Barry MacDonnell'sToolbox for WordPerfect
Macros, tips, and
templates for Corel® WordPerfect® for Windows®
© Copyright 1996-2024 by Barry MacDonnell. All Rights Reserved.
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| Barry MacDonnell's Toolbox for WordPerfect |
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Macros, tips, and
templates for Corel® WordPerfect® for Windows® |
Page updated Apr 28, 2023 |
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• Can't see table border lines around table cells on your screen even though they print? • Can't see white text on a black or colored background ("fill") in a table? • Are gray dotted editing lines missing in tables? Or around the edges of a page or label? See the next column (-►) for some information about table gridlines, guidelines, and borders, cell lines and fills - what they do, how they work, and how they can impact one another. [Also note that sometimes these issues are not due to a WordPerfect setting. Instead, they might be caused by some older flat screen (LCD) monitors and Windows settings. See Footnote 1 below for some solutions.] Related pages on this site - • Using WordPerfect Tables - • Create a custom
table with a macro that can be inserted at the cursor position in any document |
Table gridlines, table guidelines, and table borders/backgrounds As you might expect, WordPerfect's table gridlines, guidelines, and border/cell lines can help you format a table on screen while editing and later when the document is printed. However, problems often arise from the fact that some of these features occupy the same locations in a table. That is, they overlay the same screen areas. Moreover, they can interact with one another in opposite ways, which can be confusing. The table below describes these interactions to help you solve issues using these features. [Also see suggested settings for two of the features below the table, and more details in the Description, purpose, and tips... section further down on this page.]
□ Suggested settings In my opinion I think most users might prefer these 2 settings during editing.
[1] Turn View > Table Gridlines OFF (no check mark) whenever you wish to be able to see actual table borders, cell lines, and cell fills
while editing/proofing the document.
• Gridlines are easily
toggled ON/OFF directly from the View menu. As
you can read in the table above, turning them ON makes
Borders/Lines/Fills "disappear" on screen (though they will still
print).
This can often make it easier to see the basic structure of the table
and its cells using a sort of "draft" view of the table(s).
• Table Gridlines is a session setting, and reverts to the default state when you close (exit) WordPerfect. (The WordPerfect default is OFF, but this can be changed: see below.) • An alternative to turning this feature OFF is to use File > Print Preview as needed. - and - [2] Turn View > Guidelines > Table ON (checkbox ticked) since they don't have any negative interaction with table Borders/Lines/Fills — and in any case they will be visible when both Gridlines and Borders/Lines/Fills are turned OFF so that you can easily see all table and cell boundaries.
• Table Guidelines — like other settings on the Guidelines dialog — are global program settings and will "stick" even when toggling Gridlines ON or OFF. They will remain in effect across multiple sessions until changed.
For some more information see the following sections. Description, purpose, and tips related to these features Note: Some of this material is redundant since it came from the original material on this web page, but it might still be useful. □ Table gridlines
• These are faint
gray (grey) dotted lines on your screen around the edge of a
table and around the individual cells.
(Screen shot)
• They can be turned ON and OFF with View, Table Gridlines on the WordPerfect menu. A check mark will appear in the menu if Table Gridlines is turned ON.
This is a session setting only and reverts to the default OFF state when you close (exit) WordPerfect. Important: This feature is not
toggled with View, Guidelines,
Table — which is a different feature and is explained in a separate
section below.
• The lines never print. They are similar to the faint gray page margin lines in this respect (page margins do not print either — they just display on your screen). • Table gridlines can help you see the table's cell structure displayed on the screen whenever you have table borders/fills turned OFF — presumably to reduce any distractions from fancy table formatting and speed up the display of such tables. In such a circumstance they can help you know where to insert material in specific cells and guide you in formatting row and column sizes, etc. Important points:
1. Gridlines occupy the same position on your screen as table border/cell lines and table guidelines. For example, if border lines are turned off (as discussed in the next section) you will need something to help you see the table's cell boundaries. Gridlines (or table guidelines) will do that. 2. As noted in the next section you can see -only- table gridlines -or- borders/lines/fills on screen at the same time (unless you use File, Print Preview, where you will always see borders/lines/fills if they are on). In effect, they work in an opposite fashion on your screen. • They have other uses. Here's what WordPerfect
X7's Help (F1) file says about table gridlines:
"When
a document contains many tables or heavily formatted tables, you can
use table gridlines to make the document display faster. Table
gridlines are dimmed, dotted lines that [temporarily] replace lines
and fills in a table [on your screen]. However, tables print with the lines and
fill styles you have selected. You can choose to always display table
gridlines. [See "To set the default..." below.]
