Must read: http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WordVsWordPerfect.htm

Much of this answer is based on John McGhie's excellent article and other writings.

d. Word keeps most of its formatting in the pilcrows (paragraph marks). 

This is why it is recommended that you switch your viewing options in page layout view and normal view to "view paragraph marks." Don't worry, they won't print out and you can still switch to print preview to see the page without them.

e. Learn about styles and apply them religiously in your form documents.

Do not have anything in your form documents formatted as "Normal." If you want to change paragraph formatting, create a new style for the new format. In talking about form documents here, I’m talking about templates, as well as Word "forms." A fine look at styles is in Microsoft's Legal Users Guide to Microsoft Word. You can find this on-line at http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide (revised version).

f. Use multiple templates.

Avoid basing a document on the Normal template (blank page). Long-term this will save you many headaches. Download and read John McGhie's piece for more on this. Learn about templates, where they are stored and why, and how to create them.

g. Word does have a "reveal codes" but it is not the same as WP's.

	To reveal the formatting of a part of a document, press Shift-F1 (or select What's This? on the Help menu). This will give you a large arrow pointer with a question mark. Point it at the part of the text that is giving you trouble and it will tell you what style formatting is applied and what direct formatting is applied to that text.  (In Word 2002-2003 this info shows up in the task pane.)
	To see margins and tab settings, display the ruler.
	For more on this, see: http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/RevealCodes.htm
	There is a commercial program called CrossEyes that adds a reveal codes feature to Word. I've heard that it works well.

h. Macros - take a look at AutoText and AutoCorrect. 

Most Word Perfect users that I know primarily use macros to enter boilerplate. In Word, this function is filled much better using AutoText and AutoCorrect features. Follow the links on my web resources page for more about these features. To convert these, run the macros in Word Perfect to produce the text, save that text in a document and convert that document to Word format. Save the text as AutoText entries in a global template. Microsoft has detailed some built-in features in Word that replace many macro functions in Word Perfect.

For macros that do something more than enter text, machine conversion seems to be impossible. (Think in terms of explaining quadratic equations using sign language without a pencil and paper. The concepts don't translate.) Here are some resources for converting WP macros to VBA:

Word Perfect 5.1 Macro Text Extractor

Converting Word Perfect Macros - a Microsoft Whitepaper

 

i. Show me the Function Keys! (Word 2000 +)

You can get the function keys to display in a special toolbar at the bottom of the screen if you want (something like pressing F3 twice in WP 5.1). The following macro will do this.

Sub ShowMeFunctionKeys()

    Commandbars("Function Key Display").Visible = True

End Sub

The following macro would toggle this display:

Sub ToggleFunctionKeysDisplay()

    With Commandbars("Function Key Display")

        .Visible = Not .Visible

    End With

End Sub

See Macros and VBA for instructions on inserting this macro into your Normal.dot or other template.

There are a number of excellent articles out there. You can start with:

Tips & Gotchas at mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/TipsAndGotchas.htm.

How Word Differs from Word Perfect (John McGhie)
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WordVsWordPerfect.htm

Life After Reveal Codes (American Bar Association) at
abanet.org/lpm/newsarticle11093_front.shtml 

Converting from Word Perfect to Word

Microsoft's Knowledge Base articles: http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q271/4/78.ASP 
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q211/6/92.ASP

j. Do not use converted documents to produce new documents.

I recommend against using converted documents except for reference!

They will be filled with formatting anomolies that will get you at the worst time. This is especially true of any documents containing automatic numbering or bullets. Try recreating form documents in Word using the following process: In Word Perfect (if you still have it, in Word if not) save your files as text files. Use your converted files as references to show you how you want your formatting to look. Create a new document in Word and insert the text from the text file. Save this new document as a Word template. Format it the way you want using styles, not direct formatting. Save it again. To use a template within Word, use File => New and pick your template. This will create a new document for you.

General practice in WP is to have a document and copy and edit it to create a new document. This is not good practice in Word. In Word, construct a good, tight, template for your documents and use that template when constructing new documents. Among other things, this can avoid embarrassing "metadata" http://www.addbalance.com/usersguide/metadata.htm and things like surprise headers and footers from creeping into new documents.

There is a program for conversions from Word Perfect to Word available through Levit & James called CrossWords.

Note on Conversion Problem to Word Perfect 5.? for DOS from Word 2002 and later.

One of the Service Packs for Word 2002 changes the WP5.? conversion file WPFT532.CNV. This change is continued in Word 2003 (and probably later). The new conversion file supports conversion from WP 5.? format to Word but not conversion to this format. I copied the file from a Word 2000 installation to a Word 2003 installation and Word 2003 now will convert to WP 5.0 for DOS format. I don't know that this will work perfectly for others but post the information. Note that the new (read-only) converter patched a security problem with the old converter, so use at your own risk.

Please note the warnings above about using converted files. I don't recommend using converted files for editing or preparation of templates unless they are taken through as straight text without formatting.

A quick tutorial on some of the "hidden" non-printing marks that you can display in Microsoft Word: The paragraph symbol (backwards double-barred P) means someone used the Enter key. (The name for this symbol is "pillcrow.") Paragraph Formatting can be thought of as stored in each paragraph mark. Generally, you do not want to have any paragraph marks with no text preceding them (blank paragraphs). They add a lot of "overhead" to Word documents and make editing much more difficult. If you need to adjust the spacing between paragraphs, use the "space before" and "space after" paragraph formatting options, preferably through the paragraph's style. Shift-Enter displays as a little arrow curling down and to the left. Shift-Enter is a manual line break and is used when one wants to break a line but stay within the same paragraph (useful if you are sorting addresses entered in paragraphs, or want to break a line and avoid having the Space Before/After settings kick in).  Tabs appears as an arrow pointing to the right.  In Normal View, you will also see Breaks; in the middle of the break the type of break will be displayed (Page/Column/Section). Section breaks are double-lines of dots, Page and Column breaks are single-lines of dots. You won't see these breaks, as such, in Page View, but will see the results. Spaces display as very tiny dots, but non-breaking spaces (Ctrl-Shift-Space) appear as degree signs. Optional Hyphens are entered with Ctrl-Hyphen; they do not need to be viewed unless you want to check their placement. They only take effect at the end of lines if a word break is called for when hyphenation is activated. Hyphenation is usually done automatically, it does not require the use of optional hyphens unless the formatter is unsatisfied with the word breaks that show up. Hidden text is simply regular text and other characters that is formatted with the Format-Font option Hidden. It will appear with tiny dots beneath any text that is formatted this way. Whether or not to view Hidden text depends on if that feature is being used or suspected of being used. To quickly see if any Hidden text is lurking about your document, turn on display of hidden text and do a Find (CTL-F), click the More button, and while your cursor is in the Find box, click Format and Font, and select the Hidden option. Do not enter anything into the Find box for text. The search will then find anything with Hidden format applied. (Remember that unless you are already viewing Hidden text, the Find feature won't find it.) I strongly recommend to people that they try to get into the habit of viewing at least paragraph marks and tabs at all times; it greatly facilitates figuring out what is going on with one's document formatting, especially if it is someone else's formatting :). Optional Hyphens and non-breaking spaces are rarely used and generally with specific intent, so it is not often one needs to view them for checking purposes. hope this helps. Robin Kopel

From an edited post on the Microsoft new users newsgroup.

For more on this topic, you may want to refer to What do all those funny marks, like the dots between the words in my document, and the square bullets in the left margin, mean? by Suzanne Barnhill and Dave Rado.