Excuse totally un-garden request.. but I just spent an hour looking for a NG or a Board or community or something that could help me get rid of a GIANT font that won't go away no matter what I do.
If anybody happens to use Word Perfect -- which I like much more than Word -- and knows of a source for trouble-shooting this problem, I promise you apricots from my little tree which I HOPE will start bearing in its 3rd year in my garden...
HB
don't use it here, but it may help to look for a mode switch or view that allows you to see the entire document contents along with all the formatting information. sometimes this is called source view or something like that.
good luck!
songbird
Also don't know anything about Word Perfect but I see it is still a paid program.
I had MS Office but ditched it when I lost my computer and could not put it on my new one.
I've been using free Open Office which is nearly equivalent to MS Office. Another called Libre Office is free.
I just had to open up a new MS document someone sent my wife and her old MS Word program would not open it but my Open Office would.
Aha! Good tip.
Very interesting! I took a quick look. It said it would Open various programs, but Word Perfect was not listed. However, I will explore further; it might be in there somewhere.
Thanx!
HB
On 06 Oct 2013, Higgs Boson wrote in rec.gardens:
Here's a web forum for Wordperfect:
Corel still has an old nntp server going,
cnews.corel.com
which has a Wordperfect newsgroup on it:
corel.WordPerfect12
You might be able to use this URL to access it, depending on your computer setup. It's not very active, though:
news://cnews.corel.com/corel.WordPerfect12
Place the cursor before the point in the document where the font change occurs the activate 'reveal codes' -- this has been a feature of WP since DOS days. In my current version you can activate it by pressing ALT-F3 and that may or may not be the same in your ancient version but 'reveal codes' is always available from the menu. Once you do that you can move the cursor along, watching for the offending font change and then simply delete it.
I've never seen a Word Perfect document or anything ending in .wpd. Have no idea if Open Office or Libre Office could open them. I do not see the function to same them in Open Office as .wpd.
I had been frustrated like my wife in getting newer versions of MS Word documents that would not open in an older version of Word. I also have some very old MS Word documents that my newer version of Word would not open. Open Office takes them all but won't take old .sam docs - can't even remember program that made them.
On 06 Oct 2013, Frank wrote in rec.gardens:
Libreoffice will open .wpd documents, but it won't save in that format. It can save in in a variety of other formats, though, some of which can probably be opened by Wordperfect.
.SAM files might be from AMI Pro, and old word processor once owned by Lotus in the '80s.
Yes, I discovered that after posting. There are a lot of free online programs for conversion of one file type into another. I often use one to convert pdf's to doc's. One I tried would not take a sam. You could open it in Open Office but would have to extract the usable text from the spinach.
One client I consult for had insisted on using it for their internal documents. Now with their Lotus Notes, they use Word.
I've consulted for nearly 100 clients and have never seen a wpd file.
On 06 Oct 2013, Frank wrote in rec.gardens:
There are web sites that claim to be able to convert Ami Pro files to MS Word. Microsoft's Office Converter Pack used to include an Ami Pro converter, but I don't know if it still does.
You must have missed the Great Word Processor Wars. At one time Word Perfect was the dominant word processor until being challenged by the upstart MS Word. Word won, obviously, but there was a diehard contingent that stuck with WP - a lot of those were law offices. I don't know anyone who uses WP now, but it's still being marketed, so I guess there's still a few out there.
On 06 Oct 2013, Frank wrote in rec.gardens:
I found a sample Ami Pro document on line. It opened perfectly in the latest version of Libreoffice.
I wasn't aware of the wars, so went ahead blithely (sp?) using WP. After b eing forced to use Word on occasion, I come away thinking Word Perfect is s till by far the more elegant, simple-to-use system. Sounds like there's so me interesting history behind how Msft got their Word to prevail!!!
HB
Thanks, John. Problem is: there WAS no font change in a given document. Any time I Open WP, the GIANT font appears.
I suppose I'd better think about upgrading from my "ancient version" (sob)which was working just fine for my modest needs.
Corel Web site says there is only a price reduction for upgrading from X4, so I guess I am back in the Dark Ages.
Question: These X versions are designated "WP Office". Does that mean anything to a home user? Or is it just a name?
Tx
HB
On 07 Oct 2013, Higgs Boson wrote in rec.gardens:
As I'm sure you know, it's not always the technically superior technology that wins the market. I'm not a heavy word processor and I've always mostly used MS Word. It's OK, but it has more features than probably anyone ever uses, and those features can be hard to find when you need them. I tried Wordperfect for DOS back in the day, and I really couldn't figure it out. However, I knew some people who could just FLY on that thing, and they knew all these arcane keystrokes that allowed them to do all kinds of fancy formatting while hardly interrupting the flow of their typing.
I have no trouble believing that WP is the superior word processor, but Microsoft's muscle, plus Wordperfect/Novell/Corel's business weaknesses pretty much doomed WP to a niche market.
On 07 Oct 2013, Higgs Boson wrote in rec.gardens:
I think you can't get Wordperfect by itself any more. It only comes as part of a "productivity suite", including Quattropro spread sheet and other stuff.
I would guess that somehow the template got modified so that that giant font is the default. I haven't used WP since 5.1 for dos (the best word processor ever IMHO - and you should see how fast it does "search and replace" on a modern computer!). If it works the same way, there is a
*.dot document somewhere that opens automatically as a *.doc document when you choose "New document" from the file menu. You need to open that *.dot file as a template, modify it by changing the font to what you want, and then saving it as the same *.dot that you opened.Didn't WP Office include a spreadsheet and presentation as part of an office suite?
I believe that is true but "Corel WordPerfect Office X6 Home & Student" can be had for $45US from Amazon.com so the cost isn't all that bad. This version is missing a few of the bells and whistles but has WP, QP and presentations and that is more than I actually need at home now and is $100 cheaper than the 'full' version. IIRC back in earlier days I paid (adjusted for inflation) more than ten times as much for regular WP and it was an absolute necessity since I was developing software which attached itself to WP to automatically generate and format legal documents.
If the bad layout comes up in a fresh document then the default style has gotten screwed up but that is dead simple (at least in recent versions) to fix -- just go into 'reveal codes' and double-click on the [Open Style: DocumentStyle] marker and set it to be whatever you want. IIRC some version of document styles as always been there in WP even if the method of getting to it may be different in earlier versions. A search for 'styles editor' in WP help will probably turn up something.
For some reason, I've been unable to set up Libre Office. Going to have to give it another try. I know that Kim Komando likes it.
My Ami Pro went out with old computer and when company switched to MS Office.
Replying here en masse to various posts.
Thanks to Songbird and others: Have been to Reveal Codes umpty times; changed setting from VERY LARGE to SMALL; went through all the steps -- nada, niente, rien, klum, nichts. Something is corrupted all to hell in the bowels.
Thanks to John who pointed out that I can get X6 from Amazon for a mere $45. Lot better deal than the Corel $ite, which as you point out, may contain "bells and whistles" that I don't need.
Appreciate Nil's comments on which word processor won the war. MSFT 800 lb. gorilla! Was not aware that Corel had "business weakness". Tsk, tsk.
Oren, yes, went through the HELP options; didn't find answer among canned stuff.
Will go through Reveal Codes one more time, then maybe just order X6 & get it over with.
Gracias, amigas y amigos.
HB
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