You can also display the table formula indicators as blue markers in the bottom corner of a table cell." However, with today's fast and powerful computers with lots of memory (RAM), there's probably little need for gridlines to increase display speed on such systems. But as previously noted, table gridlines — if ON — help you edit and format the table in the event that table/cell borders are OFF and table guidelines are also OFF (or are difficult to see). • Tips for table gridlines
☼ You can add a "toggle" button to a toolbar to turn table gridlines ON and OFF; see here
for help adding toolbar buttons (the button is found under the "View"
feature category in the Toolbar Editor, listed as "Table Gridlines").
☼ Toggling gridlines OFF also lets you see any "fills" such as reversed backgrounds, where the background is black or some dark color and the text is white or lightly colored. ☼ An alternative to toggling gridlines OFF is to use File, Print Preview as needed. You can even add a toolbar button to turn Preview ON/OFF quicker. See here for help creating toolbar buttons (the button is found under the "File" feature category in the Toolbar Editor, listed as "Print Preview"). ☼ To set your preferred default setting for table gridlines when you open a document (the program's default setting is OFF), click Tools, Settings, Display, Document, [Show] Table Gridlines. Also, in that dialog you'll find an option to display the table formula indicators as blue markers in the bottom corner of a formula cell. ☼ In earlier versions of WordPerfect there was no menu selection for this item so you needed to use Tools, Settings, Display, Document, Show Table Gridlines. ☼ Macro writers can toggle the state of View, Table Gridlines with a small snippet such as this one. For example, to disable View, Table Gridlines (i.e., turn it off): If(?TableGuides=1) // (i.e., if table gridlines are now ON...)
TableGridLinesToggle () // Optional message: Messagebox(;"";"View>Table Gridlines is now OFF.") Endif Return [In the above macro, to enable table gridlines (turn the feature ON) set ?TableGuides=0 and change the message (if used) to "ON".] □ Table borders and individual cell lines/fills
• Table borders and cell lines are the items
most
people think of when they use the phrase "table lines."
They are basically graphic lines (thin, thick, colored, etc.) around the boundaries of tables and cells.
They help visually define the limits of the table and each cell — something that is typically important with printed (or PDF) documents. Some formatting might require table structures without borders and/or cell lines in order to emphasize the table's contents and not the table's structure. Hence: • They can be turned ON/OFF with Table, Borders/Fill -or- by right-clicking inside the table and selecting Borders/Fill.
This brings
up the Properties
for Table Borders/Fill dialog. An "X" on a format button indicates
that option is turned OFF. The border, cell lines, and fills also can
be
adjusted to be thicker, colored, etc., using the same dialog.
• Border and cell lines will print only if they are turned on (which is the default for cell lines). To change defaults for Border/Lines/Fills:
• Gridlines (or
guidelines— next section below) will not impact the printing of table borders or
cell lines/fills if table borders/lines are ON. [From WordPerfect 2020:] 1. Select a table, and click Table > Borders/fill. [The Properties for Table Borders/Fill dialog opens.] 2. Click the Table tab. 3. Click a border style on the Border palette. 4. In the Table border area, click a color on the Color palette. 5. Click a line style on the Line palette. 6. In the Default cell lines area, click a line color on the Color palette. 7. In the Fill area, click a fill style on the Pattern palette. 8. In the Fill area, click a fill color on the Foreground or Background palettes. 9. Click Default settings [button]. You can do this while the cursor is in a current table -or- by creating a new table first (Table, Create).
Gridlines only serve as a visual aid to
what is displayed on screen.
• If table gridlines are ON — which is sometimes the case depending on the setting in Tools, Settings, Display, Document tab — you can't see table borders or cell lines/fills (assuming they are ON).
Again: it's either one or the other, not both.
• Gridline display takes precedence over table border or cell line/fill display. You have to toggle gridlines OFF (by un-ticking View, Table Gridlines)
so that you can see the table borders or cell lines onscreen the way
they will print.
