AhkWord 65

Superseded by AhkWord 66. In this version, in Print Layout, a Word file whose first paragraphs are hidden has its first lines painted over by the top margin, so text in the document can't be seen. Please use AhkWord 66.

AhkWord is a word processor for Windows that AutoHotkey scripts can drive while you type. This is a work in progress.

Download and run

Nothing to install. Choose one of the two downloads below:

• AhkWord-65.zip (17 MB): everything AhkWord needs except .NET. If your computer hasn't got the .NET 10 Desktop Runtime, AhkWord offers on its first start to download it from Microsoft for itself only (about 70 MB, checked against Microsoft's checksums, into AhkWord's own folder: nothing is installed in Windows, and no administrator is needed), or to open Microsoft's page to install it for all of Windows.
• AhkWord-65-complete.zip (89 MB): the same with .NET 10 inside, for a computer that may not have it or isn't online. It asks nothing.

Then:

1. Unzip it anywhere you can write to: your Documents, a USB stick (not Program Files).
2. Double-click AhkWord.exe. Windows may say Windows protected your PC the first time, because AhkWord isn't signed: click More info, then Run anyway.

If Windows says "Smart App Control blocked an app that may be unsafe", there is no Run anyway: Smart App Control, on by default on some new Windows 11 PCs, blocks programs that aren't signed, and AhkWord.exe is AutoHotkey, which isn't. See Troubleshooting before you turn the setting off (on many versions of Windows 11 it can't be turned on again without resetting Windows). A signed AhkWord is next on the roadmap.

Just trying it out? Put an empty file named portable beside AhkWord.exe first. Everything AhkWord keeps (settings, recent files, templates, recovery copies) then stays in its own folder, and deleting the folder leaves no trace. Without it, settings are kept for your Windows user, shared by every copy of AhkWord.

AhkWord.exe is AutoHotkey v2.0.30, unchanged, under AhkWord's name, so you don't need AutoHotkey installed; it is under the GNU GPL v2, and its license and a link to its source come in the zip. The other parts' licenses are in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md and licenses.

The documentation is at https://burque505.github.io/AhkWord/, and what is done and what comes next is in the roadmap.

New since AhkWord 59 (iterations 60 to 65)

• Sections. Insert > Section Break starts a new section on a new page. Each section can have its own header and footer (and its own first page), Same as previous or not, and its page numbers can start again; {pages} counts the whole document and the new {sectionpages} the section, as in Word. Page view, Print Preview, printing and PDF show each page's own section.
• Word's sections, both ways. RTF and Word (.docx) files keep their sections, each section's header and footer and its page numbering, and AhkWord now takes a file's page margins from the file.
• Insert from Template as a new section, with the template's own header and footer: put a package of documents together in one file.
• Change Case > Headline Case: small words in lower case (but the first and last), legal forms (v., In re, et al., d/b/a ...) and abbreviations (LLC, Inc., N.A. ...) kept as they are. Its word lists are in headline-case.txt, beside the settings, for you to change.
• Paste as Plain Text (Ctrl+Shift+V, also in the right-click menu and the command palette; PastePlainText for scripts).
• Extensions: an extension point with hooks, including one for an extension's own template language; the fields of headers and footers are filled in too.
• Fixes: in Print Layout, page 1's top margin is no longer copied onto every pasted or inserted paragraph; a Word file's header and footer are its first section's, not its last's; no error when AhkWord closes; Multiple Pages scrolls to its last row the first time.

For .NET's own updates and PDF progress, see AhkWord 59.

Thanks to TheArkive's M-ArkDown, whose Markdown extensions AhkWord follows for list styles and picture sizes.