MS Word Legal Word Processing Training - 2007-13. Training From An Inside Perspective.

Our employment agency contacts need both operators and secretaries for law firms.  Get the proper training from us and you can enter the 24/7 legal industry.  We take part in EVERY step of your development.  

No gimmicks.  We have been through all shifts as Word Processing  Coordinators as well as thousands of hours of scenarios as help desk/lead operator and IT help desk in top-tier firms.  

Our courses are based on an inside perspective and you end up with top level knowledge you can then use to position yourself for spots that benefit YOU the most in terms of salary and shift.  

Being able to step into a major

law firm seems to require a higher skill level with each passing year.  But, that is a good thing!  It puts us at the top concerning MS Word knowledge and we in turn share all of our knowledge with you.  We Show What We Know...

Our students are working!!

We offer weekly the following:

1.  Live Phone and/or In Person class is approximately 4.5 hours. Phone class may be split into two.  Half Class available after first full class.

2.   Most classes 1 on 1 or 2 students tops. 

3.   The ability to control your own schedule from class to class.

Invaluable Word Processing Training at a Affordable Price. $175.00 first class $199.00 thereafter.  Phone class is $165.00.

Course packages are available at discounted rates!  Click on link for pricing:

http://advanceto.weebly.com/courses.html

LinkedIn Group:  "AdvanceTo Legal and Corporate Word Processing Training Forum" for free job postings, free how-to articles and discussions. This is an invaluable resource!!!

Our Courses Include:

-Homework

-After Class Coaching

-Resume Review

-Job Placement Assistance and  --

-Test Prep

-Books Authored By Us

The material we share in our courses is usable right away not someday...

Questions?  Just give us a call.

AdvanceTo Corporation

www.AdvanceTo.com 

(888) 422-0692, Ext. 1 or 2

The Psychology of Email By Louis Ellman

We. are in an age where everything we write when inside a firm is recorded digitally and stored on the firm servers for perpetuity.

Depending on the situation and our mood - this totally affects what is sent as an end result of what we were feeling.   So, some tips from me on things you want to keep close to the surface each time you draft an email.

Scenario:

1.  Something just happened where you feel you were wronged in some way.  You immediately decide to respond.  That initial email is going to show possible anger, insults, your thinking process, emotional issues that you have, insecurities that you have and will tell another person(s) more than you ever intended to reveal thus making you vulnerable.

2.  That email was driven by emotion and triggers that are deeply seated within your make-up.  Waiting at least a full hour before you look at the draft of that email is recommended by me.  Never ever send an email out that results from an incident or circumstance that angered you.

3.  Okay, it is an hour later.  You have an email on your screen that is the result of where you were an hour ago.  You have had the opportunity to calm down.  First, we want to be factual in what we are saying and we want to strip out the anger, accusations, insults etc. and purely replace it with the set of facts, what has transpired and what you feel would help to remedy the situation.  By removing the anger and other useless info, you also remove simultaneously the ammunition you could have provided to someone who may not have your best interest at heart.

4. By keeping an even tone and being level headed and factual, we remove the parent-child advantage that you are giving the recipient by not protesting to your "parent" regarding you being wronged.  Instead, you are in an adult to adult exchange and you are never giving the recipient unnecessary  info  pertaining to your emotions, what you may really think about them and what pushes your buttons and so forth.  

5.  Responding in a manner that shows confidence, understanding thoroughly the issues involved,  making a clear and cohesive suggestion as to a plan of action is going to make people deal with you very differently than loosing control.  Also, most emails that are perceived as someone went over the edge are routinely Cc'd to many others while the intended recipient of a well constructed email will only be singing your praises if they decide to distribute it to a number of people.

6.  Emails are forever as soon as you press that send button so keep what I said in mind and you will always look good.

www.advanceto.com

If More Than One Page Do The Following

We are talking about the TOC, TOA and Index of Terms. 

