WinEdt is a powerful, extremely flexible and versatile native editor and shell for MS Windows with a strong predisposition towards the creation of [La]TeX documents (and much more!)...

WinEdt.org is a place, where users of WinEdt can share everything concerning WinEdt. This includes macros (WinEdt Macro Library), modes, menus and shortcut schemes (Modes and Menus), help (this FAQ and tutorials), and whatever you can think of and want to contribute. WinEdt.org is run by volunteers. That is, it lives off contributions. To learn more about contributing, read this.

We need it. ;-)

No. WinEdt is shareware. That means you can use it for a trial period of 31 days. Any further use requires a license from the author. Registration of a personal copy of WinEdt for educational purposes carries a fee of US $40. Students are eligible for a reduced rate. WinEdt's current policy entitles registered users to free or competitive upgrades to new releases. For detailed description of different types of licenses and ordering information please check out the Registration Page on www.winedt.com.

First of all, WinEdt is not a TeX system. Do you have one installed? (see next question on where to get one).

Secondly, WinEdt needs to know where the applications are. It is usually very good in detecting them, but in rare cases it might be necessary to help it a bit.

Consult the Configuration Wizards (in the Help menu). Especially the output of the Diagnostic Frames is of interest, should you have not be able to solve the problem yourself.

The most popular TeX implementation for Windows is MikTeX. You can get it at www.miktex.org. Another widely used system is fpTeX, which you can download from www.fptex.org. Both systems are free.

If you are looking for additional packages for TeX or LaTeX, the place to go is CTAN (Comprehensive TeX Archive Network):

Ghostview and Acrobat Reader are also external programs. They can be obtained from www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/ and www.adobe.com respectively.

You are looking in the wrong place. Since WinEdt is not a TeX system, it is not the cause for your problems. You should have a look in one of the below mentioned LaTeX FAQs or ask in a LaTeX related newsgroup.

WinEdt allows you to enclose any Macro in its command line.

In your case:

 d:\winedt\winedt.exe document.txt "[GotoLin(12)]"

will do the job. The following is equivalent:

 d:\winedt\winedt.exe "[Open('document.txt');GotoLin(12)]"

You may have to specify the full path to document.txt. Macro.chm in WinEdt's \Doc\Help folder describes all available macro functions.

For example YAP's Inverse Search should be defined as:

 winedt.exe -F "[Open('%f');SelPar(%l,8)]"

YAP substitutes %f and %l for actual filename and line number.

See information in WinEdt Help for Command Line Switches, choose the switch you like (presumably -V or -0), and then implement it under Options | Configuration Wizard... | Filetype Associations. In brief the switches have the following meaning:

	Something to notice:
	The Command Switches under Filetype Associations act globally on all files that are double clicked; it is not possible to set a specific switch for only one file type. The startup behavior of WinEdt remains unaffected by these settings if you start the program through its icon on the desktop.

The values are the same (%b corresponds to %B) unless you create a user profile or manually define a different shortcut with -E or -e command line switch (see also Q: 3.1.4). This means: without a user profile, the default settings (and INI file) of the WinEdt installation is used.

WinEdt can give the values of %B and %b in three ways.

Yes, you have to start WinEdt with the special command-line switch -E with its argument pointing to the WinEdt INI File of the profile of interest. Eg:

WinEdt.exe -E="C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\<user>\Anwendungsdaten\
    WinEdt\WinEdt.ini"

Where C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\<user>\Anwendungsdaten\WinEdt corresponds to %b. Best is to manually define a new shortcut to the WinEdt executable with -E command line switch. -e can be used in a similar way for the main (default) INI file.

If you work under Win2000/XP in a safe mode (NTFS, administrative work as admin, daily work as normal user) the question arises, how usefull -E really is, because you have by default no read/write permissions for the profile of other users (except, the admin makes appropriate settings). Of course this was a different story under Win95/98/ME...

First of all, WinEdt has more than one way to deal with wrapping. Study the documentation file %B\Doc\Wrapping.txt, to learn all about it.

In summary: You can

Preferences can be changed in Options | Preferences | Defaults (respectively in Document | Document Settings... for documents which were created with other defaults) and in Options | Settings | Wrapping.

