How iCreate can make your Firm More Productive using Microsoft Word

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1. Using Microsoft Word Styles...Does this sound like a lot of work?

Would you think of running the Boston Marathon without first getting in great running shape? Of course not. It‘s the same when you are working on long or complicated documents and you haven’t taken the time to learn "styles" to make yourself significantly more productive (like ignoring the training regimen before you ran that marathon, it can be a painful experience).

A style in Microsoft Word is a set of saved formatting characteristics that control paragraph and character attributes. Applying a style to a paragraph means that the appearance and behavior of that paragraph will be determined by the definitions in that style. There's no need to apply each formatting characteristic individually (called direct formatting) when you use styles.

Why Using styles is both Powerful and Productive

• Formatting changes can be made globally throughout a document
• Allows a firm to have a consistent look and feel across all documents
• Formatting paragraphs, numbering schemes and characters is very fast

Yet many people avoid using styles from force of habit, lack of understanding or experience, or they find reformatting styles to be too complex.

We agree! For instance, the tools Microsoft Word provides for making changes to styles are hard to find and are not readily available on the Word 2007 ribbon.

Take this example:

A user has applied "Heading 1" style to 50 headings in a 200 page document, and now needs to change the format so it displays in All Caps. To change the style the user must take the following 8 steps:

1. Navigate to the Styles group on the Home Ribbon in Word 2007
   
   
   
2. Open the Styles task pane
   
   
   
3. Click the down arrow next to the style's name and select "Modify..."
4. Click the Format button
5. Select Font from the list
6. Select All Caps
7. Click OK
8. Click OK

In a scenario like the one above users find the steps too laborious so they resort back to direct formatting.

This is just one of the areas where iCreate shows its power

iCreate provides tools to more efficiently modify styles from the iHyperstyles Ribbon. The Hyper Font feature, for instance, allows you to change the style’s font attributes in a single button click.

1. Navigate to the iHyperstyles Ribbon in Word
   
   
   
2. Click on the Hyper Font Button
3. Select All Caps
4. Click OK

In this instance iCreate cuts the steps in half, to just 4, and the iCreate approach is much more straightforward.

2. MS Word's Outline/Multilevel Numbering...It's Tricky!

Many documents implementing paragraph numbering require multiple levels of numbers. Prior to Office 2007 Microsoft called this feature “Outline Numbering”. In Office 2007 this feature is called “Multilevel Lists”. Multilevel Numbering linked to Heading styles is the most effective method of applying paragraph numbering to documents in Microsoft Word. It improves the formatting process, generation of table of contents, inserting cross references, and document navigation process. MS Word’s native methods for working with styles and numbering is not necessarily straightforward or efficient.

For example:

An attorney provides text for an agreement to his secretary to format and edit. The document needs to have numbered paragraphs using the following numbering scheme:

I.          This is Level One.

A.         Level Two.

1.         Level Three.

a)         Level Four.

(1)        Level Five.

(a)        Level Six

(i)         Level Seven.

a.         Level Eight

Notice that the Word’s default format for Heading styles does not include paragraph numbers:



To apply multiple level numbering:



Click the “Multilevel List” button on the Home ribbon.

Select one of the sample schemes that include Heading styles.



A paragraph number is now applied to the current paragraph and the Styles buttons reflects paragraphs numbers are now associated with the Heading styles.



To apply numbers to paragraphs, click a Heading style button from the Home ribbon, the Styles task pane, or using keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl Alt 1-9).

This is an area where iCreate shows its real power…

The iHyperstyles Ribbon provides shortcut buttons to help users quickly apply Multilevel numbering correctly, make changes to the numbering, apply a new numbering scheme or add a second scheme to a document.



iCreate establishes multilevel numbering in every template so the end user can begin by clicking the appropriate Heading Level button from the iHyperstyle ribbon or use one of the shortcut keys (Alt 1-9).



The style and format of the paragraphs can be changed level-by-level or the user can change to a different scheme. Scheme samples can be displayed from the Scheme management button and then select “Numbering and Styles. The list of available schemes can be controlled by the Firm at the administrator level and by the end user.

iCreate also provides shortcuts to quickly make modifications to numbering, to move the paragraphs up or down a level and to save those changes for later use. We believe documents should be fully “roundtrippable”, meaning they can be edited by other parties outside of your firm electronic walls. To be full roundtrippable documents should be formatted using Word Best practices.

But, the correct way to do things in Word is not always the most obvious or easiest to understand. That is why all of the methods iCreate provides are simply shortcuts to Native Word Features. With iCreate you teach users the “iCreate way” and do not have to worry about making sure they understand the intricacies of Word’s numbering rules. The result will be robustly formatted Word documents created by your users and less corrupted documents.

3. Resist "Save As"!

When content needs to be reused, resist the temptation to use "Save As." Documents created using "Save As" may experience corruption problems, since not only is the text being copied over but so are any formatting or editing problems. In addition to performance issues, there may also be metadata present in these documents that can lead to risk management issues.

When creating a letter for a new client it may be desired to use much of the text already contained in a similar letter. Instead of using "Save As" and saving the document under a new name, use a new template and "Paste Special" to paste the text to be reused.

Using Paste Special:

Instead of simply using "Paste" (Ctl +V), selecting "Paste Special/Unformatted Text" removes any formatting specifications from text that is copied from other sources (web pages, e-mails, other Word documents) before pasting into a new document.