On short documents, the Table of Contents, Table of Authorities and Index of Terms can be separated by a page break. The Table of Contents heading and the other headings are centered horizontally on the actual page not in the Header. The page numbering type is i, ii, ii, 

Table of Contents 

------Page Break 

Table of Authorities 


------Page Break 

Index of Terms 

------Section Break 
First Page of Actual Document 

For long documents you just might have TOC's etc. that exceed one page and you need to deal with them differently: 

1. Between the TOC, TOA and Index there should be a section break 
2. In the first page header of the TOC page do the following: 

3. Go into the header and type 
Table of Contents 

4. On the second page header of the TOC page type in 

Table of Contents 
(continued) 

5. Do the same routine for the TOA and Index. 
6. Make sure you remember to turn off Link To Previous as you set these up so that your Headings don't jump into sections that were not meant to have those headings. 

www.advanceto.com

www.legaltestready.com

It is Fall Season!  Get your MS Word Skills in order.  If you want to work in the legal sector you need to know MS Word at a high level.  That is our specialty.  We are from the industry and operate from an inside perspective.  Get the level of training needed and open many more doors!

The Most Comprehensive Legal Word Processing Group on LinkedIn

I run this group and have authored up to 200 articles on day to day procedures and scenarios at top-tier law firms.

https://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=2718001

Dealing With Two Basic Shapes

https://www.linkedin.com/grp/post/2718001-5794646318274064388?goback=%2Egna_2718001

Pictures That Become Truncated In A Word Table

To start off, Truncated in this scenario simply means partially cut off or partially visible.

This may not happen a lot but if it should there is a likely culprit and it is easy to fix.

Scenario:

The operator wrote the following:

"A picture I have inserted in a table cell shows only the bottom half. Here As I recall, when this happened once a number of years ago (8 years, maybe?), the solution was to set text wrap to inline. But whenever I try this, that choice is grayed out. If I choose different positioning in the cell (e.g. centered), the picture moves to the center but still only half of it is visible."

He goes on to say the following:

"I've attached a copy of the page. As you can see, the cell is much bigger than the picture, which is, in fact, simply a copy of the little 'arrow' icon in the table just above it."

What happened in this case was the following:

The line spacing associated with "this table" has somehow been changed to "Exactly 14". Most probably, text was copied from a website and that threw the line spacing off. They should have used Paste Special - Unformatted Text which would have stripped the text before it entered the document and whatever was waiting within the table in terms of formatting would take effect when the text was pasted in.

Note: The problem was a vertical cutoff of the display of the picture. If it had been a horizontal cutoff I would have attempted to widen the column width or see if "Automatically Resize To Fit Cell" had been unchecked under Table Properties - Options. Either way to deal with the vertical cutoff issue do the following:

1. In Print Layout View go to the table and click on the target symbol that comes up on the left hand side. That will highlight the entire table.

2. Go to the Page Layout Tab and under "Paragraph" click on the little box to the right and when the dialog opens up change the Line Spacing over to "Single" instead of "Exactly" which should now cause the entire picture to display.

If this should happen to you, you will remember what caused it and this will save you the time of trying to trouble shoot.


www.advanceto.com

It's Fall Season - A Good Time To Sharpen Your MS Word Skills

My Headers and Footers Have Stopped Displaying

If you are like me, I do most of my work in Draft View.  But, when I am in Print Layout View, I want to see my Headers and Footers as I scroll through the document.

I look to see that the Document Management Footer is in place, my page numbers are numbering correctly and any Header material that I may have is displaying correctly.

So every now and then you will sit down at a workstation whereby instead of your Headers and Footers displaying under Print Layout View you just see a green separator bar.

So the question becomes, how do I ensure that my Headers and Footers always display when in Print Layout View?

Do the following:

File - Options - Display

Under Display, place a check next to "Show White Space Between Pages When In Print Layout View."

This will ensure that your Headers and Footers Display.

Check out the Display menu to familiarize yourself with this particular selection.  Don't wait until you are under a time sensitive situation to check this out.

www.advanceto.com

MS Word Legal Word Processing Training - 2007-13. A Path To Steady Employment

Our employment agency contacts need both operators and secretaries for law firms.  Get the proper training from us and you can enter the 24/7 legal industry.  We take part in EVERY step of your development.  

No gimmicks.  We have been through all shifts as Word Processing  Coordinators as well as thousands of hours of scenarios as help desk/lead operator and IT help desk in top-tier firms.  

Our courses are based on an inside perspective and you end up with top level knowledge you can then use to position yourself for spots that benefit YOU the most in terms of salary and shift.  