Go to Options | Preferences | Editor and change Right Margin (Chars) to a value that suites your needs.

If you are content with the standard way of wrapping (i.e. where paragraphs have to be ended by an empty line), and you only want to exclude certain lines from being wrapped, there are several things you can do:

Select the area you wish to comment. You then have 3 possibilities to choose from:

If you do not mark any text, only the current line is commented (see also point Q: 3.2.5).

You are able to do this in a similar way to case Q: 3.2.5: Select all the lines of your table and go to Edit | Move Fill | Insert String (Ctrl-Alt-Right). This opens a small dialog in which you should check the option Append. Now you can enter the text (“\\” in your case) and append it at the end of every selected line. As you may anticipate, this works perfectly well with beginning of lines as well while having the Insert option set.

BLOCK Mode: real magic can be done, if you are in BLOCK Mode and you select some character columns. You have then the ability to insert/append strings directly in between the selected block text. For example “ & ” to insert new columns in your TeX table.

There are different possibilities:

You surely hit exactly “{” (in front of “Graphical”) and what you obeserved is a feature of WinEdt implemented as Active String. Disable double-click response for {,( and [ in Options | Settings | Active Strings Dialog).

Options | Settings | Active Strings is the right place to define such responses. Check how is by default defined a response to \lamda (a common typo) to immediately correct it to \lambda. Similar responses are defined but not enabled for teh to the etc...

Simply duplicate such an instance by right-clicking it and using Copy and Paste. Adjust the value of the Active String and modify the macro fragment in the field below the label On Type to your your needs (make sure On Type is enabled).

WinEdt usually searches for gather items either in the current file, or, if a Main File is set, in all files of the Project Tree. Therefore the Tree has to be built, if your Project consists of more than one file. To do this, open your main document and select Project | Set Main File. Then you can build the Tree in the Project | Tree page. Now click Reset GDI in the Project | Gather page and then Collect Items.

If WinEdt still doesn't find any items, you are probably trying to get a list of bibliography entries. By default, WinEdt searches for bibliography items in all opened files, if no Main File is set. So if you don't want to use the Tree feature, you can also get items, if you open the bibliography database (but beware, WinEdt does not check whether any opened databases are actually used to create your bibliography!). So the probably better possibility is to include the bibliography database in the Tree, too. Add something like

 %GATHER{yourbibfile.bib}

to your LaTeX document and rebuild the Project Tree.

You only have to make a very small change to WinEdtEx.ini to adjust this behavior to your needs. Goto Options | Configurations | Extended Configuration. This opens WinEdtEx.ini from your Local WinEdt Path (%b) or from WinEdt's main path (%B) if you haven't defined a User Profile. Search for the section [INPUT_DIRECTIVES] (at the end of the file) where you find some lines looking as follows:

INPUT="TeX"
  MODE="TeX"
  MAX_TREE_DEPTH=9
  OPEN_ON_DBL_CLICK=1
  BEGINNING_OF_LINE_ONLY=1
  ...

Change the value of BEGINNING_OF_LINE_ONLY to 0 according to the following rules:

That's it! You need to restart WinEdt first or say Macros | Run Startup Macro, to let the changes become effective.

Notice, that gathering large trees this way may slow down the gathering process, as WinEdt needs to examine the files completely. So consider the default value of BEGINNING_OF_LINE_ONLY=1 being a safety feature and not a bug.

No. However, on CTAN you'll find a utility that produces a word count from the dvi file. This might be just what you are looking for: it can be more accurate than WinEdt because WinEdt does not know how certain TeX macros get expanded while dvi file contains processed text with all the words...

A tool not located on CTAN is Translator's Abacus; a Wordcount program that can count the words in html, pdf, Word, RTF, and text file - no DVI file though, but it should not cause any problems to produce an intermediary pdf file (with pdflatex) to do a word count with this program.

Expanded Question: For example, it says that you could use a certain field to associate a dictionary with a submode. But how? Should I write :FR, TeX:FR, FR? What if I want it used for more than one mode? When do more than one dictionary apply to the same file?

A submode only affects certain aspect of a document (eg. language). Your document can be TeX, HTML or plain ASCII and FR can apply to all. That's why you should only specify FR (not :FR) as a filter to French dictionaries (you may want to have a different user add-on dictionary for French and English as well!).

