Getting the Most out of Help

by Kendall Callas

When you need to research a topic in WordPerfect For Windows, start by selecting Help, Help Topics. At this point, the menu will vary a bit depending on your version, but these are the basic routes to help information:

Coaches/Perfect Expert.

The Perfect Expert is a cutting edge feature, designed to deliver help in a more natural manner. In WPWin 6.1, “Coaches” were introduced to offer demos and step-by-step guides (in WPWin 7, the feature is called “Show me”); in WPWin 8, this evolved into the Perfect Expert. In WPWin 7 and 8, a related feature called “Ask the Perfect Expert” offers a “natural language” search.

WordPerfect manual.

Starting with WordPerfect 8, you can access the complete text of the WordPerfect manual from your keyboard: Click Help, Help Topics, Contents, View Manuals, Go to the Reference Center, then click on the image of the manual you want (WordPerfect, Legal Edition User's Guide, Merge Programming Commands, Dragon Naturally Speaking, etc.). Depending on your installation, you may need to insert the Corel Suite CD for access to the manuals. (You will also need Envoy installed.) You may view, browse, search, or print the text.

Help on tap.

You may also tap F1 for context sensitive help. If you start from an empty document screen, F1 will simply take you to the same menu as Help, Help Topics. But if you begin a task first, you'll see how valuable context sensitive help can be; when a menu or dialog box is displayed, tap F1 for specific help on that topic.

Bookmark favorite Help screens.

You can easily “dog ear” a help topic to facilitate later reference: Within a Help topic, click the Options button and select Define a Bookmark in WordPerfect 7 or 8 (just Bookmark in version 6.1). Later, to refer back to that topic, first work your way into a help topic, then select Options, Display a Bookmark.

Add notes to Help.

You may type your own notes into a help screen! While viewing a help topic in WordPerfect 7 or 8, select Options, Annotate to view or create a note (in version 6.1, use Edit, Annotate).

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