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Publishing to PDF (Adobe's Portable Document
Format) with WordPerfect 9 and later versions
Here are some tips to get the best from this
feature (which was new with WP9). It is not a comprehensive list,
so suggestions are welcome.
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General Tips (all WordPerfect versions)
- "How do I add a Hyperlink
to a PDF file from WordPerfect?" [Here, this means add a hyperlink
inside a PDF document to other parts of that PDF document
or to other documents. To create a hyperlink in a WordPerfect
document (.WPD) to an existing PDF document (e.g., on
your desktop or network) so that clicking the link opens the
PDF in your PDF program (e.g., Adobe or Adobe Reader) see Footnote 1.]
- From Corel's support database Article 754077:
- ... "WordPerfect lets you publish documents
[.WPD] to PDF [see the File menu in WordPerfect]. Adobe Acrobat
Reader allows you to print, view, and share PDF files. You can
publish the active document or a document to which you have access.
You can include hyperlinks and bookmarks in a PDF file. Hyperlinks
are useful for adding jumps to other Web pages or to Internet
URLs. Bookmarks allow you to link to specific areas in a PDF
file. When the PDF file is first opened in Adobe Acrobat or Acrobat
Reader, you can specify whether bookmarks are displayed."
- ... "When you publish a file to PDF
that includes hyperlinks, the links will automaticaly be added
to the PDF. When you publish a table of contents, index, list,
or table of authorities to PDF, WordPerfect numbers each marked
heading or subheading sequentially. The entries display in the
PDF as numbered bookmarks in the document...."
- First, create a hyperlink in the WordPerfect
document (.WPD):
- [Make sure hyperlinks are active if you
wish to use them while in the WordPerfect document to navigate
to other locations: Enable the box, "Activate Hyperlinks,"
in Tools, Settings, Environment. Note that, even with this setting
disabled (un-ticked), you can still create hyperlinks in the
document and they will be active in the final PDF. Note also
that active links in a .WPD document can appear to fail under
certain conditions when attempting to navigate inside that document;
see the paragraph below for more.]
- Step 1. Select
the text or graphic.
- Step 2. Click
on the Tools menu and select Hyperlink.
- Step 3. To
link to the current document, leave the field set to its
default of <current document>. To link to another document,
type the fill path and filename in the Document/Macro box. To
link to a macro (so the macro will play when the link
is clicked), type the name of the macro (or use the small button
at the end of the field to brows to it and select it).
- Notes:
- You can also create a hyperlink to a Web
address by typing a URL in the Document/Macro box. If you want
to browse for the URL, click Browse Web.
- Because browsers cannot play WordPerfect
macros, hyperlinks to macros are not recommended in documents
that will be published to the Web.
- Step 4. If
you want to link to a bookmark in the document, choose an existing
bookmark from the Bookmark list box.
- Step 5. To
create a hyperlink that opens in a separate frame, type the name
of the frame in the Target frame box. Otherwise, leave this field
blank.
- When you have finished creating or editing
the document, publish the document to PDF.
(See the File menu.)
- Important:
When publishing to the Web or to a PDF, WordPerfect uses absolute
URLs rather than relative URLs, meaning that you need to enter
the full location path to the link, not just the filename. If
you are linking to a document, you must have the full path to
the document. If not, you will get "file not found"
errors when clicking on the link."
- No menu choice? Trying to use the Publish to PDF feature and getting
a grayed-out (i.e., inoperative) menu choice? Make sure your
have a document open first. (This seems to be a common "problem.")
- Missing the .PDF filename
extension when you Publish to PDF?
One reason -- in WordPerct X4 (14.0.0.677) at least -- is extra
periods (full stops) in the filename itself, such as "My.file.wpd".
- Need to e-mail a large
PDF file created in WordPerfect? You
may be able to considerably reduce the file size of the PDF document.
- In WP9: Click the Details tab in the Publish
to PDF dialog, then checking (in WP9) the box "Publish text
as graphics." This is not a "sticky" setting in
WP9, so you'll need to check the box each time you publish to
PDF.
- Publishing a large document to PDF in WP9
can take several minutes, even though the process may appear
to have been completed by WordPerfect. If you get an error message
when trying to view the PDF file immediately after publishing
to PDF with WordPerfect, try waiting a few minutes before viewing
the PDF file with Adobe Reader.
- In WordPerfect 10/11/12+, Publish to PDF
feature, the related option seems to be under the Objects tab,
"Export all text as curves," which eliminates font
variances on different computers. (However, there may not be
as much of a difference in the resulting file size when you check
this box as there can be in WP9's Publish to PDF.)
- Also: From Corel's support database (support.corel.com),
Article ID 201544: "Publish to pdf increases file size"
- Details: "When publishing a document
to pdf format the file increases in size instead of compressing
(this includes both files containing graphics and those which
do not)."
