Getting Started
This page is a quick start guide for using WordPerfect for UNIX.
The first thing you need to know is the menu is opened with Esc+=.
This highlights the menu bar, and you can select the option you want with ← and →. Alternatively, you can press the highlighted letter of the menu you want.
The function keys always have the same meaning throughout WordPerfect. The most important ones are F7 Exit and F1 Cancel. Exit will close the screen and save your changes, Cancel will abandon your changes.
There is a full list of function keys here, but you don't have to learn them all now!
Tip: You can use Alt+= and Esc+= interchangeably.
You can press the F3 key at any time to open the online help. This works in most places, and will generally give you context relevant information.
Tip: Pressing F3F3F3 will bring you to the about screen!
Before writing your first document, you should configure where WordPerfect will save your files.
Press Esc+=, then navigate to File > Setup > Location of Files.
Press 7, and choose where you would like your documents saved.
A good choice might be your home directory, or your Documents directory.
If you plan to create macros or rebind keys, you will also want to set your macro directory.
The easiest way to print documents is to use the included GhostScript driver.
To enable this, press Esc+=, then navigate to Print > Select Printer.
Press 2 to add a printer, and select GhostScript from the list.
Tip: Press N to search through long lists in WordPerfect!
Select this driver, then configure a destination. A good choice might be ~/printjob.ps.
You can now print your documents with Shift+F7.
If you would prefer to use your printer directly, remember to install the cups-bsd package to get lpr.
WordPerfect also requires the /etc/printcap file, which may not be populated automatically on modern Linux distributions.
There are instructions for resolving this in the Administrators Handbook.
You can navigate around your document using ←,→,↑,↓.
Pressing Home following by any direction moves to the edge of the screen in that direction. Pressing HomeHome followed by any direction moves to the edge of the document in that direction.
You can select passages of text with blocks, then move, copy, format or erase them. To start a block, use Ctrl+Shift+F4, or select it from the Edit menu.
You can search your document with F2.
If your search contains only lowercase letters, it will be case insensitive. If you use any capitalization, it will be case sensitive.
Tip: Don't press Enter to search, that will search for a hard return! Press F2 again to start the search.
You can have multiple documents open simultaneously, switch between them with Shift+F3.
Tip: You can have per-document display settings, press Shift+F3 while in the
File > Setup > Display > Colors/Fonts/Attributesscreen to choose how the second document looks!
WordPerfect uses invisible codes to format your document, similar to HTML tags. You can use the reveal codes feature to browse and edit the codes, Ctrl+Shift+F3.
Use File > Retrieve to load a document into WordPerfect. You can press F5 at the prompt to open a directory browser that allows you to navigate, open and search your documents.
Tip: You can include data from Lotus 1-2-3 worksheets in your documents. See Linking and Embedding for more information!
You can customize how WordPerfect works by creating macros.
The full manual is available online here.
There are many excellent books on using WordPerfect, I recommend Mastering WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS by Alan Simpson, ISBN 0895886707. The content is almost entirely relevant to UNIX.
There is a huge number of resources on wpdos.org, including many UNIX specific hints and instructions. In particular, there are additional guides and notes for WSL users.