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Tom’s Tech Tips

Tom’s Tuesday Tech Tip: Word? (Word!) for Certified Legal Nurse Consultants

Legal Nurse Consultings live in a Word, Word, Word, Word world. There are other word-processing programs, there are open-source programs and there’s even Google Docs for those of you who live in the cloud (and Word for Mac for those who can’t use real computers). But for main stream, main street, main line Certified Legal Nurse Consultants, there’s Word. If it doesn’t come preloaded on our computer we rush out to buy it. Why? Not because we want it, but because we need it.

In my all-too-many years of personal (and impersonal) computer use, I’ve had love affairs with Multi-Mate®, WordStar®, WordPerfect® and a few other not-so-worthy predecessors to Word. But today, I’m a one word-processor man. It truly is a Word, Word, Word, Word world. That being said, we’ve got to make the best of our relationship with Word. Like any relationship, Word can be sweet at times, infuriating at other times but in the end, it’s still there for us – at home and at work. In fact, Word is probably the only word-processing program you need for your legal nurse consulting business.

This Tuesday Tech Tip is dedicated to the word-processor CLNC® consultants love to hate and hate to love.

Tech Tip #1

Do you ever wish you could change that darn default file save location? You know, the place on your computer where Word wants to put all your documents whenever you hit the Save button? Well, my CLNC® amigos, with just a few quick clicks of your mouse you can. Here’s how (this works in all Office 2007 programs as well): start by clicking that beautiful Pearl or Office button in the top left of your screen. Next, click Word Options, then Save. You’ll get a screen with a variety of options (including a choice of the Word document formats you can use to save your documents). Look for the “browse” selection next to “Default file location.” By clicking browse, you can navigate to the initial folder where you want to save your Word documents.

I have a directory called WordDocs under which I have all my other subdirectories such as TechTips, LegalDocs, Letterhead, etc. in which I store those relevant documents. Whenever I hit the Save button, up pops a screen asking me for a document name and giving me a list of subdirectories in which I can stash the newly created document. Whenever I click Open, it automatically opens to my WordDocs directory and I can choose where I want to go. You can do this in the other Office 2007 applications too, but in Excel and PowerPoint the programmers went on break and never put in the browse button so you have to cut and paste your new default file path after navigating to it in Windows Explorer (or you could just type it in).

Tech Tip #2

Not every legal nurse consultant or attorney rushed out and bought new software or a new computer loaded with Office 2007 when it first came out. Believe it or not, more than a few schlubs out there are still using Word 2003 and this includes major law offices! If all your attorney-clients haven’t yet ponied up for the latest and greatest, you can still create your way-cool Word 2007 .docx documents and then save them in earlier versions of Word with a few clicks of your magic mouse!

If you don’t want to use the new .docx format with all its imbedded wizardry simply repeat the steps above, but instead of picking the browse button, click the dropdown next to “Save files in this format” and pick Word 97-2003. This will make your version of Word automatically save any and all your documents in the earlier version (until you change it back).

Tech Tip #3

If you have just one attorney-client who’s still typing it old school with Word 97-2003 and want to save documents (especially after you’ve created and formatted them for that particular, schlemiel in the older format), then after you’ve saved your document as a .docx and are sure it’s final, you can “save it down.” Start with the document open in Word 2007, then click on the Pearl, Save As and click on the dropdown next to Save as Type and pick the format you want to use. It will create a duplicate document in the format you select. For those law firms still using WordPerfect® you can save as rich text format (.rtf) which will open easily in WordPerfect. Remember, you’ll now have two documents in your files – one ending in .docx and another by the same name ending in .doc or .rtf. Having multiple copies of the same document may cause some confusion later so be prepared to store them in subfolders and always, always make sure you keep track of both. Remember too that if you edit one document, you need to save it in both formats.

Tech Tip #4

Did you know you can encrypt and password protect your Word documents? If you haven’t yet purchased or obtained Zip or StuffIt software, you can use Word 2007’s built-in encryption tools. When your file is final, save it one last time then click the Pearl, next click Prepare, then Encrypt Document. You’ll need to type in a password that’s at least 8-10 characters long (and use my password tips). Click on OK and reenter the password (if you can remember it). Now you can feel free to attach and email that legal nurse consulting work product document to anyone of your choosing and Word’s 128-bit AES (advanced encryption standard) will protect that document from pretty much everybody. Now, when you give each attorney-client you work with their own password, you can safely transmit documents back and forth (just keep a paper logbook of passwords in case you forget them).

Keep on techin’,

Tom

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*The opinions and statements made by Vickie Milazzo, the founder of Medical-Legal Consulting Institute, Inc. are based on her experiences and expertise, should not be applied beyond the specific context provided, and do not guaranty or project actual results. Vickie Milazzo is no longer involved in the operations or management of the business, but is involved as an independent education consultant.

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