- Answer: "Deselecting the following options
solves the problem:
- 1) Go to File | Publish to pdf
2) Click the Details tab
3) Deselect the options to "Include Fonts in the
document", "Include base 14 fonts" and "Convert
True Type to Type 1".
- Using a PostScript
printer driver as the default print device [when using Publish to PDF] helps in creating cleaner/consistent
PDF output. [Ed.: Newer versions of WordPerfect, such as WPX4,
are much more likely to produce great PDF output with your default,
up-to-date printer driver.] See this
post on WordPerfect Universe, which shows (1) how to install
and use a standard PostScript printer driver (even if you do
not have the physical printer); and (2) how to use it when publishing
to PDF in WP.
- Here are alternatives
WordPerfect's built-in Publish to PDF feature, as well as to Adobe Acrobat: pdf995,
pdfFactory, Win2PDF.
and PDFtypewriter
(the latter bills itself as an alternative to Adobe Acrobat at
a fraction of the cost). All have free trial downloads. pdf995
(US$9.95) has been reported to maintain hyperlinks better than
some versions of WordPerfect. pdfFactory
is made by the same company that publishes the excellent FinePrint
"save paper and ink" program.
- Why
some hyperlinks can fail to work while inside WordPerfect
documents (.WPD, .WPT)
Here are some reasons why they might fail
(or appear to fail) -- that is, the mouse cursor does not turn
into a finger-pointing cursor when directly on a hyperlink --
when you are navigating in a hyperlinked WordPerfect document
(not in a PDF document):
- The activation state (on or off) for hyperlinks
is stored with the document when it is saved to disk. The stored
state will take precedence over the current state of the Tools,
Settings, Environment, "Activate Hyperlinks" checkbox.
Therefore, even if you have enabled that checkbox option, the
document settings might be over-riding it. (See next item.)
- If you have edited a hyperlink by
right-clicking it and choosing Edit Hyperlink, the Hyperlink
Property Bar will have appeared. (It might also appear if the
Shadow Cursor is enabled; see next item.) The finger-pointing
icon on that property bar is a Hyperlink Toggle. If you click
it it will turn activation on or off -- and this state will be
stored with the document when it is saved, regardless of the
current state of the Tools, Settings, Environment, "Activate
Hyperlinks" checkbox. (The latter is a global, user-preference
setting.)
- If you use the Shadow Cursor and have set
Tools, Settings, Display to anything other than Active in White
Space, the Shadow Cursor will only operate the hyperlink at the
end of the hyperlink, not at any point before the end of the
hyperlink.
- If the location of the bookmark to which
the hyperlink points is on the same screen (perhaps just a few
sentences away), the cursor might move there but the screen might
not move, giving the illusion that nothing has happened. (Check
Reveal Codes to see if the cursor has moved.)
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WordPerfect 10 and later versions
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Custom settings
See "Optimizing
PDF files in WordPerfect 11," which discusses the optional
settings in the Publish to PDF dialog, such as image compression,
embedding fonts, etc. [This article also applies to WP10 and
WP12. The only difference is in WP10, which does not have a "compatibility"
option for the [newer] Adobe Acrobat 5.] |
WordPerfect 9 (only)
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Note
More recent versions of WordPerfect such as
WPX3 -- and especially WPX4 -- do a very good job of converting
a WPD document to a PDF document. The feature has improved considerably
since it was introduced in WP9.
Getting "Publish to
PDF" to work in WP9
Here are some tips from Doug Collins
of West Hills, CA (reprinted with permission):
Many users have reported difficulties getting
WPWin9's "Publish to PDF" function to work properly
[in WP9].
Here are a few tips for creating good PDF versions of your documents.
1. Download and install Service Pack 3. Several
problems were fixed in Service Pack 1 (which is incorporated
in SP3), including the improper alignment of fully justified
text, the display of extended characters ("curly" quotation
marks and apostrophes, em and en dashes, etc.).
2. When saving the file in PDF format, click
on the "details" tab of the PDF dialogue box. Change
the options as follow:
a. Uncheck "include fonts in the document."
This greatly reduces the size of the PDF file but it may cause
font substitutions if you document uses a font that's not on
the computer used to print the file. That can affect alignment
of text, line breaks, pagination, etc.
b. Check "publish text as graphics."
This improves the appearance of the PDF file.
c. Check "compress text streams."
This also helps reduce the size of the PDF file.