Being able to step into a major

law firm seems to require a higher skill level with each passing year.  But, that is a good thing!  It puts us at the top concerning MS Word knowledge and we in turn share all of our knowledge with you.  We Show What We Know...

Our students are working!!

We offer weekly the following:

1.  Live Phone and/or In Person class is approximately 4.5 hours. Phone class may be split into two.  Half Class available after first full class.

2.   Most classes 1 on 1 or 2 students tops. 

3.   The ability to control your own schedule from class to class.

Invaluable Word Processing Training at a Affordable Price. $175.00 first class $199.00 thereafter.  Phone class is $165.00.

Course packages are available at discounted rates!  Click on link for pricing:

http://advanceto.weebly.com/courses.html

LinkedIn Group:  "AdvanceTo Legal and Corporate Word Processing Training Forum" for free job postings, free how-to articles and discussions. This is an invaluable resource!!!

Our Courses Include:

-Homework

-After Class Coaching

-Resume Review

-Job Placement Assistance and  --

-Test Prep

-Books Authored By Us

The material we share in our courses is usable right away not someday...

Questions?  Just give us a call.

AdvanceTo Corporation

www.AdvanceTo.com 

(888) 422-0692, Ext. 1 or 2

Merge Document With Multi-Level Outline

This has come up a few times as of late so I thought I would address it.

You can consider this Part 2 of the article of the other day where I show you how to separate out the separate letters or documents of a merge output file.

Current Scenario:  10 page Agreement with a live multilevel outline and merge field codes.  The complaint on three occasions was that when the second agreement was generated and so forth, the multilevel outlining continued to pile up instead of restarting:

1.  The main document (in this case an Agreement), should be viewed as a static file not a dynamic file.  By dynamic, I mean a document with a live multilevel outline.

2.  While you may have formatted the document using multi-level outlining, you don't need the live multi-level outline to run the merge.  Once the document is done, you should make a copy of the file.

3.  In the newly copied file, strip off the multi-level outline so that it is now just plain text but the numbering is still in place as originally formatted and preserved in the manner you intended.

4.  To strip the multi-level attribute off the document thus producing plain text, highlight the file (Control A) and do Control-Shift-F9.  The document will now be "Static".

5.  Now place in your Merge Field Codes and you are ready to go.

6.  Now your Agreement is ready for the merge and as each Agreement is generated, the numbering should be perfect since the multi-level outline is no longer an issue.

Next time you have a merge that involves a multi-level outline, try this method first for a smooth process.

www.advanceto.com

An MS Word LinkedIn Group Devoted To Scenarios and Procedures of Top-Tier Law Firms

22 hrs · 

I highly recommend the LinkedIn Group AdvanceTo Legal and Corporate Word Processing Training Forum. This is a thorough repository of tips, tricks and scenarios all relating to the day to day operations of a top-tier legal word processing center

https://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=2718001

The EXT Selection of 2003 is Alive and Well in 2007-13 but You Just Need To Know How To Activate It:

I have written about Extended Highlighting before:  As you may remember, in my previous article:

 Up until 2007, at the bottom of your screen, you had 3 areas that are no longer displayed. They are the OVR (Overstrike), REC (Record Macro) and EXT (Extended Highlighting). When 1 or all of those three items were selected, they would light up so to speak and display as black, opposed to light grey when not in use.

The one I want to focus on is "EXT" Extended Highlighting. It is a very useful highlighting tool that could fall by the wayside simply because it is no longer displayed (without knowing how to turn it on) so it could be an out of sight out of mind type thing nowadays.

To use Extended Highlighting, one way to activate it is by pressing the F8 key. Once activated, ANY key you press, will cause the system to highlight up to the "first instance of the key or key combination you selected". That is the key...the "first instance".

So here are some ways you can use it.

1. F8 and the period key. Will highlight from wherever your cursor is to the first period it encounters. Press period again and it will highlight up to the next period it encounters or the end of the sentence.

2. When F8 has been pressed, press the Return Key. This will highlight from "wherever" your cursor is to the end of the paragraph. So, I may for instance, press F8, press Return 5x to highlight the next 5 paragraphs quickly and then apply a style by use of clicking on the style name from the right side panel or using Control Shift V (the equivalent of double click on the mouse) .

