Word Tips

Love it or hate it, Word is a fact of life. So it behooves you to gain at least an elemental mastery of the program. (Personally, the thing I hate the most is the way sections work.) Fortunately, help is available.

Jan Berinstein has brought out a very useful book canned "Formatting Legal Documentws With Microsoft Office Word 2007" which is available from Amazon. She focuses on what you really need to know (especially if you are coming from WordPerfect) rather than some of the more abstruse areas that most firms consign to their IT people or trainers.

A list of "Frequently Asked Questions" also provides useful information.

Finally, a list of "221 keyboard shortcuts" provides an exhaustive list of Word's keyboard shortcuts. Many of them you will never use. But even if you only find a half-dozen or so that provoke the reaction "that would be really useful" it is worth looking through the list.

Comments

[Jan Berinstein]

Quick update: Both of my Word books are on Amazon as well as on Lulu. The Amazon links recently changed. Here are the new URLs:

Formatting Legal Documents With Microsoft Office Word 2007: http://tinyurl.com/W2007Legal2

Formatting Legal Documents With Microsoft Word 2010: http://tinyurl.com/W2010Legal2

Again, my thanks to John for mentioning my book(s). Also for your incredibly informative posts here and on TechnoLawyer!

Jan Berinstein

[Jan Berinstein]

John,

Folks might also want to visit my blog, where I post both Word and WordPerfect tips on an occasional basis: http://compusavvy.wordpress.com

Lest you think I'm only about self-promotion, two other great sources of Word advice are Woody's Lounge (http://www.wopr.com -- you have to register and then visit the Word forum, one of several different forums) and the Word MVP site, which is located at http://word.mvps.org/. Some of the articles on the latter site are more user-friendly than others. Oh, and there's also Suzanne Barnhill's site. She's my favorite Word MVP, for two reasons: (1) she knows (or has managed to figure out a workaround for) everything -- or almost everything; and (2) her explanations are clear and easy to follow. Her site is located here: http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/

Thanks again for your kindness in letting people know about my book.

Jan Berinstein
CompuSavvy
Computer Training & Consulting
Author, "Formatting Legal Documents With Microsoft Office Word 2007"