3. If the printed version the PDF file has
problems with spacing between words, try one of the following:
a. Change your printer's settings. Go to My
Computer, double click on the printers icon, right click on your
printer, choose properties, click on the print quality tab, and
set graphics mode to raster and text mode to truetype as bitmaps.
b. Change the options on the Adobe Acrobat
Reader's print menu. Check the box labeled "print as image"
and uncheck the box labeled "fit to page." Note that
the print quality will not be as high with this setting.
c. If the problem persists, try switching
to left-justified text (this problem should be fixed by Service
Pack 1 and later). If available, try a different font. Adobe
Type 1 fonts may give better results on some computers (such
fonts require that an additional program called Adobe Type Manager
or "ATM" be used with Windows 95/98).
4. If you're having problems displaying graphics
in your PDF file, use graphic files in the JPEG or BMP format
instead of the WPG format when creating your WP file. WPWin9
will convert the JPEG or BMP files to WPG format when they are
inserted in your WP document. They will then translate properly
to your PDF file (don't ask why no one knows just try it). However,
be aware that large graphics may continue to cause problems.
5. Be prepared to accept some problems the
translation from WP format to PDF isn't perfect, but it's pretty
close, at least for straight text. However, dashed lines created
with WP may display as solid lines in the PDF file, and large
graphics and equations reportedly cause problems for many users.
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Footnote 1
A WordPerfect user asked, "Is there a
way to get the WP hyperlinks to open the selected document in
the application in which it is formatted?"
Answer (see also the alternative below):
Note that you can create a hyperlink (Tools,
Hyperlink) to another document (.WPD, .DOC, etc.) or to a
macro (.WCM).
If you first create a one-line macro using
the AppExecute() command, you can then create a hyperlink
to that particular macro. When the link is clicked, the macro
will play, opening the file in the program that is associated
with the file type (e.g., .PDF will open with Adobe Reader or
whichever program normally opens a PDF on your system).
For example, create
a macro (you can simply copy the code below into WordPerfect),
something like this:
AppExecute("C:\Documents
and Settings\Barry\Desktop\Test document.pdf")
Obviously, you will need to change the path
and filename to match the .PDF (or other type of document) you
wish to open. Then Save & Compile the macro and create the
hyperlink to the macro wherever you wish the link to appear.
Tip: Macros
can also be assigned to toolbars, menus, and keystrokes: see
here for more on this. You could
set up a special toolbar or menu with your library of documents
conveniently available on the toolbar or menu.
Alternative:
For those who wish to use hyperlinks in a document instead of
macros on a toolbar to load the file: You can create or modify
a hyperlink that points to the document, adding the characters
"file://" in front of the path and filename, as in
this example:
file://C:\Documents and Settings\Barry\Desktop\Test
document.pdf
or this -
file://C:/Documents and Settings/Barry\Desktop/Test
document.pdf
...i.e., all forward slashes, no
backslashes (which works in Windows)
Footnote 2
Publish your current WPD document to PDF using
a macro. [N.B.: The macro below is for WordPerfect 11.0.0.300
and later versions only.]
Note that the
PDF dialog does not normally display when the macro is played,
so you will want to ensure that all your PDF dialog options have
been previously set to your preferences.
The code shown in blue are the operative lines.
Other lines provide messages and feedback to the user, but they
can be removed.
Tip: To copy
this macro into your WordPerfect program, see here.
Macros can also be assigned to toolbars, menus, and keystrokes:
see here for more on this.
// Macro code begins
// This macro is based on
one posted by Roy ("lemoto") Lewis at
// http://www.wpuniverse.com/vb/showthread.php?postid=165850#post165850
vFilename = ?Path+?Name
vFilename = StrLeft(vFilename;StrScan(vFilename;-1;;".")-1)
pdfName=vFileName + ".pdf"
HRt:=NToC(0F90Ah)
//Label(Confirm@) // <=
Optional; see under GetString below
Messagebox (vAns;"Verify Path+Filename for the PDF file:";
"The path and filename for the PDF file will be -"+HRt+HRt+
" "+pdfName+HRt+HRt+
"Continue? (Yes = Publish to PDF, No = Rename the file first,
Cancel = Quit now)";
YesNoCancel! | IconQuestion!)
If(vAns=2) Quit Endif
If(vAns=6) Go(Yes@) Endif
If(vAns=7) Go(No@) Endif
Label(No@)
OnCancel(QuitNow@)
GetString (pdfName;
"The new path+filename will be as shown below."+HRt+HRt+
"Press OK to accept the new name."+HRt+
"Be sure to retain the '.pdf' filename extension!"+HRt+HRt+
"(Press Cancel to quit now.)"+HRt;
"Rename the PDF file?")
If(pdfName="") Messagebox(;"Ooops!";"You
must enter something!") Go(No@) Endif
//Go(Confirm@) // <= Optional: Loops back for re-confirmation
Label(Yes@)
PdfDlg(pdfname)
Label(QuitNow@)
Return
// End of macro |
Barry MacDonnell's