3. Activating F8 (Extended Highlighting) and pressing Control End will highlight from cursor position to the end of the document so you can copy, cut, apply a style, delete etc. This method is often used to highlight the entire text of a document "without" including the "document shell" which pressing Control A "would do" so you can move the text out of a document that may have had a corruption issue in the behind the scenes Visual Basic of that particular file.

4. To turn off Extended Highlighting, you can press Esc and click in a neutral area which will complete the turn off process.

Selection Mode:

Now, let us talk about Selection Mode that sits in your "Status Bar" at the bottom of your screen on 2007-13.  
When the "Selection Mode" item is checked in the status bar menu, the words  "Extend Selection" will appear in the status bar "After" you press your F8" key.

If "Selection Mode" isn't checked on the Status Bar Menu, then there isn't any visible indication of the Selection Mode (Extended Highlighting) being active in the Status Bar.

As in previous versions, you can turn on extended selection mode by pressing F8.  Pressing ESC or clicking the words "Extend Selection" in the status bar turns the "Extended Selection Mode" off.

So, the routine is: 

1. Place a check next to Selection Mode in the status bar Menu

2. Press F8

3. Use the Extend Highlight feature to highlight what you want.

4. Click off "Extend Selection" or use Escape when done with the feature.

My favorite use of Extended Highlighting is highlighting a paragraph at a time by pressing the Enter key 1x for each paragraph I wish to highlight and I like to also use it by starting at the top of a document, using Control End to quickly highlight the entire document thus leaving the document shell behind by copying or pasting it to a new blank document.

http://www.advanceto.com

Field Shading On Word Fillable Forms - On or Off

On doing fillable forms, using MS Word 2007-13, (under the Developer Tab), you have a choice of using the old style fillable forms (Legacy) or the newer version which is known as (Content Control).

Many times we use a hybrid of both the new fillable forms and the old in the same document. Most people don't care if the grey shading is visible on the text fields of the form while others want it off.  It should also be noted that from document to document,  I have seen the setting we are about to discuss both on and off so you have to check.

This particular article deals with the Legacy text field.  Here is the situation.  Some people want the grey fields to be visible when the form is used and some want nothing to show but rather, want to rely on the tab key to just bounce them from one field to another within the form.  So, the question becomes what controls whether the grey field shows up when using text form fields.  

1.  Grey shading "Always" under File Properties, Advanced does not control this.

2.  Use of the highlighter does not control this.

3.   Under your Developer Tab, go to the Legacy Forms Tool Box (looks like a yellow folder)

4.   Go to the "A" second from end of first line (within the Legacy Forms tool box) and click it off to turn it off if they do not want the form field visible when the recipient receives and uses the form.

5.   When creating your form with the grey shading off, you will still see the tell tale circles "ooooo" but when the form is locked down the recipient will not.

6.  It should be noted that although the grey field is off, as someone tabs through the file and hits each field area, the field will become blue.

Get the proper training to enter the legal field:

www.advanceto.com for basic-advanced Legal MS Word - word processing and everything in between

For dedicated test preparation

MS Word Legal Word Processing Training - 2007-13. A Path To Steady Employment

Our employment agency contacts need both operators and secretaries for law firms.  Get the proper training from us and you can enter the 24/7 legal industry.  We take part in EVERY step of your development.  

No gimmicks.  We have been through all shifts as Word Processing  Coordinators as well as thousands of hours of scenarios as help desk/lead operator and IT help desk in top-tier firms.  

Our courses are based on an inside perspective and you end up with top level knowledge you can then use to position yourself for spots that benefit YOU the most in terms of salary and shift.  

Being able to step into a major

law firm seems to require a higher skill level with each passing year.  But, that is a good thing!  It puts us at the top concerning MS Word knowledge and we in turn share all of our knowledge with you.  We Show What We Know...

Our students are working!!

We offer weekly the following:

1.  Live Phone and/or In Person class is approximately 4.5 hours. Phone class may be split into two.  Half Class available after first full class.

2.   Most classes 1 on 1 or 2 students tops. 

3.   The ability to control your own schedule from class to class.

Invaluable Word Processing Training at a Affordable Price. $175.00 first class $199.00 thereafter.  Phone class is $165.00.

