HOW DID WE EVER LIVE WITHOUT WORD PROCESSORS?

Or, Look Ma, No Hands!

I date myself when I tell you that when I began working as a legal secretary, the word processor consisted of the secretary and a state-of-the-art Remington manual typewriter. Carbon paper and onion skin were the multiple copies. Years later (many years later), when word processors came along, we were supposed to be suddenly freed from intensive labor and mountains of paperwork. Please let me disabuse you of that myth. In the days of the manual and electric typewriters, a document was not revised and revised and revised and revised....Attorneys said what they meant and meant what they said-the first time. I do not recall having to rewrite a document more than three times, and that frequency was highly unusual. Word processors have not lessened the burden; they have increased it. The number of rewrites and the river of words is directly proportional to the ease of cutting, pasting, moving, hiding, revising, and so on at almost the speed of light. I believe we spend more time redoing the same document than ever before. Nevertheless, I will be the first to moan, "How did we ever live without word processors?"

WORDPERFECT® FOR WINDOWS

Most of us spend much of our time creating plain vanilla pleadings that conform to the courts' stylistic requirements, so that we do not have the time to explore the tremendous features offered by powerful word processing programs such as Microsoft Word® or WordPerfect®. In the years that I have been using WordPerfect®, starting with WordPerfect® 4.1, I have still not utilized every feature offered by that program, and there are some features that I have used so infrequently, I cannot remember what I did from one time to the next. So, if you need a little help getting started, you might find the following tips useful.

I HAVE USED WP 5.1 FOR SO LONG, I CAN'T GET USED TO THE 6.1 KEYBOARD

If you have used the popular 5.1 and have become habituated to its keyboard, you do not have to make the switch to the 6.1 keyboard. When you have launched WPWin 6.1,

  1. Click on (pressing [enter] also has the same effect as clicking the mouse button) Edit.
  2. Select Preferences from the drop down menu.
  3. Select the Keyboard icon from the Preferences dialog box.
  4. In the keyboard dialog box, highlight WPDOS Compatible, click Select, and you can take comfort in the familiar 5.1 keyboard. Repeat the process to re-select the WPWin 6.1 keyboard.

HOW CAN I CHANGE WPWIN 6.1 SCREEN COLORS?

To the change the color of menu bars, title bars, scroll bars and blank document screen to correspond with your Windows color definitions,

  1. Click on Edit
  2. Click on Preferences
  3. Double click the Display icon in the Preferences dialog box
  4. In the Display Preferences dialog box, look in the Show dialog box, and click on the box for Windows Systems Colors. While you are in the Show box, you can also select or deselect table gridlines, comments, graphics and hidden text. There are also a number of other items that can be configured in the Display Preferences box.

HOW CAN I CUSTOMIZE THE TOOLBAR?

To increase the number of rows on the Toolbar and to modify the Toolbar fonts and appearance

  1. In Preferences, double click the Toolbar icon, highlight 6.1 WordPerfect®
  2. Click Options
  3. In the Toolbar Options dialog box, choose your desired options, then click OK. In the Toolbar Options dialog box, you can also select a variety of toolbars if you are working on a specific document such as equations or special designs. You can return to the regular WordPerfect® 6.1 Toolbar at any time by returning to Toolbar Preferences.

To add buttons to your Toolbar

  1. Click on Edit in the Toolbar Preferences dialog box
  2. Choose the buttons you want to add by selecting from the Feature Categories and scrolling down the Features list. Highlight your choice, click the Add Button at the bottom of the box and the button will be appear on the Toolbar. Click OK when finished.
  3. At the Toolbar Preferences, click Close to exit. The use of buttons greatly speeds up formatting documents.

GRAPHICS

WPWin 6.1 has a large number of neat graphic images to incorporate into your documents or just to play with if you have the time. You can also create imaginative text with TextArt. With Graphics, you can make watermarks for your documents, and after you have selected your watermark, you can change its size, position, etc., by using the Toolbar. In other words, if you do not want the DRAFT watermark stretching across the page, you can resize it, reposition it and make it appear lighter or darker with the Tools button, as demonstrated at the end of this paragraph.

TEMPLATES

WordPerfect® is loaded with Templates for almost any occasion. If your firm does not provide you with your own business card

  1. Click New
  2. In New Document, click Business in the Group box; select the business card template of your choice in the Select Template box by highlighting it and click Select
  3. You will be presented an the Enter Your Personal Information window. After personalizing your business card, save it under a different file name. and once it is on the document screen, enter the requested information, save the template under a different file name such as mycard, and you will have a business card template to print out as often as you wish. (Just be sure to purchase the appropriate size paper which is carried by any office supply store and comes perforated in the right size.) Templates are easy to use and easy to change to suit your preferences.

COMMENTS

In the Summer 1996 issue of TPJ at page 33, Vi Davis discussed insertion of comments in WPWin 5.1. Inserting comments in WPWin 6.1 is also incredibly easy.

  1. Click on Insert
  2. Click on Comment
  3. Click on Create from the side menu. A Toolbar will appear containing buttons for addition of a date, name, etc., if you have entered your identifying information in Environment Preferences. After making your selections, type your comment or paste or insert a comment from another source, click Close.
  4. To view the comment: The comment appears as a balloon figure in the leftmost margin of the document (you may have to use the scroll bar to move all the way to the edge) and a simple click of the balloon reveals the comment and hides it again. Or, you can use Page View to view the balloon and click from within Page View.

I NEED A COACH

Creating tables has never been easier and if you are unsure of how to create tables or outlines or how to merge documents, just click on the Coaches icon and WordPerfect® will lead you by the hand.

Caveat. WordPerfect® 6.1 was released to correct the bugs in WPWin 6.0. I have WPWin 6.0 at home and WPWin 6.1 at work. I have compensated for a lot of the bugs in WPWin 6.0 although occasionally strange and inexplicable things happen. Sometimes strange and inexplicable things happen in WPWin 6.1, hence, I strongly suspect all the bugs did not come out.

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS . . .

There are many, many killer features in WordPerfect® 6.1. I have touched on only a mere handful of very basic maneuvers. I am sure many of you are already tapping into the killer features. If you have discovered or developed any of these techniques, or if you are experienced with Word®, TPJ would like to hear from you. Contact Christine Levy, TPJ editor . Her address is listed inside the front cover of the journal. WYTYSYDG.1 BBFN.2

1 "What You Thought You Saw, You Didn't Get." From the Internet. Author Unknown.

2 "Bye Bye For Now." From the Internet. Author Unknown.

Lisa Peticolas, CLA, is a legal assistant and LAN administrator with the El Paso firm of Diamond, Rash, Gordon & Jackson, P.C.

TEXAS PARALEGAL JOURNAL
Fall 1996
©1996 Legal Assistants Division, State Bar of Texas

Return to TPJ Fifth Edition

Return to TPJ Home Page