For example your document could have mode:

TeX:FR:UNIX

(the last submode indicates that WinEdt detected UNIX-style line terminators - WinEdt and MikTeX work just fine with such files and there is no need to convert them unless you want to use them in other Windows applications)...

This is an emacs convention to specify modes. It works when the file is loaded or when you explicitly execute the Get Mode macro in the documents menu. This is one way to force the correct mode...

This works because WinEdt executes the associated macro as an On-Open event handler (but you don't have to worry about this just yet unless you want to change or customize this convention).

Later the mode is preserved in WinEdt's Project file...

In the WinEdt.org tutorial the submodes are defined :FR|*.* while in the existing (default) submodes the definitions are of the type :DE|*.de . Which is recommended? Should I manually name the file bla.de, or bla.de.tex or bla.tex.de beforehand or should I open the Document Settings and choose the submode and save and then the .de will be attached automatically?

That depends on what you want. Some users want to adopt double-extension (file-type) convention to ensure the proper mode and submode. Others prefer emacs convention above and yet others use Document Settings dialog and the fact that the modes are preserved as a part of the project file...

Simply click into the status bar field Spell. The color should change from dark red to grey and Spell Checking is disabled.

If you want to fine tune Spell Checking, you should also consider to check the settings in the panes under Options | Dictionary....

Expanded Question: I want to have a French TeX submode, with a French dictionary. I managed to define a submode and to load the dictionary, associating it with the submode. Unfortunately, now, when I activate my FR submode with the Document Settings dialog, the spell checker considers both English and French words as correct. I would like, when in FR submode, French words to be correct, while English ones be recognized as incorrect. How can I do this?

Well, one way is to also define EN submode (beside the FR). And then enable the English word lists ONLY for EN submode.

Or else, you can enable English dictionaries for all modes except FR and DE (should you use both French and German plus English). This is done by the following mode filter:

*|FR;DE

LaTeX Dict can be enabled for all modes (or else just for Tex). If you want to enter more than one (sub)mode in the "enabled" filter list the modes separated by semicolon:

mode1;mode2;mode3 etc...

If the list is followed by

|notmode1;notmode2;notmode3 etc...

then these modes indicate the modes for which the option is disabled (eg. *|FR). This applies to all (sub)mode-filters.

Depending on your default (most commonly used langauge) it is a good (but not the only possible) strategy to enable the associated dictionaries with the mode filter:

*|second_lang1;second_lang2; etc... 

and have secondary languages treated by assigning such documents a submode:

second_lang1, etc...

Browse here means browse the disk for new files to include not browse inside the files themselves. If you want to edit or examine the file, then you have to open it manually (which may, of course, be done by right clicking on the file while in the above browsing mode).

All menu customizations are performed through the Options | Menu Setup dialog.

The full documentation for WinEdt's menus can be found in WinEdt's Help (look for index entry Menu Setup).

Suppose you have the following macro ...\macro\foo.edt you want to tie up with a shortcut Ctrl-Shift-F without adding a menuitem.

To establish this shortcut, go through Options | Menu Setup to the tabbed pane Main Menu. Doubleclick the item "Shortcuts" and move to the end of the Menu Items list. Rightclick and insert a new item via Insert | Macro. Insert "Exe('...\macro\foo.edt');" in the Macro field, go to the Shortcut field and insert your desired shortcut by simply hitting the required keys Ctrl-Shift-F.

If you need a key like Esc you may need the help of More Keys.

You can only add icons to the toolbar, that are available as such in menus, so maybe you have to define them first there (invisible menus or popups are possible too). If you want to add a “shortcut” to an external program (via toolbar), you must be aware of WinEdt not being able to evaluate the internal icon definition of programs - you have to extract it yourself.

To publish a new icon in WinEdt's menus, you have to do the following steps:

If you want a nice icon to appear in menu items too, proceed the same way:

These icons can be referenced under Options | Menu Setup... | Main Menu. Double click a specific menu item, and add your new icons under Images and hint.

Finally - this all done - just right click the Tool Bar with the mouse and choose Enter Tool Bar Setup from the popup menu. Then choose the button you want to move (click 1) and click on the place where you want it to appear (click 2). Save the modification with right click and choosing Apply in the context menu.

