text with selected formatting and
select the default of the top half
of the paste button.
Generally, you should always
choose to strip formatting when
pasting text from one document to
another. Bringing the formatting
in from the source document will
almost always cause formatting
issues in the receiving document.
Word Tip #3
Learn to Use Styles
Most Word users do not under-
stand, appreciate or utilize styles
which are found in the center
of the home ribbon in Word
2013/2016. Built-in styles are
combinations of formatting char-
acteristics that can be applied to
text to quickly change its appear-
ance. For example, applying the
heading 1 style might make text
bold, Arial, and 16-point, and ap-
plying the heading 2 style might
make text bold italic, Arial, and
14-point. (Those are examples;
exact formatting characteristics
depend on Word's default settings
and those you might have chosen
for yourself). 2
Benefits of Word style usage in-
clude:
1. Automatic creation of a table
of contents that can be dynami-
cally updated as you modify your
document;
2. Styles applied throughout your
document will consistently change
if you modify the style itself on
the styles toolbar or style menu.
3. Styles are easily converted to
PDF bookmarks when converted
from a Word document to PDF,
making the PDF easier to navigate;
4. You can lock down styles in a
document to make sure that others
don’t apply direct formatting and
change your document.
5. Style usage throughout your
firm ensures consistency of out-
put. An example would be the cre-
ation of a letterhead template or a
pleadings template for the court
system you generally file with. Set
the styles properly and the output
will be the same for every letter
and/or pleading created.
Word Tip #4
Learn to Use Section Breaks
Dividing a document into sections
lets you customize formats for
a section's content and purpose.
For instance, you might want a
single page to be in landscape in
the middle of a portrait document.
Or, you might want the header
text or page numbering scheme
to change for several pages. Using
sections, you can apply different
formatting as needed.
When used with styles and other
layouts (see the layout ribbon), you
can control formatting of differ-
ent areas of your document. For
example, suppose you are writing
a memo to a court and want to in-
sert a table of data from Microsoft
Excel to show damages calcula-
tions. You may want to have the
table display in landscape mode
to allow for the expansion of the
data table. If you paste the table
in from Excel directly, without
first creating a section break and
formatting the pages within the
new section to landscape, you’ll
likely end up fighting with Word.
Section breaks also permit you to
change the appearances of things
like cover pages, tables of contents
pages, index pages, and the like.
Section breaks are found on the
layout tab.
Word Tip # 5
And You Thought You Couldn’t
Reveal Codes in Word
Many users continue to cling to
Corel Word Perfect (no disrespect
to the good people at Corel) be-
cause they claim Word doesn’t
have a reveal codes feature. And,
while Word doesn’t have a reveal
codes editor, Word’s answer to this
dilemma is to determine what for-
matting is applied to a paragraph.
To see what formatting is applied
to text in your document, place
your cursor in the text and select
Shift + F1. This will open the reveal
formatting pane on the right side
of your screen. As you will see, it
breaks down the formatting into
font, paragraph and section, ex-
plains what is being applied and
allows you to adjust formatting
by clicking any of the hyperlinks
(underlined items) that appear.
Microsoft Outlook
Just about every lawyer uses Out-
look. Outlook is a great personal
information manager included
in most Office 365/Microsoft Of-
fice suites. Like with Word, many
times we only use a fraction of
the features available in Outlook.
Below are five tips for Outlook,
primarily from 2013-2016.
The Official News Publication of the Atlanta Bar Association THE ATLANTA LAWYER
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