AdvanceTo Legal and Corporate Word Processing Training

MS Word Legal - Use of Prefix and Suffix When Using Global Replace You would be surprised how often this comes up.   Here is the scenario:  The attorney has asked that all words starting with the Prefix “Law” be turned to Bold/Italic. 1.  Within the document, here are just some of the words that appear: Lawyer, Lawful, Lawless. 2.  Some of the additional words were Westlaw and Outlaw. 3.  When searching for Law “Search Whole Words only” won’t help since the Word “Law” is not by itself but a part of a word. 4.  We are going to have to use “Match Prefix” so that the system only goes after words that start with “Law” and not words that happen to have the letters “law” as part of a word on the back end. 5.  The request was to make those words starting with “Law” to be Bold/Italic. 6.  Go to “Format” under the Find and Replace Dialog Box and under “Font” choose Bold/Italic. 7.  Make sure you choose “Match Prefix” and run your Find and Replace. 8....

Moving A Chart From One Location To Another In PowerPoint This question surfaced the other day.  If you have a Smart Chart in Power Point, you can copy and paste the chart within the Power Point or to an MS Word Document.   If the chart is composed of individual pieces: 1. To grab the entire chart in order to Group it, click on ONE of the objects in the chart such as a box or oval.   Then, do " Control A " which highlights all of the pieces of the Chart.   Click on the " Drawing Tools " Tab (upper right) and select " Group " which is on the right side of the ribbon.  The chart will now respond as one solid piece to be moved around as needed on the same slide or when copied to another slide. 2.  When you grab your chart to Group it by use of " Control A " you will also grab Footer Material on the slide such as Page No ., Date etc. since the pieces of the Footer are using Text Boxes".  To " De-select " the Footer Material or for...

  Dealing With Notes In PowerPoint... When dealing with PowerPoint, there are cases where the Notes aspect is a big part.  When Notes are used, many times they are used in the development stage of a PowerPoint Presentation but are mostly used for hard copy (paper handouts) where the Notes part of a Presentation serves to add additional analysis and supporting material for slides that were used in the live presentation. People use the Notes sections for personal notes, observations, analysis, instruction, and as part of a presentation itself.  The notes that people make pertain to the specific slide information that is above it.  So, I can be making notes pertaining to a Pie Chart, to a scene, to a bulleted list etc.  Many times the Notes Pages are printed as a nice handout before a presentation as a summary of what is being discussed along with the miniaturized version of each slide.  Sometimes the Notes pages are used for the material that will be used for...

Why Are Certain Items In MS Word Gray? That was the question by one of our students.  It is a good thing that they are.  Items that have a gray shading to them simply indicate that they are items that are automated..  By having automated items gray, you are less likely to accidentally remove them because they were mistaken for plain text. So, what items are we talking about? TOC , TOA , Index of Terms , Cross References , Multilevel Outlines,  Headings (when you place your cursor on them), Page Numbers , Footnote Reference Numbers, number types for a particular level in your Multilevel Dialog Box Etc. How do you ensure that your automated items are gray? Well, this is part of what our Getting Ready Routine (Booklet on Amazon) which guarantees that certain vital settings are in place.  To ensure that your automated items are shaded in Gray go to File , Options , Advanced , Show Document Content , Field Shading " Always ". During the course of your work always b...

  Learning To Read The MS Word Right Side Style Palette How many people look at the right side style palette in MS Word but never really take a close look. Turn on your right side Styles Palette.  You can go to Home-and click the little box to the far right of the word “Style”. Once the palette is visible, go to Options at the bottom right of the Palette and ask for “ All Styles ” and “ Alphabetical ”.  Clicking on the “Show Preview” box (which is at the bottom of the Style Palette) it will let you see what your individual styles look like. When doing a Multilevel Outline, it will show you the different levels of each Heading Style and the letter or number that is set for each level.  If the Show Preview is off, you will see nothing more than the Alphabetized list of the Styles in plain text rather than what the styles look like.  Whether your Preview on or off, will show a Paragraph Symbol to the right of your Style names. This simply means it will affect the e...

  Quick And Easy Deletion Of A Table This short write-up will provide you with an additional piece of knowledge that is a time saver.  It has to do with the deletion of a table. When working with tables, most people like to work in " Print Layout View " so that they can click on the " Target " symbol that appears on the top-left of the table which allows one to select the entire table with 1 click.  When in Draft View, there is no target like symbol. So, most people when deleting a table,  select the table in 1 click and they then use their " Delete " key which knocks out the text of the table and leaves behind the empty grid (Structure) which still leaves you with having to delete the structure of the table. So, we can take care of the deletion of a table with a minimum of 2 clicks. 1.  Make sure you are in Print Layout View .  Place your cursor in your table.   2.  Click on the Target Symbol (top left of table) to select the entire table in 1 ...