See also Q: 3.5.1 and of course WinEdt's Help (look for index entry Menu Setup).

First save your template eg. in %B\local\templates. Then generate a file link to this document with the help of Options | Preferences | Templates, where you may browse for your file in question. Look at the examples (it is straightforward).

This is the way Windows handles menus: If the popup menu is made visible then the shortcuts assigned to its items are not valid and you have to either use the mouse interface, arrows or the underlined letters in the item names (the characters preceded by &) to choose an item.

On the other hand, an invisible menu items can only be accessed through double shortcuts and you must assign a shortcut to all its items and use these shortcuts to activate any particular item. The underlined letters are irrelevant in such menus just as the assigned shortcuts are irrelevant in the visible popup menus!

See also installing a shortcut.

Clickable simply indicates the presence of a possible input file for the related command, e.g., the dvips button will be clickable if filename.dvi exists, where filename is the name of the open (or main) TeX/LaTeX file.

So, if the buttons are not clickable, it means that the relevant file was not created by the compilation command - i.e., an error occurred.

This is a feature which prevents WinEdt from becoming too slow on removable or network drives. If E: is a local (or fast enough) drive you can add it to Update Drives in the Preferences | Backup Dialog. Enter something like:

 C;D;E

See also clickable buttons

This can happen, if you upgrade your Windows, or install new software that may use your shortcut in question as Hotkey. Some shortcuts have a predefined meaning and they cannot be reassigned.

For example, Alt-Tab, Alt-F4, Alt-ESC, etc... are interpreted by the Windows System Menu or Task Manager.

And Ctrl-F4, Ctrl-Tab, and even Ctrl-F6, is interpreted by Windows MDI (you'll notice the same in YAP and Adobe Reader - both being MDI applications like WinEdt) ...

But there is not only Microsoft that can hijack your shortcuts. Eg. if you used to have Shift-Ctrl-I for the TeX Insert Font Popup Menu and you install ICQ (an Instant Messenger), well, your WinEdt shortcut isn't available anymore, because ICQ uses it as Hotkey to bring its GUI to the foreground. You will have to change the shortcut or disable them all in ICQ.

Depending on your keyboard settings some other keys might be used to change the keyboard layout (German keyboards have Shift-Ctrl-E assigned to the EURO symbol). In any case, you'll have to learn to avoid such shortcuts or find a way to disable them. There is nothing WinEdt can do about it (they are intercepted, translated and dispatched by Windows before WinEdt has a chance to have its say)...

WinEdt's current shortcuts are listed in Options | Menu Setup... | Shortcut List. In the new Help (CHM Format since March 2005), you'll find a documentation of the default shortcuts under Dialogs → Menu Setup → Shortcut List.

An overview of WinXP specific shortcuts can be found at:

If you did not restore your previous settings (Options | Configurations | Backup before you update WinEdt and Options | Configurations | Restore after updating), you have to manually activate this short cut again in Options | Menu Setup | Popup Menus

Select the Environment item and make sure it is enabled and the short cut is Ctrl-Alt-E.

But: this reflects the old Popup Menu invocation, (still working though). Alex changed some settings, so it is easier for mode writers to use the same shortcuts for comparable tasks in different modes (shortcut economics :-) ).

Better set the shortcut in Options | Menu Setup | Main Menu. Open the first item Popups and you'll find an item Environments; proceed the same way as before. This menu item will call the desired Popup Menu via a small macro that checks the mode you are currently in (to be found in %B\Menus\Popups, mode writers may extend these macros).

See also the previous entry about hijacked shortcuts (especially about EURO symbol shortcut).

	Note
	Alex doesn't maintain macros for Acrobat Distiller (work is hard enough to keep up with the changes that every new Acrobat Reader version has in its baggage), but he provided clear instructions on the mailing list on how to set up such a customization yourself.

If you have WinEdt 5.4 start Options | Execution Modes interface and select ps2pdf accessory.

