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Hints on Using Word - IT Panel Articles 2004-2005

Part One

Many members of the Bar mastered and were happy with WordPerfect 5.1 in its heyday. Some remain happy to continue to use it on a Windows platform. They are reluctant to switch to Microsoft Word©, although they find that most solicitors are now committed to Word. Some of those who have tried to switch to Word have given up in despair. They resent its least user-friendly attributes, such as its insistence upon changing the margins and the formatting of paragraphs because it has been programmed to suppose that this is what you want it to do, only you don't. Others, and many who have come fresh to Word, soldier on with resentment at its apparent inefficiency. This article, the first of three, offers some hints for those who still feel less at ease in Word than they would like. The first article concentrates on formatting and other aspects of how to produce your work with less aggravation. The next will deal with how best to avoid losing your work after you have produced it. The third will indicate some useful shortcuts.

Blocking

Keeping Words Together

Dancing Margins

Part Two

The first article in this series offered some tips on using Word to produce your work. This second part has tips on how best to avoid losing your work after you have produced it. The instruction to keep the key down while you press "f" is expressed here as f.

Saving and Organising Your Work

For the first save (best done even before you start to type), the easiest way is to press the key, which is a built-in shortcut to 'File' (or f) and 'Save As' (or a): one click instead of two!

Once you have the 'Save As' box displayed, you will see at the top a pull-down menu, operated by a left-click on its right hand side (or by i). If you do not already have your own folder hierarchy system in which to "save as", try the following. Click on "C:" (your hard disk). Look for the icon that resembles a briefcase whose top right hand corner is exploding, otherwise known as the 'Create new folder' icon. Left-click it to create a new folder. I suggest calling it by your own first or last name. If you do so, everything you create will be separate from the programmes on the machine, which may make it easier to search for something you have created, if you manage to search only in your named folder.

Within your named folder, use the same method to create another new folder, to be called "Current Work" or whatever. If you want, you can create another folder at the same level called "Old Work" (it is easy enough to move files from one folder to another at any time). Dividing your work up like this may again make searching easier

Within "Current Work", use the same method to create a new folder for each solicitor, and within that folder for each case. You could use Chambers codes, but I would not recommend doing so, because names are easier to remember and therefore to find.

It may seem cumbersome to have so many levels of folder, but in practice it is much easier to work with a significant number of levels of folder than with a significant number of files within one folder. Apart from ease of searching, the display on the screen is more manageable, which makes it easier to find your work, and the display boxes on the screen contain fewer files and are more manageable.

For the same reason, it is often worthwhile creating subsidiary folders within a case, for "Pleadings", "Advices", "Work done forms" and so on, and even a further level for "Effective Pleadings" and "Superseded Drafts".
In naming files, it is better not to be too cryptic. Since WORD tends to sort alphabetically with numbers first, you are able to organise folders and files by using a prefix number such as "01", "02" and so on (the initial zero is to prevent File 10 being listed before file 2). If you use dates, the method of expressing a date like 8 September 2004 as "040908" will keep everything since 1 January 2000 in chronological order (versions such as 04-09-08 or 04/09/08 may be rejected by the computer for some purposes because hyphen and slash symbols are sometimes used for other purposes).

Other Senisble Longer Term Precautions

On your toolbar, left-click 'Tools' (or key t), 'Options' (or o), and 'Save', where there are 3 boxes you should consider ticking.

First, definitely tick the box marked 'Save Auto-recovery info every' and insert a suitable short period such as '5' minutes. That way, if your machine crashes, WORD will have automatically saved a version every 5 minutes, and you have a fair chance of not losing more than 5 minutes’ work. When you turn your machine on again, simply make sure that the first thing you do when WORD is working again is to follow the instructions to retrieve your work, and then save it using .

Second, definitely tick the box marked 'Allow background saves'. In addition, while you are working, try to remember to press s quite frequently, which will save your work and in the same file.

Third, consider whether to tick the box marked 'Always create backup copy'. This is a good option for a beginner, but after a while it becomes very cumbersome to have a backup file of everything.

Definitely arrange to take regular back-up copies of everything on your computer by whatever method best suits your computer, and keep the back-up copies somewhere else (in case of fire, flood or theft).

Email Attachments

When you are sent an e-mail with an attachment written in Word, you may want to amend it and sent it back amended. If you merely open it, it will be stored in a temporary file, which you will find difficult if not impossible to retrieve when you have finished amending and want to send it off.

