Frustrated with Word? Maybe You're Doing it Wrong

Microsoft Word is one of those programs that many lawyers cannot escape using. Although some still prefer WordPerfect, the prevalance of Word's use by clients, colleagues and others have forced even die-hard WordPerfect fans to switch.

Whether you have been using Word for years or you switched from WordPerfect, chances are you were never fully trained on the best ways to use Word. And if you were trained some time ago, you might not realize that many of the previously "notorious" problems with Word have been fixed with newer versions of the program.

Too many lawyers still make simple mistakes when using the program. 

If you're frustrated with your use of Word, perhaps you're simply using it wrong, or you don't realize that there is an available feature that can help make your work easier. Learn the golden rules of Word every lawyer needs to know, outlined in this article from Affinity Consulting Group. They include:

• Fixing improper formatting using Word's magic paint brush
• Properly separating single-spaced paragraphs (without inserting extra hard returns)
• Learning how to properly use the auto-paragraph numbering feature, rather than manually numbering paragraphs.

Take a look at this excellent article - I bet you'll learn something new and become more productive in the process!

Comments

[Facebook App Developers]

Is it time for the word-processor to devolve? Bacon knows most users of Word might use less than 5% of its capabilities. I've taken to Google Docs or Markdown-HTML for most documents. Anything more complex and nothing but TeX will do.

[Bryangriffith]

Allison,

Sometimes I wonder if ignorance is bliss, because I can't seem to convince anyone to stop using two spaces, hard returns, and auto-numbering. So, this knowledge mostly serves to annoy me when I receive documents that are not properly formatted.

:)

Keep up the good fight!