Category: Microsoft Office
Make copy and paste easier by assigning extra mouse buttons
Posted by Scott Bassett in MS Word, Microsoft Office, Other Stuff... Thursday, 29 July 2010 06:48 No Comments
This is a great tip found on Lifehacker that is especially useful in law offices. As an appellate lawyer, I often copy text from other documents or sources into my briefs. Most lawyers do the same thing when constructing all sorts of legal documents. This task can be made easier by assigning extra mouse buttons to the copy and paste functions.
Unless you have a very basic mouse (perhaps the one that came bundled with your computer), odds are your mouse has buttons you don’t use. For example, I have a Microsoft Wireless IntelliMouse Explorer 2 connected to my desktop PC. It has two extra “thumb” buttons on the left side plus, as is true of most mice with scroll wheels, the wheel can also be used as a separately programmed push button. I simply downloaded the latest version of the IntelliMouse driver software from Microsoft’s web site, installed it, and assigned the large thumb button to Control>C for copy and the scroll wheel push button to Control>V for paste. Now I can copy and paste in my MS Word legal documents (or any PC application) entirely with the mouse without touching the keyboard of even right-clicking.
Even slicker is the programming features of many Logitech mice. The Logitech software (unlike the IntelliMouse software – unless I am too dumb to locate the setting) allows you to assign functions to the left and right scroll wheel tilt (did you know that you can horizontally scroll by tilting the wheel? – well that may not be so useful with today’s widescreen monitors unless you work with large spreadsheets, but it does let you move one character at a time left or right when working in Word).
But you don’t really need the mouse manufacturer’s specialized driver. You can download and install the free Auto Hotkey utility to program special functions to your mouse buttons (and keyboard). Auto Hotkey is a little clunky to work with, but if you don’t mind creating your own scripts (be sure to read the documentation for detailed instructions), it does the job.
Tips for MS Office 2010, Word & Excel from PC Magazine
Posted by Scott Bassett in MS Excel, MS Word, Microsoft Office Wednesday, 21 July 2010 06:54 No Comments
There is a ton of good (and free) stuff on the Internet, along with megatons of junk. One of our goals with this blog is to help you sort through the junk to find the good stuff. Recently PC Magazine posted a series of slide shows by containing tips for Microsoft Office 2010, particularly Word and Excel. Here are the links:
MS Office 2010 Tips Slide Show
Having reviewed these tips, I found much useful information. One of my favorites is the 5th slide of the MS Office 2o1o show. It tells you how to configure Word 2010 to open files created in older versions of Word. Many law firms have a collection of forms or documents created in early versions of Word or Excel that more recent versions of MS Office refuse to open because they may pose a security risk. Assuming you have solid antivirus and antimalware protection, this security feature may not be necessary. In order to allow Word or Excel 2010 to open these old files, go to File, Options, Trust Center, click Trust Center Settings, then select File Block Settings, and remove the checkmarks from the older Office files that you want Office 2010 to open.
The 8th slide in the Word show is also a great tip. Many lawyers, when doing research and drafting briefs or other documents, need to use text from emails, PDF’s, and other documents that may be badly formatted for word processing purposes. The text may contain hard returns at the end of each line, for example. The AutoFormat feature in Word does a decent job of cleaning up these formatting problems. Earlier versions of Word had the AutoFormat command on the toolbar. With the switch to the Ribbon interface in Office 2007 and 2010, that command disappeared. But you can add it to the Quick Access Toolbar that appears above the Ribbon’s tabs by clicking on the down arrow at the right-hand end of the Quick Access Toolbar, and then clicking on More Commands. In the dropdown menu under “Choose commands from,” select Commands Not In the Ribbon. From the list that appears, click on Autoformat, the Add button, and then OK.
Microsoft Office Word Web App v. Google docs v. Microsoft Word
Posted by John Federico in MS Word, Microsoft Office Sunday, 20 June 2010 14:27 2 Comments
Last week, Microsoft released it Word Web App for public consumption. A short time ago, Google released its next version of Google Docs. Can either of these replace the desktop version of Microsoft Word? Not at the moment. For formatting large complex documents, desktop word processors (Word, WordPerfect, OpenOffice) are still the way to go. However, web apps have their place and do provide some unique features.
Personally, I think that Microsoft Word 2007 is the best word processor available today (although that may change once I install Word 2010). Word 2007 makes it really easy and fast to format large complex documents. Paragraph styles, linked styles, outline numbering, and quick styles are all tools that make handling complex documents easy. We have an exercise in our Word training course where we format a supreme court brief in about 5 minutes. The best part of that is, once we are done, we generate the table of contents in about 3 clicks. It is really difficult (if not impossible) to accomplish the same thing in web based apps. Let’s see what happens when we need to edit a complex document in these applications.
MS Office 2010 Arrives Tuesday, Try Free Web-Based Versions Now
Posted by Scott Bassett in In The (Legal Technology) News, MS Excel, MS Word, Microsoft Office Sunday, 13 June 2010 08:38 No Comments
We write and talk about esoteric hardware and software that may be of use to law firms, but the reality is that the plain old office suite remains the most used tech product in almost any firm. But “plain old” is hardly a fit description of modern office suites from Microsoft, Corel, Lotus, or OpenOffice.org.
For example, integration with cloud-based storage and services, the very definition of “hot” in today’s tech discussions, is built-into Microsoft Office 2010. This will boost the ability to collaborate with co-counsel, clients, experts, and others in the creation and editing of Office documents. There are also free web-based 2010 versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint designed to compete directly with Google Docs. They lack the features of the desktop versions of these apps, yet will suffice for creating and editing many documents used by law firms.
Office 201o arrives at retail outlets this Tuesday, June 15.
At retail, there will be three editions of Office 2010:
Caution Advised in Choosing Which Version of Microsoft Office 2010 to Use
Posted by Scott Bassett in Amicus Attorney Premium Edition, Microsoft Office, Software Wednesday, 12 May 2010 07:35 No Comments
Preliminary tests by one of our consultants suggests that users of the beta version of Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Business edition may not be able to select Outlook as the default email client on their computer. This inability would prevent integration of Outlook with practice management software such as Amicus Attorney. It could also affect the ability to link Outlook to Worldox and possibly preclude synchronization of Outlook information with a user’s smart phone. Similar tests using the beta version of Microsoft Office 2010 Professional edition have not revealed this problem.
With the official release of Microsoft Office 2010 fast approaching, we suggest our clients to opt for the Professional edition and avoid the lower-cost Home & Office edition until these issues are further explored and resolved.