It is therefore essential that you save it (using , as explained above), before working on it. If you forget, you can use for this purpose at any time before you exit or try to reply, but it is much safer to do it before you start work.

A more cumbersome but foolproof approach is never to open an attachment you may want to work on, but always choose the 'Save' option, and then retrieve it in Word. 

Part Three

This third and final article offers some time-saving shortcuts when using WORD to produce your work. Some of Word’s in-built features like Styles, Templates and Macros are rather daunting to use, both when you create a pattern that you may want to use again, and when you want to retrieve it later for use. There is a reduced advantage in having time-saving features that take a lot of time and key-strokes to use. Here are three alternatives.

Autocorrect

One of Autocorrect’s main functions is to provide automatic correction of spelling mistakes. You may have found when typing that a mis-spelling miraculously corrects itself. That is Autocorrect at work.

It may also be used to save time with typing words that you need to use over and over again. In your toolbar click on ‘Tools’ (or use t by pressing down the key and the “T” keys at the same time). This will produce a menu. Find the ‘Autocorrect Options’ entry and click on it. A window will appear with choices at the top. Choose ‘Autocorrect’. In the box are windows in which you can type text if you first click on that box. In the box entitled ‘Replace’ type “Def”. Then in the box entitled ‘With’ type “Defendant”. Click on the ‘Add’ box, and then on the ‘OK’ box at the bottom. Now every time you type “Def” followed by a space, you will get “Defendant”. If you want “Defence” instead, keep typing with no space, and you will not get “Defendant”. Or use “Dft” or “ddd” instead as your code for “Defendant”.

This system works with phrases as well. “Par” may be entered to give you “Particulars of Claim”, and so on. It is case sensitive, so that if you are typing something about par share values or par for a hole at golf, you will not get intrusive Particulars of Claim.

It is worth looking at the other things that Autocorrect can do to save you time, particularly ‘AutoFormat’ and ‘Autoformat as you type’ which will automatically correct many common typing errors (such as a word starting with both of the first two letters capitalised, and so on). Click in an empty box to turn the feature on, and click on an existing tick to turn it off.

Global Replace

Autocorrect is useful for words that are constantly recurring, but less so for words (and in particular names) that are used a great deal in one document, but never again.

This is a time to use three-repeating-letter codes, such as “aaa” for “the Architects” or “bbb” for “Best Butter Company Limited” or “ccc” for “the Part 20 Defendant’s Contribution Notice”. When you have finished typing the whole document, press f, and click on Replace (or use p). Then click to enter the upper box, and type in the code “bbb”. Click to enter the bottom box and type in “Best Butter Company Limited”. Click on ‘Replace All’ or a, and all the codes will be replaced by what you want, and you will be told how many replacements have been made. Repeat for each code.

There are four good reasons for using a three-repeatingletter code. The first is that a series of 3 of the same letters do not occur naturally: if your code is “Cl” for “Claimant”, you will be distressed to find that the word “inclement” has become “inClaimantement”. The second is that they are easy to type quickly. The third is that they are easy to remember if you are using a number in the same document. The fourth is that there are 26 possibilities (and more if you use symbols such as *** or &&&).

There is a problem if your three-repeating-letter code is used at the beginning of a sentence, and ‘Autocorrect’ is automatically set to capitalise the first letter of a sentence, so that “aaa” becomes “Aaa”, and is not replaced. If that is your problem, turn off that feature of Autocorrect by clicking on the tick that signifies that it is on.

Using Other Documents

Recurring blocks of text, such as the heading of a pleading, or your name and Chambers address at the end of an Advice, can be typed into an ordinary document file (one where WORD automatically adds the suffix “.doc” when you save). If you keep such documents in a special folder, you can add them to a another document using ‘Insert’ from the Toolbar (or i) followed by ‘File’ or f, and then find the document and click to insert it.
Another method is to use an existing document, keeping what you want, and deleting what you do not, but this has its dangers. First you need to be careful to save your work with another name at the earliest opportunity, or risk losing the old document. Second, you need to be especially vigilant that nothing from the old document is retained by mistake, such as the name of the participant in another case.

All in all, it is probably safer to copy than to insert, although more cumbersome: refer back to the first article in this series for tips on easy ‘blocking’ in order to copy!

Peter Susman QC