WordPerfect [and more] Blog

Friday, June 26, 2009

Sharing WordPerfect documents in Google Docs

Since Google documents does not yet intuitively open WordPerfect documents (.wpd), here is a quick 5-step tip in case you need to share a WordPerfect document with someone who doesn't have WordPerfect loaded on their computer.

1. Create the document and save it on your computer as you usually do:

2. Then save as (F3) with the .rtf file extension. (RTF is supported by Google Docs and other systems, and preserves most formatting.) In the file type section of the save as window, scroll to Rich Text Format (RTF):

3. Open Google Docs, and click on Upload:

4a. Which brings you to this window:

4b. Click the Browse button and surf to your new document name with the .rtf file extension. Open that document. Then, click Upload File.

5. Your document has now been imported into Google Documents. Click on the Share button, where you will be presented with several sharing choices:

I hope this makes sense. There may be faster or better ways of sharing documents across different platforms, but this has worked well in the past for me. It should also work similarly for Zoho and other online word processing platforms.

• Posted by: Marie Carnes at 2:46 PM
• Discussion: Comments (0)
• Filed in: Google | Tips - Other | Tips - WordPerfect | WordPerfect

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Portable Hard Drive

This seems like an excellent solution for transporting portable back-ups between the office and home.

Amazon has the Western Digital WDMERC3200TN 320 GB My Passport Essential in Cherry Red on sale for $89.99 (down from $129.99).

Other color choices at that price level are Intense Blue, Real Red, Midnight Black, Cool Silver and Viola.

From the Technical Details:

* Box Contents - My Passport Essential 320GB Portable USB Hard Drive, USB 2.0 cable, Quick Install guide
* 320GB Hard Drive Capacity
* Installation is a snap because you don't really install this drive; you just plug it in and it's ready to use.
* Powered by the USB bus. No separate power supply is needed

Also, it works with Windows® and Mac® and you can encrypt everything on the drive for added security.

And at 5 inches by 3.1 inches by 0.6 inches, and weighing 3.7 ounces, you can put it in your pocket or purse to take it home with you.

Other size choices (use drop-down list near the top of the product page:

* 500 Gigabytes for $119.00
* 400 Gigabytes for $95.99
* 250 Gigabytes for $79.99

The price for the drive includes free super saver shipping when sold and shipped by Amazon, as usual.

• Posted by: Marie Carnes at 8:15 AM
• Discussion: Comments (0)
• Filed in: Recommended

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Proper disposal of client files

First of all, don't just throw them in a dumpster outside:

A swanky Manhattan law firm cleaned house by leaving six Dumpsters stuffed with confidential case files out on the street - exposing their clients' most personal information.

The private documents, mostly from the 1990s, included addresses, medical records and Social Security numbers, the Daily News found. (See article for photo. NY Daily News: Law firm clients' files filled with personal data left in six dumpsters on street, I.D. thief's gold.)

If you have to do a major house cleaning of files, there are shredding companies that will come to your office. They'll back the truck right up to your door, and you can supervise the shredding.

• Posted by: Marie Carnes at 9:48 PM
• Discussion: Comments (0)
• Filed in: Tips - Other

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

WPX4 webinar

Corel is sponsoring a free webinar tomorrow (Thursday, April 30, 2009), at 1:00 p.m. EST:

Find out ways to use WordPerfect Office to help you get organized and ready for spring.

• Creating labels and smart templates in WordPerfect
• Working on a tight budget in Quattro Pro
• Design a landscaping plan with Presentations

Click here for registration information. (Via.)

Sorry for the late notice, but I just found out.

Edit: Corrected date to April 30.

• Posted by: Marie Carnes at 11:27 PM
• Discussion: Comments (0)
• Filed in: WPX4

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Remembering WordPerfect

Over the past week, the link to W.E. Pete Anderson's "Almost Perfect" made the rounds on the social networking site, Twitter. A few interesting discussions about the software cropped up thereafter.