Course packages are available at discounted rates!  Click on link for pricing:

http://advanceto.weebly.com/courses.html

LinkedIn Group:  "AdvanceTo Legal and Corporate Word Processing Training Forum" for free job postings, free how-to articles and discussions. This is an invaluable resource!!!

Our Courses Include:

-Homework

-After Class Coaching

-Resume Review

-Job Placement Assistance and  --

-Test Prep

-Books Authored By Us

Questions?  Just give us a call.

AdvanceTo Corporation

www.AdvanceTo.com 

(888) 422-0692, Ext. 1 or 2

Keep A Diary - It Will Come In Handy

It really doesn't matter whether you work in a center or as a secretary.  It really does help when you keep a set of notes as to things that went on both in general and in detail as it relates to documents you worked on during the course of your shift.

It may be a week up the road where you are all of a sudden being questioned about a document you worked on 10 days ago.  Since that time, you may have worked on an additional 25 documents, but you are now getting questions from an attorney concerning something that was changed or undone or not done etc. and are expected to give clear concise detail as to what actually occurred and why.

We work in a fast paced environment where if we don't have a means to jar our memory we can be in a position where we can't properly recollect a situation.  So, this is what I have done which has helped me many times.

1.  Start a regular MS Word file.  Call it Shift Diary.  Put in the date of your shift.

2.  As you go through your day, keep notes pertaining to documents that were not the norm.  Summarize what the issue was and who was involved both other operators and the attorney.

3.  Make notes as to how far you got with the document.  Did you finish it or did you turn it over to someone.  Had you dealt with or resolved any issues. How did you do so?

4.  Documents that you feel are problematic or those that can be the center of an incident,  you may wish to make a copy to your personal drive so that you have proof as to how the document looked at the point you ceased to work on it.  The electronic time and date stamp will be part of the copy which will help you.  Make a note in your Daily Diary Document that you made a copy to your personal drive.

5.  Discussions of issues with co-workers and attorneys should also go in the diary especially if it involved a stressful attorney or a situation where there was an unusual or unorthodox procedure being asked of the operator to use on a document. 

6.  If you had an issue or misunderstanding with an attorney or coordinator place all of the detail in the diary because many of these type of misunderstandings usually result in you being questioned by a supervisor.  The more concrete detail you can provide, this makes you look good.  Saying, I don't remember or I am not sure gives more credence to the person who has thrown the responsibility of whatever occurred on you.

7.  At the end of the day make a page break and the fresh new page is ready for tomorrow.  Once you work this routine into your day you will have a great resource to go to as needed.

http://www.advanceto.com

How To Affect How Your Documents Open.

I looked into this which resulted in the  solution in the forum link I provided below, because of an incident during one of my classes.  

I was attempting to show the student the Open and Repair function.  As you know in order to use this, while in MS Word, you go to File, Open and browse for the file that you wish to run the Open and Repair feature.  

When you find the file, you click on the document once to select it then you click on the down arrow on the right side of the Open button and select Open and Repair.

But, the student could not do that because as soon as she clicked the file, it immediately opened up and prevented her from using the Open and Repair feature.  The link below will show you how to change the options in the folder menu so that it does not react from one click.

I would rather not have the one click selection because it limits my control over the document.  If there is a problem with the document where someone sent you a virus or you want to run, like we tried, an Open and Repair, not being able to select the file places you at a disadvantage.

I equate this situation to using the Hyperlink Function when running a Table Of Contents.  As you know, if you run a TOC with the hyperlinks selection, many an attorney do not want it on because they don't want the document to react (jump) unless they intentionally want to jump to a particular area of the document from the TOC by use of Control and Clicking on the page number.

This gives them more control over the document, and in our situation here having the ability to select a file without it immediately opening is a better option.

Check out the link below on how to affect the opening of files.

 http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/295-folder-options-open.html

It is September:

Our agency contacts are looking for secretaries and operators.  Our students always test well.  

Check out our course offerings.

Go to 

www.advanceto.com

New students and professionals!  Join our LinkedIn Group for an amazing amount of information all pertaining to day to day operations in top tier law firms.  Tips, tricks, scenarios, solutions.  A true repository of MS Word high level knowledge since 2010.

