WordStar Emulator
Microsoft Word 2007 introduced what Microsoft called "the Common User Interface", which is characterised by a large ''ribbon'' toolbar in place of the earlier collection of smaller toolbars with pull-down menu lists.
The WordStar Command Emulator was written to modify the older toolbar style used in Microsoft Word 97-XP. The toolbar and menu commands are not ''hard-coded'' meaning that you can change them if they conflict with something else you use, or just because you prefer alternative menu commands.
The alternative would be to assign the commands withn the program code, which would mean that you either wouldn't have the option to change them afterwards, or that additional coding would be needed to provide a way for you to change them and to save these changes. This is the system that would be needed to implement a proper Ribbon style set of menus, and as a consequence, versions of Microsoft Word that use the Ribbon interface put all of the WordStar menu additions into an Add-Ins tab in a seemingly random order.
As WordStar is mainly about using the keyboard to accomplish a writing task, the extra work and restrictions that would be caused by programatically imposing a menu or Ribbon system was not considered to be of value.
This article lists all of the commands available in the trial (un-registered) version of the WordStar Command Emulator version 1.4. There are more commands available in the full (registered) version of the WordStar Command Emulator. You can compare the commands available in each version of the WordStar Command Emulator.
The WordStar Command Emulator also customises the Word pull-down menus so that they closely follow the menus in WordStar 7.0d.
See also:
Keystroke | Command |
^A | Word Left |
^B | Para Down (doesn't copy formatting as in WordStar) |
^C | Page Down |
^D | Character Right |
^E | Line Up |
^F | Word Right |
^G | Delete Right |
^H | Backspace Delete |
^K1~3 | Insert Bookmark |
^Q1~3 | Go To Bookmark |
^QC | End of Document |
^QD | End of Line |
^QE | Start of Window (Top Left) |
^QR | Start of Document |
^QS | Start of Line |
^QX | End of Window (Bottom Right) |
^QY | Delete to End of Line |
^R | Page Up |
^S | Character Left |
^T | Delete Word |
^W | Scroll Window Up |
^X | Line Down |
^Y | Delete Line |
^Z | Scroll Window Down |
Non-WS, but useful extra Commands | |
ALT+A | Edit Select All |
ALT+B | Toggle Bold |
ALT+C | Copy to Windows Clipboard |
ALT+F,O | File Open (Windows standard keystroke) |
ALT+S | File Save |
ALT+V | Paste from Windows Clipboard |
ALT+X | Cut to Windows Clipboard |
Note: | ALT+V clashes with the View menu. Therefore, use ALT+F, RIGHT ARROW to select View. Also ALT+B clashes with the Table menu - use ALT+W,LEFT ARROW to select Table. |
Word seems sensitive about the caps lock being on. Try turning it off and try again.
If the WordStar Command Emulator won't print a marked block you are almost certainly using Word as your email editor within Outlook and trying to print from there. For some reason, Outlook prevents this command from working.
As this is such a useful function, but clashes with WordStar's move left one word command, Edit, Select All has been assigned to ALT+A.
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