During the heyday of WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS, many consultants, myself included, earned substantial fees from clients to customize their word processor. Before the Windows versions of word processors, macros were required for such mundane operations as printing addresses onto envelopes. While I still have a few clients happily puttering along with old macros and merge forms, most firms have either migrated to a recent Windows version of Word-Perfect or made a transition to some flavor of Microsoft Word.

In making that leap, regardless of using Word or WordPerfect, firms probably are underutilizing that re-source. With a few tips and tricks, you can get more from word processors and have them do more of the work. While the steps are different in each program, the concepts and capabilities are similar.

Both programs come with a standard template and settings when a blank document is opened. To make more frequently needed functions available, invest some time to custom-ize the standard template.

Whenever you customize, whether in your word processor, practice management program or billing program, focus first on the 80 percent of documents you regularly create. Even if you think each one is unique, closer examination reveals common elements in portions of every document or every document of a specific type. For ex-ample, even if you have no standard letters, every letter will have the same margins, the date will be in the same location, the inside address will be in a similar spot and your signature section should be the same. Creating a form letter with those basic elements will shorten the process of creating every new correspondence. Similarly, if you examine the list of features available within your word processor, you will find you generally use the same functions repeatedly.

Placing the shortcuts or icons for those frequently used functions onto your default template’s toolbar will go a long way toward making your word processor easier and more efficient. Changing the margins to match the majority of documents your firm pre-pares also will increase your turn-around time. Take a close look at the steps your staff performs when creating documents to see if there are other functions that can be streamlined.

In WordPerfect, the standard or de-fault template is called wpxus.wpt, where X is the version of WordPerfect being used. Depending on the operating system, the location of this file will vary. You can identify where your standard template is stored by looking under Settings, choosing Files, opening the template tab and reviewing the name and location on the line identified as Default Template. To edit the Default Template in WordPerfect, press CTRL+T to open templates or projects. From the drop-down list, scroll to “Custom WP Templates.” The default will have the description “Cre-ate a blank document.” On the right side, choose Options, then Edit WP Template.

In Word, the standard template is called normal.dot. Like its WordPerfect counterpart, it holds the default settings for new blank documents.

Envelopes

For some reason, neither Corel nor Microsoft puts frequently used functions like printing envelopes or labels as icons on its default toolbars. While some details are different in the two programs, a right click on the toolbar will give the option to edit the buttons. Before starting, you may want to copy the shipping version and edit the name of the copy to designate it as your firm’s custom toolbar. You can drag and drop icons from the toolbar to delete icons that never will be needed. It baffles me why vendors choose to include icons for drawing or inserting a graphic while omitting the obvious icon for formatting and printing an envelope or preparing mailing labels.

Look closely at all options on the pull-down menus before customizing the toolbar. You even may want to make a list of the functions you per-form most frequently that don’t have shortcut keys associated with them. These are the logical candidates for inclusion on the toolbar.

You also can make other changes to your default template or normal.dot template to preset other options used for most of your documents. For example, you can edit the pull-down menus to attach macros or other functions to them or reorganize the menus for your firm’s favorite functions. Additionally, you can edit the keyboard shortcuts in both programs. For in-stance, older versions of WordPerfect used the F11 key for the Reveal Codes function. In the later Windows versions, the F11 key is used to insert a graphic file, a feature law firms rarely use. Editing the F11 key to Reveal Codes may make document trouble-shooting easier for your staff.

Document location

For many firms, finding documents still is an issue. In both programs, you can edit the header or footer (the text that appears at the top or bottom of every page) of your default template to include the document’s path and file-name. By doing this, each time you save a new document, the header or footer will automatically include the document’s location and file name. Imagine a misplaced piece of paper in your office. Now imagine it has an indication of where it belongs and what document it came from. This can be a dramatic improvement. Of course, if you’re accustomed to using the longer file names, you may want to rethink either your folder or naming structure.

Within both programs, you also can change settings pertaining to the Open File dialog screen to allow you to see file dates and sizes or remember the last folder you opened. The steps are different in Word and WordPerfect as well as in different versions so you may want to consult the online help file to see how to change your options.

AutoCorrect in Word and Quick-Words in WordPerfect are among the most underutilized features. The concept is that you highlight formatted text such as your standard signature block, then choose AutoCorrect or QuickWords from the pull-down menu. You will be given the opportunity to assign an abbreviation such as VTY (Very truly yours) with initials to represent that block of text. When you want to use your signature block or other phrase, simply type your abbreviation. Be smart about not using real words.

One trick I have found effective is to precede every abbreviation with the accent key (`) in the upper left of a standard computer keyboard. This al-lows you to control when you want to expand your abbreviation and when you simply want to type something that happens to be the same as your abbreviation.

Myriad features

I’ve only scratched the surface of word processing functions. Setting up documents with automatic page numbers, cross-references, merges, sorting, formatting using tables, computer-generated tables of contents and tables of authorities are other features I find ignored or under-utilized. There are many features available in the current versions of the leading word processors that are worth exploring.

Take a look at the help files starting with the section of the online Table of Contents called “What’s new.” This will list features added to your word processor since its last version. It’s a good place to begin to see what vendors thought we still needed. While many of them won’t be of particular interest to lawyers, there are a few slick features that have surfaced in the past few renditions.

For example, Corel WordPerfect versions 9 and 10 (also known as Corel Office 2000 and 2002) include the ability to save a WordPerfect file directly into an Adobe Acrobat file to send to the court as well as save in a format that can be sent directly to a web page. Some other useful functions include Word’s Document Map for navigating long documents and WordPerfect’s real-time preview of format-ting changes to see what the document will look like before committing to the actual change. WordPerfect also added AutoScroll in version 9 to quickly browse through a document as if you had a mouse with a wheel. You also may want to explore some of the options for tracking versions of documents when soliciting edits or comments from partners or clients.

To get started, share this article with your staff and see what they’re using and what they aren’t. Consider treating them to lunch and let them share their tips and tricks. Have them also focus on what they’re doing smartly and which functions might be streamlined by rethinking the process or learning the proper way to create the document or prepare their work. A small investment could pay off big!