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Critical Computer Skills Every Attorney Should Know - Basic Word Processing Skills

Basic Word Processing Skills

Along with words like "marketing" and "training" – "word processing" can make an attorney cringe. But in today's world, it is a critical, critical skill set.I often tell people that they might as well have a good old-fashioned typwewriter back on the desk - the way they just peck and poke away without taking advantage of any of the shortcuts and automation tools Word (or WP) have to offer. 

Learning basic document editing skills is a simple (truly simple) task. The true challenge is allowing yourself the time to learn. If your Firm employees a trainer or a help desk – call them up right now – right this second! and schedule a one hour appointment with them. That's all it will take. When they arrive (and they will do so happily) provide them with this checklist of must-know skills:

• Formatting Words, Paragraphs, Pages
• Inserting automatic page numbers so that as you add, delete or move pages, the numbers remain in numerical order
• Autotext and Autocorrect (in Word) are akin to macro's that store and spit out phrases, paragraphs, case styles with the tap of a couple of strokes (Word 2003 | Word 2007)
• A few tips and tricks (10 most useful Word shortcuts from TechRepublic)

If you don't have the luxury of an in-house technology resource, turn to the internet. There are countless tutorials, tips, templates and resources that can help you.

Here are some resources to get you started:

Websites

• Microsoft.com: A Roadmap to Word 2007 Training (With links to training tutorials!)
• Interactive: Word 2003 to Word 2007 Reference Guide
• Word on the Mac
• Training Classes from Affinity Consulting
• 60 indispensable Microsoft Word tips 

Blogs

• Legal Tech Trainer
• CompuSavvy's Word & WordPerfect Tips
• KAS Training's Legal Word Processing Corner
• This Blog's past Word for Lawyers posts

Books

• The Lawyer's Guide to Microsoft Word 2007
• Formatting Legal Documents With Microsoft Office Word 2007
• Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010 for Law Professionals Unveiling the Rules and Secrets of Legal Word Processing
• Word 2003 for Law Firms

The ABA TECHSHOW

If you plan on attending the ABA TECHSHOW this year you can sit in on this "Word for Lawyers" session I'll be doing with Barron Henley of Affinity Consulting:

If you're still manually typing paragraph numbers, tables of contents or tables of authority, you may as well throw your computer out the window and put that old electric typewriter back on your desk. Microsoft Word is a sophisticated tool, but most users just don't know how to tap its power. Drafting complex documents in Word does not have to be a wrestling match and shouldn't feel like punishment. If you're ready for Word enlightenment, come to this seminar. Hear the gospel of Styles and learn how to create paragraph numbering, tables of contents and authority which automatically generate and update. Saturday, March 27, 9:45 a.m. - 10:45 a.m.

Think about your Word documents as digital calling cards. They reflect your professionalism and attention to detail. Today, the appearance of a word processing document often reveals as much about an attorney's skills as the contents of the document itself. Document creation and editing skills are critical in today's professional and technical environment.

Oh, one more thing…take a look at an earlier post I did about typography.

POINT! for WordPerfect (and Apple too)

I'm not one for WordPerfect, having always been a Word user. But I certainly have a lot of respect for it - it's a great word processor, it's been around a long time, people love it and know how to use, right? Well, what I really love about WP/Corel are the folks behind it. Their presence in and generosity toward the legal community is unwavering. I have WPX3 because they gave away copies at TECHSHOW this year and they also gave us 150 copies to distribute to the New Orleans, New Law tech conference. They pretty much rock.

Soooo...last night I was tinkering in WP (yep, another hot Saturday night for me) - when I noticed that there's a built in PDF Publisher in WordPerfect (and also a Publish to EDGAR option). Cool. Looks like this feature is built into WP9 and versions after.

Here's a link to one Barry MacDonnell's WordPerfect Toolbox and a page on Tips for Printing to PDF. Check it out for more details. His site is loaded with WP tips as well as links to "Other WP Sites."

Okay, so I'm thinking that IF you have both Word and WP and IF you don't have Acrobat, you COULD open your .doc file in WP and print it to PDF from there. Tricky.

Are you a Mac user? Then you probably already know that Acrobat comes built into Apple's OS and anything you can send to your printer you can send to print as a PDF. Awesome.

So WTF, Microsoft? Well, check this out. Microsoft has it's OWN version of PDF that debuted in Office 2003. It's called Microsoft Document Imaging (.mdi). You can use it as long as you know the recipient of your files is an Office 2003 user (hmmm, have you ever asked your client what software they have available before just shooting off files to them? Perhaps some communication about technology is in order!) . This is a good option for firms or offices that are all on the same system and you know what everyone has on their system. I've used it several times and it works great. For example, I got an eFax - I have the free version, so it only delivers faxes in its proprietary format - you have to have the eFax viewer to open a file. I wanted a client to see the fax so naturally I wanted to send it in PDF. Well, I don't have Acrobat on the laptop I was traveling with that day but I knew she is using Office 2003; I printed the eFax to MDI. I emailed it to her, she opened it and even printed it. Try it for yourself.

Read more about MDI files at these links.

• Andrew Connell, Microsoft Valuable Professional
• Microsoft.com on MDI