From MetaFilter:

About five years ago WP felt like a recently-dead relative - little mementoes of its existence (old files, templates, etc) kept cropping up on my company's servers, even though we had long since shifted to Windows + Office. Now, WP might as well have been invented in the Georgian Era - nothing left even to remind people that Word once had competition.

And:

I'm an attorney a small county in Pennsylvania. I'd say half of the law firms in the county still use wordperfect. I still get calls from law firm secretaries telling me they cannot open the document I sent them in Word format, and asking if I can send it in wordperfect. Its crazy.

Lots more on MetaFilter.

From Jeff Atwood, who after reading the book had this to say:

For a period from about 1985 to 1992, WordPerfect was the most popular word processing program in the world on virtually every computing platform. I remember it well; the very concept of word processing was synonymous with WordPerfect.

And now I can't even recall the last time I encountered a WordPerfect document, much less anyone who still uses WordPerfect. The software is still limping along, barely, under the auspices of Corel corporation, as WordPerfect Office X4. I guess it's a testament to how quickly things change in the world of software; you can dominate the world for years, only to be relegated to little more than a dimly remembered footnote in computing history a decade later.

He seems to have a true appreciation for programming, as the name of his blog is Coding Horror: programming and human factors:

• Posted by: Marie Carnes at 5:20 PM
• Discussion: Comments (0)
• Filed in: Links | WordPerfect

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Getting started on a paperless office

PDF for Lawyers has some pretty good advice on How to (successfully) switch to a paperless practice.

First, it's important to have a strong commitment. But sometimes commitment isn't enough. For example, if the attorney is not technically skilled he or she can quickly run into small problems that seem insurmountable....

If the lawyer is not technically skilled, but has a staff, it might be a good idea that the staff be in charge of getting the documents scanned, named, and indexed. That way, the lawyer can just call up the documents and doesn't have to be bothered with the day-to-day minutia of the scanning operation.

The Fujitsu ScanSnap 510 comes highly recommended. It's just a document scanner, and not a multipurpose piece of office equipment. It works for both Windows and Mac.

Then, if you need help getting the equipment set up, and/or implementing your system, considering consider hiring someone to come in. If you're in Springfield, Illinois, drop me an email. The main thing is that commitment to go paperless. Once that's done, the rest is icing on the cake and you'll never look back.

• Posted by: Marie Carnes at 8:33 PM
• Discussion: Comments (0)
• Filed in: Links | Recommended | Tips - Other

Friday, February 06, 2009

CiteGenie

As the tagline says, CiteGenie is a FireFox plug-in that will:

Automagically copy text with correct citations from Westlaw, Lexis, and other websites.

"We cannot impress too strongly upon counsel in all cases the importance to us of correct citations." Hughes v. Wyatt, 125 N.W. 334, 336 (Iowa 1910).

How does it work?

When CiteGenie™ is installed, it adds a new option to the browser's right-click menu to "Copy with CiteGenie." To use CiteGenie, simply highlight the text in the court opinion, right-click and select the "Copy with CiteGenie" option (or just press Ctrl-Shift-C). Then you can paste the text into any other program, such as your word processor, and the text will be pasted, along with the pinpoint citation for the selected text from the court opinion. This illustrated example shows CiteGenie™ in operation.

CiteGenie™ does not access the web site containing the document you are copying from. What many people don't realize is that when you are vewing a document in your browser, your computer already has a complete copy of that document already in its memory. CiteGenie™ does what a human would do -- it starts from the point where you are copying text, and looks at the surrounding text (already in your computer's memory) to determine the citation for that text.

CiteGenie™ will create ciations in Bluebook, MLA, APA, Chicago, and Wikipedia formats.

Outstanding! This looks very helpful. I haven't had a chance to try it out firsthand since I'm currently looking for a job, but I will as soon as I do.

Via The Trial Practice Tips Weblog.

• Posted by: Marie Carnes at 4:29 PM
• Discussion: Comments (0)
• Filed in: Links | Office technology