate configuration program that lets you assign keys to WP characters.
The author has generously made the program available for download from this site in the form of this WPKEYS.ZIP (62 KB) compressed archive. Please consult the Readme.txt file in the archive for instructions.
The program works in this way. While running WPDOS 5.1, you press the Gray Plus key (or the Gray Minus key), then press a standard alphanumeric key to enter a WP character. Depending on the configuration that you created, you might press the Gray Plus key, then "e", to enter the character "é". You can assign any WP character to any combination of the Gray Plus or Minus followed by an alphanumeric key. The program in the archive is already set up with a sample configuration; make a backup copy of the WPKEYS.COM program that comes in the archive, because the configuration program changes WPKEYS.COM in the process of creating a new configuration. You can, of course, create multiple configurations by naming one copy WPKEYS-1.COM and another WPKEYS-2.COM, or any other name you choose.
Note: This program does not work with WPDOS 6.x.
A set of WPDOS 5.1 macros generously provided by Alan Smith makes it easy to type accented and other non-US-English characters in Western European languages (French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish). Download KEYMAC51.ZIP and extract the enclosed files into whichever directory you use to store your WPDOS 5.1 keyboard and macro files. (If necessary, use Shift-F1/Location of Files/Keyboard-Macro Files to determine the location.)
The enclosed macros are named CONTROLA.WPM, CONTROLC.WPM, CONTROLD.WPM, CONTROLE.WPM, CONTROLG.WPM, CONTROLI.WPM, CONTROLT.WPM, and CONTROLU.WPM. You may use WP's keyboard feature to assign these macros to (for example) specific keys; for example, if you assign CONTROLA.WPM to Ctrl-A, then, when you press Ctrl-A, a menu will appear with a list of available characters with an acute accent. The other macros similarly provide characters that contain a cedilla, a diaresis or umlaut, the é character, a grave accent, the inverted question and exclamation marks, a tilde, or an umlaut or diaresis. For convenience, some characters may be accessed through more than one macro. A keyboard layout named TESTFGIS.KBD, also in the archive, contains all these macros already mapped to the appropriate keys.
Another WPDOS 5.1 macro by Alan Smith makes it easy to change an overstrike character. Download and install the CHOVSTRK.WPM macro in CHOVSTRK.ZIP.
A set of macro and other files for WPDOS 5.1,generously provided by Alan Smith makes it easy to insert a few letters or words of classical Greek into ordinary roman-alphabet text. Download WP51GRK.ZIP and extract the enclosed files into a convenient directory. Read and follow the instructions in the included text or WP5 file.