  Displaying Field Codes Instead of their values - What Is Going On? This situation crops up from time to time whereby a completed TOC, TOA and Index of Terms shows up as a one line field code instead of the usual look of the finished TOC, TOA and Index.   If you want to see what this looks like go to a completed TOC, place your cursor on the completed TOC and use Shift and F9 .  Upon doing so, your TOC will collapse (toggle), down to a one line field code.  If you right click on that same TOC, and select Toggle Field Code you will get the same result.  Doing Shift F9 again and/or the Toggle will then reverse the process. If this happens to you at work, and you never experienced this before, this minor problem can take you off guard. So, the question becomes what is causing my TOC, TOA and Index to display as a one line field code? The setting under File , Options , Advanced , Show Document Content , " Show Field Codes Instead of their values " is the culp...

That Was An Important Call - I Need The Number To Call Back! Scenario :  One thing you can say about working in a legal environment, you just never know from day to day what will be asked of you.  So here it goes.  The attorney was waiting for a call that was to “green light” a project along with important particulars related to that project.  The call was to come in from an associate of the client whom the attorney has not yet been introduced to.  Well, he missed the call that was to come in on his personal cell as he was called away at the time of the call.  No big deal, we will just listen to the phone message. He could barely make out what the other party was saying so he has to call them back.  His phone says “unknown caller”.  He goes to his secretary I have to get back to this guy.  I need the number and it says “unknown”! The attorney might have been better off using his firm extension.  In that case, the secretary “most probably...

Paste Special Unformatted Text vs. Stripping Text To Normal - There Is A Difference. When teaching, I am often asked to distinguish between Paste Special Unformatted vs. Strip Text To Normal Style. Although at first glance, one would think you are essentially dealing with the same scenario, it is actually not that at all. Strip To Normal :  (Control Shift N).  When we strip a piece of text to "Normal Style", we are removing from that piece of text all Direct Formatting (On the surface) as well as any attributes (Fonts, Bold, Und), Paragraph Formatting (line spacing, alignment, before/after,) contained within a Style that was attached to that piece of text.   1.   We do so to ensure that when we reapply a particular style or apply a different style to a particular piece of text that the text is a clean slate and only the attributes and paragraph formatting instructions of the style we are about to use will be the only items that are attached to that piece of text. ...

  Signatures Within A Table:  Two Ways To Go... As you know, if you have worked within a law firm you have two ways to go about putting together your signatures. Using the borders of Tables vs. using the usual signature set up which I will go over. 1.  One way is to use the borders of a table to create your signature lines.  First, take off all the borders of your table.  You can do this easily with “Control Alt U”.  If using the borders of the table, you will need to make use of a buffer column (a 1 character width column) between the two side by side signatures.   If you don't, the two side by side separate signatures will appear as one long signature line.  Now you can selectively put back the borders that will serve as your signature lines with the use of the “ Border Painter ” that you will find under Table Tools Design Tab. 2.  The traditional Signature within a table does not make use of the table borders and therefore, no buffer colum...

Creating A Table of Figures There are times when besides generating a Table of Contents, Authorities or Index of Terms, there is the need to generate a list of all of the financial tables that were used within a document.   The same situation could have been for all photos that were used within a document. Either way, it is simple enough to set up so let’s do it.  You may wish to make sure you have a page devoted to this list so that when you are ready to generate your Table of Figures you are good to go.  Keep in mind that some attorneys will run the Table of Figures right under the Table of Contents. Take your cursor over to your first table Go to your “ References Tab ” Look f or “Insert Caption ”.   The button should be about mid-way across the ribbon.  Ready to go?    Click On “ Insert Caption ”.   Your “Insert Caption” dialog box will open up.  Put in the name for Table 1 .  This is usually a synopsis of the name of the table. Unde...

  Properly Producing The Gap... Scenario :   We have a Heading 1 Centered: Article 1 (Soft Return)  (1 line Gap) Introduction (Hard Return) Above, we have the situation of a centered Heading 1.  Between Article 1 and the "Introduction" line there is a gap of 1 line which is the look that the author wanted for that level.  The question then becomes how do we properly produce the gap? 1.  The Soft Return (shift enter), after the Article line enables the system to look at the Heading 1 style as one piece instead of 2 separate pieces if we were to leave  a hard return on the "Article" line.  We want both lines to react immediately from the one application of Heading 1. 2.  Some people will use an additional soft return after the Article line in order to produce the gap. 3.  So, how to properly produce the gap?  You produce the gap in the textual aspect of Heading 1.  You modify and set the Heading for Double Spacing (under Paragr...