With the release of Word XP, Microsoft collaborated for the first time with law firms to develop a product specifically designed to meet their needs and address their complaints. Most users know how to use the basic functions of their word processing program, but Microsoft Word has many, less obvious treasures that can make your life much easier, if you know how to use them.  The following items are a sampling of features that were released with Word XP: 

Application/Data Recovery: If Word is not responding, click Start, Programs and choose Microsoft Office Tools.  Select Microsoft Office Application Recovery and then restart or end the application.  If you restart Word, a Document Recovery Pane will display a list of all documents that were open at the time of the “crash”, allowing you to access them.  Another option available now is the Open and Repair function.  If you attempt to open a document and get a message that it may be corrupt, try clicking the drop-down arrow on the Open button and select Open and Repair instead. 

Formatting and Styles:  Not everyone is comfortable using Styles and it is easy to become confused with text that has been significantly formatted.  If you want to quickly strip all formatting from a section of text, click on the Format menu, Styles and Formatting (or the equivalent toolbar icon), and select Clear Formatting.  Using this feature will not remove hyperlinks within the text. 

Reviewing and Revising:  From the Tools menu, select Track Changes to turn on the Reviewing Toolbar options.  Select Final Showing Markup from the drop-down menu.  When you make your changes, you will see marks much like those of a proofreader.  All changes made can be reviewed, then accepted or rejected.

Reveal Codes:  The most common complaint heard about Word is likely its lack of the beloved “reveal codes” feature that WordPerfect is so famous for.  Word XP now does a much better job of satisfying this demand with the Reveal Formatting option.  From the Format menu, select Reveal Formatting.  A task pane will appear on the right side of your screen and allow you to select various options.

Language: Have you ever needed to quickly translate a word into another language, such as Spanish or French?  Now you can do so with the right-click of your mouse.  Highlight the word you want to translate and right-click.  Select Translate and then choose the appropriate dictionary (such as English to Spanish) and hit Go.  *Note: the dictionaries available in this feature depend upon the options selected when Word was installed.  If you did not install any foreign language dictionaries, you can always install them later, or use the Translate Via the Web option.

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Britt Knuttgen is the President and Director of Legal Technology for Automated Horizons, a firm specializing in information technology, legal technology, web design and marketing.
Copyright © 2004 by Automated Horizons, Inc. All rights reserved under U.S. and international law.
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