Category Archives for "CTA – Basic Skills – WP to Word"

12 5 Options You’ll Want to Re-Set in Word

A big part of making Word work better for you is molding the way it works to the way you work. Most users don’t know they’ve got options for how certain features perform. Some things you’ll want to get out of your way, some things you’ll want to make easier to access. Here are my suggestions for changing Word’s defaults to work better in a legal environment:

First Step: Going into Options

Most of the default behaviors in Word are set within the Options dialog box. To get there (a necessary prerequisite for all of the exercises below), go to the File tab (if you’re still using Word 2007, click the Office Button) and click Options.

Once you’re in Options, you’re ready to rock.

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Reader Question: Copying WordPerfect footnotes to Microsoft Word

You know how I’m always telling you that the best way to get your old WordPerfect text into a new Microsoft Word document is to just copy it over? Well, that’s not always the case. Sometimes Microsoft Word doesn’t “translate” WordPerfect text into just the right Microsoft Word equivalent.

Take, for example, the problem posed by this reader:

When using footnotes in a document, if I copy footnotes from WordPerfect and insert them into a Word document, the numbers do not change. Is there any way to make the numbers follow the number sequence in the document. Sometimes there are as many a 100 footnotes with dozens of different numbers — which need to be dealt with individually. Is there any way to make the numbers change and follow sequence at one time? I’ve tried everything including Ctrl-A (in the footnote draft, in the body of the document), but nothing works.

It took me a few minutes of experimenting, but I came up (I think) with the perfect solution. It’s one you’ll need in your toolbox if you ever have to copy footnoted content from old briefs, etc.

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11 Converting WordPerfect docs to Word

One question I get asked a lot is, “What’s the best way to convert an existing WordPerfect document into Word?”

There are a lot of ways of doing this — some better than others.  Here, I rate the choices from worst to best.

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13 So, you miss Reveal Codes in WordPerfect?

The most common complaint I hear from legal professionals who've started using Word is, "I miss Reveal Codes!"

Yes, that ALT-F3 command was genius. No doubt about it.

But what most users don't know is there's something similar in Word. In some ways, it's better. (Intrigued?)

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1 Block protect – why two types & what’s the diff?

Unless otherwise noted, all instructions and screenshots are from Microsoft Office for Windows version 2016.

In WordPerfect, block protect is block protect -- you highlight a block of text and protect so it all shows up on the same page.

Is Word that simple?  Oh, no.  Microsoft had to come up with TWO different versions of block protect: Keep Lines Together and Keep With Next (accessible from the Paragraph dialog box):

Click this launcher arrow to get to the Paragraph dialog box ...

... then choose one or both of these options.

So, what's the diff?  And how do you know when to use one or the other?

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