Or you can use File, Print Preview to see them. Tip: You can even add a toolbar button to quickly turn Print Preview ON/OFF. See here for help creating toolbar buttons (the button is found under the "File" feature category in the Toolbar Editor, listed as "Print Preview"). Related tips (as noted in the previous section):
☼ You can add a "toggle" button to a toolbar to turn table gridlines on and off; see here for help creating toolbar buttons (the button is under the "View" feature category in the Toolbar Editor, listed as "Table Gridlines"). ☼ Toggling gridlines OFF also lets you see any "fills" such as reversed backgrounds, where the background is black or some dark color and the text is white or lightly colored. Related Tip:
WordPerfect ships with a small macro, reverse.wcm, to create (by default) white text on a black background. (The cell's text color, and the fill style and color, are customizaable.) - - - - - - 1. Always make a separate back up the document first. 2. Place the cursor in the cell (or select a range of cells first) and use Tools, Macros, Play (or Alt+F10). 3. Then type the word reverse in the Play Macro dialog's file name field and press Enter. 4. The Reverse Text Options dialog appears:  5. Make any desired adjustments and click OK. (Tip: There are several tips about locking/unlocking cells and using header rows on the TablTips page.) - - - - - - Important: - To Undo the change immediately you can use Ctrl+Z. - To Undo the change later it is easier to play the macro again on the cell(s) and simply choose the original Text color (e.g., Black) and Fill style/color (e.g., 100% White). • For more tips on using WordPerfect tables see the https://wptoolbox.com/tips/TablTips.html page.
□ Table (and other) guidelines • From WordPerfect X7's Help
(F1):
"Guidelines
are horizontal and vertical nonprinting lines that you can use to align
tables, margins, columns, headers, and footers on a page.
You can display guidelines [see below]. You can also move guidelines [see dragging issues below]. Guidelines must be displayed in a document before you can move them [by see Dragging Issues below]." • Hence, like table gridlines (above) these are also faint gray dotted lines on your screen around the borders of a table and its cells. • Guidelines can be turned on and off in tables with View, Guidelines, Tables (checkbox):  Also, the settings on the
Guidelines dialog are global program settings for all open documents and they are
"sticky" between WordPerfect sessions.
• Guidelines never print. However, table borders and cell lines always print (if they are turned ON). • Guidelines are used with things other than tables — i.e., to help visualize page margins, columns, headers, and footers. These other structures
are mentioned here because they are a feature of the
program and you'll see the option to display them when you use the View, Guidelines dialog.
• There are also a few issues to be aware of, as noted below. Notes
¤ In general, you probably should leave guidelines for tables turned ON (enable the View, Guidelines, Tables option) because if you remove all borders, lines, and fills from a table and also have gridlines turned OFF, you won't be able to see the table's cell boundaries on your screen! (The ON setting might be the most practical use of guidelines in tables.) ¤ Dragging issues: You can move (drag) guidelines if the option to "Drag to move guidelines" in the View, Guidelines dialog is enabled AND the option(s) to display the desired guideline(s) are also enabled in that dialog:  This can sometimes produce a problem if you accidentally move the left page margin
guideline when you attempt to select text close to that margin.
Or if you accidentally move the bottom page margin guideline it can sometimes cause a [Delay] code to appear at the top of the page rather than a margin code — which, working as designed, is a good thing but might be concerning to those editing the document. Because of these issues some users prefer to disable (un-tick) the dragging option in View, Guidelines (see image above, where it is enabled). Note: Table guidelines work somewhat differently to the other three types since they occupy the same location on screen as table gridlines and table borders. That is, all three features are overlaid on the boundaries — i.e., edges — of all columns and rows. These edges are always dragable anyway, so even if you disable the Drag option or the Tables option in the View, Guidelines dialog you can still drag columns and rows — deliberately or accidentally. See the General Notes and Tips section below. ¤ Table guidelines will not obscure table borders or cell lines. ¤ See also the General Notes and Tips section below about certain issues with guidelines and LCD monitors. Tips
☼ Macro writers can turn on/off any of the 5
Guideline settings (View, Guidelines) with a macro that uses the
Guidelines() command. (See Macro Help for more on using this command
with the various Guideline states.)
- For example, to enable View,
Table Guidelines (i.e., turn it on):
vTableGuidelineState:=1&Guidelines If(vTableGuidelineState=0) // (i.e., table guidelines off) Guidelines (ShowTableGuides:Yes!) Messagebox(;"";"View>Guidelines>Tables is now ON.") Endif Return - For example, to disable View, Table Guidelines (i.e., turn it off): vTableGuidelineState:=1&Guidelines If(vTableGuidelineState=1) // (i.e., table guidelines on) Guidelines (ShowTableGuides:No!) Messagebox(;"";"View>Guidelines>Tables is now Off.") Endif Return □ General Notes and Tips ☼ Guidelines and page margins.
You might find that you often accidentally
drag the left page margin guideline slightly out of position
when you are trying to select text at that location by clicking your
left mouse button next to the margin. Solution: You can try removing this annoyance by
clicking on View, Guidelines and then disabling (un-ticking) "Drag to move
guidelines." Of course, since this is a global program setting you will then have to set/reset margins in the future from the
Format menu, not by dragging them.