Change the executable from

gswin32c.exe

to

"%$('Acro-Bin');\acrodist.exe"

or if this for some reason fails replace %$('Acro-Bin'); with full path to acrodist.exe enclosed in double quotes, eg.:

"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\acrodist.exe"

Change parameters from

-sOutputFile="%N.pdf" -c save pop -f "%N.ps"

to

"%N.ps"

and switches from

-dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -r600 -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4

to empty or something like

/N /Q /V

with

Decide if you want to run it in detached mode or else simply disable all fancy execution options for this accessory... No need to modify the macro. You should not use any switches for paper size unless you change the macro so that it will pass switches that distiller understands (defaults are for ghostscript) as you can see in the complicated macro.

In WinEdt 5.3 you'll find the following comment in ps2pdf.edt:

  // Use Acrobat's Distiller (if available)
  // Omit the /V to avoid viewing newly created .pdf files
  // Run('acrodist.exe /N /Q /V "%N.ps"',"%P",0,1,"PS -> PDF ...",1,1);
  // Exit;

Remove the comments // and possibly enter full path for acrodist.exe in double quotes:

  Run('"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\acrodist.exe" /N /Q /V
  "%N.ps"',"%P",0,1,"PS -> PDF ...",1,1);

WinEdt offers you two menu items that can assist at command line executions:

Everything that is working on the command line (eg. perl script with parameter switches and options), can be run with Run():

  Run("script.pl --verbose foo.glo > foo.err");

If you need to set the current path, simply specify the second parameter of the Run() macro. If you want to replace filenames dynamically with current (main) file name, you can make use of %n or %N (postulating %N being something like "foo.ext"). In this case make sure to use quotes around the input file's name (%N may expand to a string containing whitespaces):

  Run('script.pl --verbose "%N".glo > "%N".err','mypath');

More sophisticated execution modes are available with WinExe(). Check the macro manual at Help | Macro Manual for a complete explanation of further parameters that can be declared. If you want to tie such a macro together with a menu item or a shortcut see also adding menu item or installing shortcut respectively.

Both methods close all opened documents and the project file and set the current project to <temporary project>.

Quitting does not save the current state of the project and removes the project from the list of recent projects (unless it was a default project). It will not prompt about saving changes to the project (but it prompts with a warning to this subject). It can be used if you are definitely done with that project... It cleans up the Recent Files List and the Project Tree as well, leaving WinEdt in a virgin state, as if you had started the program with -V switch.

Whereas Closing the project just closes all the files contained in your project. If you want to happen more here, you can modify the event handler that is executed when closing a project:

  Exe('%b\Macros\Events\Prj-Close.edt');

It is left to this event handler to take care of cleanup, if desired. By default it does not clean anything (but it can be changed), look for the following line:

  DeleteTree(1, $$0000);

Usage of DeleteTree(UseFlag: 0..1, Flag: $$0000..$$1111);

See also Q: 3.1.2.

WinEdt starts the common Open and Save As dialogs in the current folder. By default, the folder is reset to the last opened document and can be set explicitly by Ctrl-Shift-H command (SetFolder() to the path of the current document). The menu item is either in Project or Document menu (depending on your version of WinEdt).

I find this handy since it allows more control (when I use Save As command I usually want to save the file to a different folder). If you want your asked behavior by default, you have to delete the current Open and Save As Menu Items (because they are defined as commands) and then replace them by macro items:

 SetFolder('%p');CMD('Open...');

respectively

 SetFolder('%p');CMD('Save As...');

If you don't want the “Default” mode (*.*) to show up as default in the file open dialog, reverse the lines Default and TeX in the edit control inside the Preferences | Modes Dialog. This changes the order of file extension items in the file open dialog.



Yes. You find the dialog Colors and Syntax Highlighting under Options | Highlighting. In the first tabbed pane Selections and Colors choose the 5th button Customize Basic Colors, which opens a new dialog, where you can change any of the 16 colours. Note that highlighting can look weird if you choose completely different colours. You can always return to the default colours.

In Version 5.3 of WinEdt go to Options | Preferences | Colors and open the context popup menu (Rightclick on Colors). Then choose Change Colors to redefine the colours.

Expanded Question: I have a document mode that uses "!" as a comment character. I would like to have the comments highlighted and therefor I copied the TeX Comment Switch, changed the "%" to a "!" and changed "TeX" to "MyMode" . But it doesn't work. What else do I need to do?

Answer: You have to define a Filter Set ["!"] and use it as a Start Switch (from the drop-down list). Changing "%" to "!" in the name does nothing and Filter Sets have to be defined in the Filter Sets Tab Page before they can be properly assigned and used in switches...