In Word 2007 follow these steps:

1. Open a new document or run the template launcher to create a new document from a template.
2. Select the text to copy using Ctrl+C.
3. On the Home ribbon - Clipboard group click the down arrow at the bottom of the Paste button to display the menu.



4. Choose “Paste Special” from the list.
5. The “Paste Special” dialog box appears.



6. Select the “Unformatted Text” option. The text will be placed into the document. All formatting will be removed from the text. The text can now be formatted using styles already provided in the template.

Get There Faster Using iCreate:

In iCreate we have created shortcuts for important but hard to find features of Word like "Paste as Unformatted Text". With iCreate the “Paste” button found on the Home Ribbon has been customized to give quick access the following functions:

Paste as Plain Text:

Recommended for pasting text between documents so that the pasted text adapts to the formatting defined in the target document and does not corrupt in the process. This option is a shortcut to the Home|Paste, Paste Special, Unformatted Text command.

1. Select the text to copy and click the Copy icon or (Ctrl+C).
2. Position the cursor at the destination location.
3. Click the Paste icon, select Paste as Plain Text.



Super Copy:

Super Copy allows you to create a new iCreate document (from a template) from text in an existing Word document, providing a corruption-free method to cut and paste between existing documents.

1. Select the text to copy.
2. Click Super Copy from the Home ribbon.
3. Select the desired document type.
4. Complete the wizard options.
5. Select “Unformatted Text.”



Super Paste:

Super Paste allows you to re-use text from outside of Word (i.e., web page, email message) to create a new iCreate document, providing a corruption-free method to cut and paste between documents.

1. Select the text, from websites or other applications, to copy.
2. In Word, click the Paste icon and select Super Paste.
3. Select the desired template from the iCreate Template Launcher.



We know users are going to take shortcuts, so with iCreate we provide shortcuts to Native Word features. Teach users the “iCreate way” and spend less time worrying about making sure they understand the intricacies of the correct way to reuse text. The result will be robustly formatted Word documents created by your users and fewer problem documents down the road.

4. Reduce Document Metadata …Use Templates

In Tip 3 we discussed why using Save As was not recommended as a way of reusing content, since documents created this way may experience corruption problems down the road. Not only is the text being copied over, but so are any formatting or editing problems. In addition to performance issues, there may also be metadata present in reused documents which can lead to risk management issues.

More about the Metadata in Reused Documents:

Did you know that multiple author names can remain with a document as it is edited and revised? Microsoft Word automatically pulls the author name from the User Information (found under tools|options) for the last Saved by author, and will save the names if there have been multiple editors of a document (we tested adding up to 5,000 authors. Read about our test here).



If a document has been created from another document using Save As, the author name of the original document will stay with the document as will the company name.

Metadata can also be unused style names. We have seen firms create styles using unique names, that include the firm name such as “Esquire Innovations Body Text”. Every time a document is saved using Save as the new document retains all of the unused style names.

To reduce potentially risky metadata our advice is to provide users with templates built using Word best practices, and institute a metadata management policy.

iCreate provides templates for everything from letters, memos, agreement templates, pleadings and all administrative forms, such as check requests or leave forms. By providing users with pre-built templates they are not tempted to reuse documents as much because they can quickly create documents using styles, pull information from their contact management system and document management system, and save that information for use in later documents.



A powerful feature of iCreate called iEncore, saves the information entered in to a dialog box (such as Addressee and client/matter numbers) for use later when creating similar documents. This feature encourages the use of templates by making it easy to quickly to create frequently used documents thereby discouraging the use of Save as.

Although firms cannot prevent users from reusing documents, providing templates with software like iCreate goes a long way to promote Word best practices and standardize documents within a firm.

Our clients have told us that iCreate…”saves them downtime from corrupt documents. Users are now applying styles confidently and in the correct way; the firm's documents are now much more stable as well. There aren't as many Word crashes with iCreate, and training on iCreate is easier and saves the firm money as compared to training on previous systems.”

5. Re-Using Information when Creating new Documents:

A powerful feature of iCreate called iEncore, saves the information entered in to a Wizard (such as addressee, client/matter numbers and re-line information) for later use when creating similar documents.

This feature encourages the use of templates by presenting a more efficient method to create new documents thereby discouraging the use of “Save as”.

For Example:

When a user is creating a letter for a new client/matter they often already know they will be creating many of the same documents for this client over the course of the matter. In this type of scenario, they can opt to save the information typed in to an iCreate wizard as an iEncore Entry. The next time they create a letter for that matter instead of opening the previous letter, making edits and saving it under a different name they would do the following:


1. Press Ctrl+N, select the appropriate template in the iCreate template launcher.
2. Select the Retrieve iEncore button.
3. Highlight the appropriate saved iEncore entry and select the OK button.

The wizard will display saved information in appropriate fields.



The user can then either make changes to the wizard information or select finish to start typing the text of the document. iEncore entries can be sorted, modified, updated (if an addreesse information has changed), and shared with other users on the firm network.

iEncore provides a highly efficient method for creating frequently used new documents. These documents are brand new documents not old reused ones, decreasing the likelihood of document corruption down the road.

Join us for a demo of iCreate 7 and see how iCreate can transform the way your firm creates documents.

Register here for a free webinar on iCreate or contact us for more information