The Prevail Case Management System: Technical Support Articles

Going Retro with WordPerfect

It's retro, man! I frequently speak with Prevail users who won't upgrade their DOS versions of Prevail because they don't want to give up the familiar function keys of the WordPerfect 5.1 program that Prevail for DOS uses for document creation. I've actually had people ask if we could make the Windows version of Prevail merge with their existing DOS version of WordPerfect 5.1. The answer, of course, is no, but if you're one of those people who wants to move into the Windows world and doesn't feel up to the task of learning a completely new word processor, you're in luck.

Corel WordPerfect 8 and 9 (which has recently supplanted Word Perfect 5.1 as my favorite word processor of all time) happens to have the Word Perfect 5.1 keyboard commands built right in—you just have to know how to turn them on. It's a relatively simple process, but you do have to go several menu levels deep to find the setting, so most people never know it's there. Here's what you do:

With WordPerfect running, click Tools | Settings from the menu.
When the settings menu appears, double-click on "Settings" (it's the one with a picture of a keyboard under it).
When the Customize Settings dialog box appears, click on the "Keyboards" tab.
Several keyboard choices will be displayed. Select "WPDOS 6.1 KEYBOARD", then click the "Select" button.
Click on the "Close" button to get back to the previous menu.
Click on the "Close" button again to get back to a blank WordPerfect screen.

Once you do this, Corel WordPerfect 8 or 9 will act much like WordPerfect 5.1. For example, SHIFT-F7 is print, SHIFT-F6 is center, F4 is indent, etc. You'll have quick keystroke equivalents to many of the mouse commands of WordPerfect—and they'll be the same keystrokes you've been using for years in WordPerfect 5.1.