A good introduction to this subject can be found in Syntax Highlighting in WinEdt [pdf; 59 KB]

Regular expressions are constructs that look like comic-book expletives but can be wondrously powerful tools. Using Regular Expressions you can find (and replace) text that matches a certain pattern. Some characters have a special meaning: F.i. the character ? stands for "any (single) character". So, if you wanted to find all four-letter words that begin and end with "t" (tart, text, tilt etc.) you would search for t??t.

You can also tag expressions to reuse them. F.i., if you wanted to change all "\urls" into "\hrefs" , you would search for \\url\{\(0*\)\} and replace them with \\href\{mailto:\0\}\{\0\}. Note that the special characters (like "{" , "}" and "\" ) have to be escaped by a "\" to keep their literal meaning.

The file %B\Doc\RegEx.txt will tell you more about WinEdt's regular expressions.

Easiest is to use Search | Replace (Ctrl-R) with Regular expressions checked:

  Find: "~<>~>"
  Replace with: " "

or possibly

  Find: "~<>~{>| }"

if you want to prevent (backward) formatting of indented lines.

That's right. The Regular Expression "*", which stands for any string of arbitrary length, does not span over line breaks.

If you are using WinEdt 5.3 you can use the expression "**", which allows line breaks. If you are using an earlier version, you can use something along the lines of the following Regular Expression, which will find LaTeX environments:

\\begin\{*\}@{>|^{\\end\{*\}}}\\end\{*\}

This code will fail on nested environments, as it will stop at the first possible match for \\end\{*\}. For these, the expression gets more complicated (I've replaced \\begin\{*\} and \\end\{*\} with begin resp. end to make it somewhat more readable):

begin@{>|{begin*end}|^{end}}end

will find a maximum number of two nested environments (as long as the inner environment starts and ends on the same line);

begin@{>|{begin@{>|{begin*end}|^{end}}*end}|^{end}}end

will find a maximum number of three nested environments;

begin@{>|{begin@{>|{begin@{>|{begin*end}|^{end}}*end}|^{end}}*end}|^{end}}end

will find a maximum number of four nested environments, and so on.

Of course these expressions will find all environments which are nested in a smaller degree, too. Environments which contain more than the maximum number, will not be matched correctly.

You may be right. But it might already be known. Check in the list of bugs. If you don't find it there, construct a minimal test macro which shows the behaviour you think is wrong, and send it (preferably) to the WinEdt mailing list or to WinEdt's support (if you do the latter, please CC to <webmaster@winedt.org>). If it turns out that you've really found a bug, it will probably be fixed in the next release.

A macro is a script that contains a number of editing or other commands, which are executed in WinEdt. You can use macros f.i. for repeated editing tasks like typing 168 lines of a LaTeX table. An easy way to learn what a macro is, is the Macro Recorder (Macros | Recorder...), which lets you record and play macros.

You are probably using macros already: F.i. most of the Insert commands are macros, and a lot of responses to Active Strings are macros. Do you type "\textit{...}" ? Don't! Press ALT-CTRL-F followed by ALT-I instead. So whenever you find yourself typing the same things again and again, use a macro!

In the WinEdt Macro Library you find a lot of more advanced macros, that can make your life with WinEdt (and life in general) much easier.

Go to Macros | Execute Macro... and browse for the macro file. If you want to run a macro more often, read the next question, too.

You have two possibilities, if you want to run a macro frequently:

To learn more, read the instructions from the WinEdt Macro Library, and the files Menu.txt and Toolbar.txt in WinEdt's Doc folder.

Instead of using the Task Manager to kill WinEdt when it is executing a macro code that is too slow or possibly contains an infinite loop, the following applies:

Press and hold the keys Shift-ESC until the status line displays a message Canceled!!!. You may have to do this a few times to exit nested loops, but in principle it is possible to cancel all such actions using this shortcut.