Our LinkedIn Group is Advanceto Legal and Corporate Word Processing Training Forum. 

Low Cost Empire Volume 9 - MS Word Merge For Small Business

This is the first MS Word related book in the Low Cost Empire line of business books. 

 I have taught legal word processing for many years and bring that experience to you starting off with a thorough look at the Merge function in MS Word.  This is a valuable book for those business owners who wear many hats and want to be able to create target letters, labels and  envelopes. 

Kindle, Create Space, LuLu, 

https://www.createspace.com/5087092

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00P79GHXS

http://www.legaltestready.com 

The Organizer

The Organizer

By Louis Ellman

AdvanceTo Training and Consulting 

While this will talk about the Organizer, I want to discuss why you would need to use it. 

Depending on the type of firm and how tight the control, you may be able to develop a template. maybe not, encouraged to create styles as needed, discouraged from making additional styles. Whatever the situation, as long as you can get to the organizer you can shortcut a lot of the grunt work as per creating styles that fit a particular document type.

I recently had to reformat a set of documents that only slightly differed but in terms of formatting, they were essentially the same. So I have four things that I could do as it relates to grabbing a set of styles.

1. I could use Control Shift C and Control Shift V to Copy a style from one document to another one by one.
2. I could create a template and have all of these pre-made styles ready but I may not be willing to yank the text out of the existing document and into the template.
3. I could add all of these helpful styles into the Normal DotM file but depending on where you work they may not want the Normal Dot modified (added to or taken from)
4. Finally, I could open the Organizer, and on the left side have open the document that needs the styles and on the right side, have open the document that contains all of the great styles that you put together for a particular document type. Copy them over to the left side and you are good to go. 

So, how do we get to the Organizer? 

1. Go To The Home Tab.
2. Turn on your right side Style Panel
3. Go To The Bottom and choose "Manage Styles" 
4. Choose "Import/Export.
5. Your Organizer will come up initially showing the Normal.dotM file. 
6. Open up the desired file instead of the Normal.dotM and proceed to copy what you need over to the left side.

This is a feature you should know about and all of the advantages this gives you in terms of not having to reinvent the wheel over and over again.

http://www.advanceto.com

One of the very few that teach Top-Tier Level Methods.

Search and Replace With The Choice to Go No Further...

Experienced WP operators and Secretaries who make use of the following featured scenario be aware to "be aware".  A great feature that can do some damage.

What is this about?  There are situations where you want to use search and replace to take care of something that may not be for the entire document but for a selected (highlighted) piece of text.  I'll give you a few examples:

1.  You have 10 lines in a particular paragraph with a  of (I), (ll), (lll) type numbering system throughout the 10 lines and you want to quickly protect that particular paragraph with non breaking space after each closed parenthesis.

2.  You have multiple areas in a document that look like inside addresses, multiple line letterheads or multiple line Titles where you want to make use of soft returns instead of hard returns with the exception of the last line.

3. Finally you have an area of text that says "for a period of 20 days" numerous times in a particular paragraph and you need to switch that over to 25 days.

So, we highlight the piece or area of text that we wish to affect with our global replace.  I like to use the Control H shortcut.

1.  When you run the global replace, it will do the replace on the text you highlighted and will then give you a message that it has made X number of replacements and asks you if you wish to now run it for the remainder of the document and to that you say "NO"

2.  If you are not paying attention and you say yes, then depending on what you set the search up to do, you may do a lot of damage to a large document and you May Not Even Notice. 

3.   If it were a small document, you most probably would notice this and take action to "Undo" the problem.   In a large file, this type of error could be replicated 100's of times and barely noticed.   Then,  you go ahead and save your document not knowing there is now major problems from a global replace that was meant to only affect a small portion of the document.  You then give it back to Mr. or Ms. Attorney

4.  In sum, when you run a global replace that involves the highlighting of a selected portion of text, be alert, run the global and when it stops to ask you whether you want to run it for the remainder of the document say NO.  

5.  Potential problems are totally avoidable by just being alert.  Also, we can't be certain that we can fix the document quickly or get our hands on a pristine copy before the occurrence happened so be alert. 





louis@advanceto.com