Top and bottom page margin guidelines are automatically hidden when you choose View, Draft to give you a continuous workspace on screen.
All four page margin guidelines are hidden in File, Print Preview. This handy "on/off toggle" gives you a view of what the printed page will look like. ☼ Guidelines in tables. Similar
to the previous tip, while working inside a table you might find that sometimes you accidentally drag a table column or row out of position.
Solution: You can try disabling (un-ticking) both "Drag to move guidelines" and the option to display table guidelines. Note: Be aware
that table column and row boundaries are always
dragable, even if not visible. You can verify
this by turning off gridlines, borders, and guidelines (which leaves just cell contents visible) then hover
your
mouse over the areas where various boundaries should be located. The mouse pointer
will turn into the usual double-headed arrow pointer to let you drag the boundary. So the solution
in this tip might not resolve the issue of accidental dragging column/row boundaries in
tables.
Suggestion: If you leave table gridlines enabled you will still be able to see cell structures even if both table borders and table guidelines are turned off. This can help prevent accidentally dragging a boundary. ☼ Gridlines and/or guidelines not visible? On some monitors (particularly some older LCD
monitors) an incorrect screen resolution can cause such faint lines to
fall between pixels and not appear on screen. Solution: Ensure that the
monitor is set to its preferred ("native") resolution, both vertical and
horizontal. Otherwise gridlines, guidelines, and even text underlines
can "fall between the cracks."
Also, for page margin guidelines this might be due to a user setting: See the first tip above about page guidelines, as well as the Draft mode view Tip below.
☼ Missing lines, borders, or underlines? If lines, borders, or underlines do not
appear on screen but appear in a printout, try setting your monitor's Zoom
to a slightly different setting with View, Zoom or by holding down the
<Ctrl> key while you rotate your mouse wheel.
☼ Using Draft mode? If you have the View turned to Draft mode, table guidelines
won't display on some monitors (but table gridlines will).
Try using Page mode.
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Footnote 1 [Continued from above...] If the dotted gray (grey) table gridlines, table guidelines, or margin guidelines don't display properly on the screen (e.g., they are too faint), it could be a problem with Windows and some older flatscreen (e.g., LCD) monitors. - - - - - - - - - -
Update 11/2/2010: Service Pack 1 for WordPerfect X5 seems to have corrected this — at least on the author's Windows 7/64-bit Home Premium system — and should be corrected in subsequent versions of WordPerfect as well. If not, you could try the solutions below which apply to computers running Windows 7/XP/Vista. - - - - - - - - - - Early solution: From an old article in Corel's support database here ["Labels and margins not displaying on the screen"], rearranged and annotated from the original:
"Some monitors have a hard time showing the colour gray used for margins and labels. This will make it look like labels and margins don't display properly on the screen. This typically happens with flatscreen monitors. Modifying the Windows Classic style in the Display Properties to a darker shade of gray will resolve this issue. [Update: The "Advanced," "3D Objects," and other options in the steps below were removed in some builds of Windows 10.] Tip: Select just a small amount of darker gray or you might not be able to see toolbar labels. For Windows 7: 1. Right click on the Desktop, select Personalize [or click Start, Settings, Personalize in (e.g.) Windows 10] 2. Click on Window Color 3. Click on Advanced appearance settings 4. Select 3D Objects in the Item dropdown 5. Under Color 1, choose a darker shade of gray (or click Other and choose a RGB value of (for example) from the default of 240,240,240 to 230,230,230). 6. Click OK, then click Apply on the Window Color and Appearance tab. 7. Click OK, launch WordPerfect. The grid lines should be more visible, the darker the shade of gray you select the more visible the gridlines will be. For Windows XP: 1. Right click on the Desktop, select Properties. 2. Select the Appearance tab. 3. Click the Advanced button. 4. Select 3D Objects in the Item dropdown 5. Under Color 1, choose a darker shade of gray. 6. Click OK, then click Apply on the Appearance tab. 7. Click OK, launch WordPerfect. The grid lines should be more visible, the darker the shade of gray you select the more visible the gridlines will be. For Windows Vista: 1. Right click on the Desktop, select Personalize 2. Click on Window Color Appearance 3. Click on Open Classic Appearance 4. Click the Advance button 5. Select 3D Objects in the Item dropdown 6. Under Color 1, choose a darker shade of gray. 7. Click OK, then click Apply on the Appearance tab. 8. Click OK, launch WordPerfect. The grid lines should be more visible, the darker the shade of gray you select the more visible the gridlines will be." |
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