Often in legal documents, you need to insert special characters not found on the keyboard, like paragraph symbols (¶) or section symbols (§). Here’s how to do that:
- Go to Insert, Symbol.
- Find the symbol you need to insert, and click Insert.
Word 2002/2003
And there’s your symbol.
But, hey, if you’ve got to do this repeatedly, it gets old, right? Here’s another trick: you can assign that symbol to a keyboard shortcut you can use while typing.
Word 2002/2003:
Word 2007/2010:
Pick a key combination (say, ALT-P) and press it. If Word already has it assigned to another function, it will tell you. If that prior function isn’t something you want to use a hot-key for, you can override that and re-assign this symbol to that key. Or, you can pick another key combination (CNTL-SHIFT-P, for example).
Once you have the right hot-key assigned, click Assign, then Close, then Close again when you reach the Symbol dialog box. From now on, you can use your hot-key to insert the symbol in your documents without going through the menu system to do it!
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This is very well done. The instructions are easy to read and follow; use of space, design and color of the webpage are pleasing. -Thanks
my 3rd choice with your 5th place hit in Google search: “word 2007 special characters legal”, beating out “lib.law.washington.edu” and “office.microsoft.com” for best answer and bookmark status.
Wow — thanks! I really appreciate the compliment, and I especially appreciate your letting me know how you got here! I’m glad I could be of some help. If there are specific topics you’d like to see covered, by all means, drop me a line via the “Ask the Guru” page (http://legalofficeguru.com/suggest-an-article/)
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