You're probably experiencing WinEdt's string expansion rules. With this macro code:

  LetReg(1,"Test");
  IfStr("%!1","Test","=",>
    "LetReg(1,'It works.'); Prompt('%!1');">
  );

you will be prompted: "Test" and not, as expected, "It works" , because the whole string

  "LetReg(1,'It works.'); Prompt('%!1');"

will be expanded at once, i.e. before the register is changed. Therefore %!1 does not contain the new value. To prevent the register from being expanded you have two possibilities:

WinEdt has a macro language that allows you to define your own actions and assign them to the keys you prefer. You could use the following (easy readable, straight forward step by step thinking) macro to duplicate a line:

  SetInsert(1);
  CMD("Go To Beginning Of Line");
  CMD("Select To End Of Line");
  CMD("Copy");
  CMD("Char Right");
  NewLine;
  CMD("Paste");
  RestoreInsert;

You can save this content to a file named dupl.edt in for example %b\macros. Then you have to set up a menu entry that executes Exe("%b\macros\dupl.edt"); and assign it to a key combination (see installing a shortcut for instructions).

But the macro above is much to long. The WinEdt register %L holds already the content of the current line. So the following line will do the job:

 CMD("Go To Beginning Of Line");Ins('%L%\');

Note that "%\" has the same meaning as "\n" in C, namely a new line.

 CMD('Go To End Of Line');Ins('%\%L');

does the same job, but leaves you at the end of the second line. These macros are that short, that you probably don't need to save them in a extra macro file.

Of course, with wrapping on, the new line gets ... well, wrapped! This can be avoided by using InsText instead of Ins, which prevents any reformatting of the inserted text:

 CMD("Go To Beginning Of Line");InsText('%L%\');

Suppose the the following problem:

You want to use the filenames gathered in the tree of a project. You can store the filenames with GetTree(6); in register 6. The problem is that an asterisk is inserted before the filenames and you would like to get rid of them.

The following macro does the job. Register 6 keeps input and result.

GetTree(6);
LetRegNum(9,-1);                                           
SetOK(1);
Loop(!` >                                                  
    FindInString("%!6", "<\*", 8, 9, 1001,%!9+1); >        
    IfOK(!' >
        ReplaceInString("%!6", "<", %!8, %!9, 1, 6); >     
    ',' >
        Stop; >                                            
    '); >
`);
End;

	Initialize resume index in register 9
	The Loop macro allows you to deal with jobs, that have to be executed cyclically. As it is executed at least once, it works similar to a Repeat/Until instruction. Notice the ">" characters at the end of the lines (inside the loop). They instruct WinEdt to concatenate the lines into one single line while parsing the loop-argument.
	The break is set by Stop - usually in combination with a testing environment like IfOK
	Searching takes place in register 6, replacing too. Use of Regular Expression and Resume Index "<" : BOL; "\*" : escape the special meaning of "*" in the regular expression ) take "<\*@{ }" instead of "<\*" if you want discard the whitespace too (indentation) start searching at index %!9+1 and store the result in register 9 again.
	Regular Expressions (second last parameter) are activated to insert a new Beginning of Line with ">" . You can of course use anything else, for example ";" as token separator.

You can ask on WinEdt's Mailing List. Or, if you prefer that, you can directly contact the WinEdt Team <support@winedt.com>.

If you have a question that is not directly related to WinEdt but rather to TeX, LaTeX and friends, you can search one of the TeX FAQs:

subscribe to a classical mailing list (only one known to me so far)

or ask various newsgroups

If you aren't able to register to newsgroups (because of firewalls,...), you may give http://groups-beta.google.com a try. This site displays with a delay of some hours the current content of specific newsgroups (in thread style) and you can google for a certain subject within a specific group. Take a look at comp.text.tex.

Send an empty message to <winedt+list-subscribe@wsg.net>. Make sure that the return address in your e-mail is correct. On subscribing you will be sent instructions on how to remove yourself from the list, should you so wish.

Send an empty message to <winedt+list-unsubscribe@wsg.net>. Do not send your request to the mailing list! This will have no effect except for annoying the subscribers.

Yes. As of February 13, 2002, the messages on the Mailing List are archived on http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WinEdt.

Not at all. But WinEdt.org is the work of volunteers and our time is limited.

If you miss a question, and you know the answer, it would be great if you write it down and send it to me: <georges.schmitz@heitec.de>, so that I can include it.

Feel free to notify me of mistakes, or to suggest improvements.

Please do not send questions without answers to me.