Posts Tagged ‘law office’

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MOVING PARAGRAPHS USING MS WORD IN LEGAL DOCUMENTS

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

It can be very frustrating and time consuming after you have completed a lengthy document, such as a Deed, Power of Attorney, etc. and then you have to move your paragraphs either up or down in your document.

Of course, you can always use the old cut and paste method, but that in itself can be time consuming and we all know that I am all about saving time and keystrokes. There is a better method to use when you need to move the paragraphs in your document and it is quick and efficient!

Follow the steps below to learn how:

  1. Click one in the paragraph you would like to move.
  2. Hold down the Shift and Alt keys simultaneously and at the same time use either your up or down arrow.

Works like magic!  Go ahead and try it – you’e gonna love it! 

So you do not forget this handly little tip, make a note in MS Outlook and save it.  Then you can quickly check when you need it again.

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Posted in Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Outlook, Microsoft Office Word, Word 2003, Word 2007 | No Comments »

Legal Line Spacing in MS Word

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

A lot of legal secretaries have written to me asking for ways to quickly change the line spacing in a document as they are frequently moving from single line spacing for block quotes and double line spacing for text and then back to single line spacing for signature blocks in pleadings.

It really isn’t all that difficult. If you find that you are frequently changing the line spacing in MS Word to double or you are making the switch more often than not, it’s time to take measures so that this happens seamlessly and without lots of time and keystrokes.

After speaking with more than a few of these secretaries I found that most of them were using the Normal style in their documents and so I will assume for this tip that everyone is, although hopefully not!

I could tell you how to modify your Normal.dot style, which is the style on which you base every new document in MS Word, but I don’t see the point to that because then every document you create would have double line spacing. Wouldn’t that be a fine howdy do?

Instead, I will give you a quick key combination to use to change your line spacing on the fly in your documents.

When you are setting up your document using the Normal.dot style, everything will be in single line spacing.

Once you have typed the heading of your pleading, you now want to start using double line spacing so place your cursor where you want that spacing to start and depress and hold your CTRL key and click the number 2 on your keyboard.

That’s it! When you want to go back to single spacing, depress and hold your CTRL key and click on the number 1 on your keyboard.

Quick and easy, just the way I like it!

 

Having said all of that, if you are a legal secretary and are in a practice where you have lots of pleadings, it would behoove you to start using styles and/or templates – they make your life soooo much easier and it makes you look sooo professional!

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Posted in Microsoft Office, Office Productivity, Word 2003, Word 2007 | 1 Comment »

Using LexisNexis in MS Word for Research

Sunday, January 18th, 2009

This tip can be useful to everyone who uses MS Office but it is particularly useful to those in the legal and financial profession, as well as those in academia.

The the MS Word feature I am referring to was added in version 2003 and has been hailed as one of the best features yet by many. The feature is the Research task pane. The following services are available from the research task pane:

  • Dictionary – Will look up words or phrases in the MS Encarta English dictionary while you work
  • Thesaurus – Looks up synonyms while you work and insert them into your document directly from the Research task pane.
  • Encyclopedia – Research your subject using the Encarta Encyclopedia which contains over 42,000 articles.
  • Translation – Get translations quickly and easily using bilingual dictionaries on your computer and online.
  • Company Information – Look up company information where you work. You can insert company information and perform custom actions.
  • Comprehensive company information is provided by Gale, a company profile service provider.
  • Third- party services – you can add third party premium content to your list of research services, such as Factiva (news), eLibrary (news and periodicals), WordLingo (translation provider), Hoovers (financial information),and LexisNexis (legal research).
  • Web search – Searches the Web along side your document using MSN search.

Many of my law office subscribers didn’t know about using LexisNexis in the Research pane in MS Word. It’s pretty cool though once they get the hang of it. Say you have a legal memorandum and you have to check your case cites, you simply highlight it and right-click and select Lookup and then use the drop-down arrow to select LexisNexis and it does all the work for you.

Research Task Pane Menu

It is pretty simple to add the third resources to the Research task pane. Follow the steps below to learn how:

  1. Open the task pane by clicking on Tools | Research.

Tools Research

Your should now see Research options hyperlink at the bottom of the pane.

  1. Click on the hyperlink to bring up a dialog box.

Research Options

  1. Click the Add Services button.

Add Services

  1. Enter the URL of the service you are installing.
  2. Click the Add button to continue.
  3. Click the Install button in the dialog box.
  4. Follow the prompts until the conclusion.

In my opinion, this is a great feature and I think you will come to that conclusion as well.

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Posted in Microsoft Office, Word 2003 | No Comments »

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