Why are styles so important anyway?

Styles are the heart and soul of Microsoft Word, a vital part of efficient document processing. Applying
them to paragraphs provides a way to link multi-level numbering, define basic formatting and quickly
edit content within your documents. Unfortunately, many professionals use Word as if it were a fancy
typewriter. Do you use and rely on Microsoft Word every day without even a basic understanding of
Styles, their significance, importance or how to apply them effectively?

There is an old proverb that goes: “If you’re not using Styles, you’re not using Word.” In theory, styling a
document once should solve all our problems. However, after decades of storing documents inside
archival systems, much of the content we need has already been written. We now have a wealth of
information at our fingertips just waiting to be repurposed.

Due to the overwhelming complexity of Microsoft Word, specifically how paragraph numbering and
styles work, most legal documents are improperly styled or worse, directly formatted. Other
possibilities include; legacy documents perfect for your brand-new matters were styled by someone
else, or there’s a need to collaborate with outside counsel who apply their own styles, thereby changing
the document altogether.

How do we solve these problems?

These hypothetical scenarios happen every day and cost legal organizations a significant amount of
time, which in turn costs money. If we remove the mystery, complexity and repetitive nature of
Microsoft Word, we empower people of all skill levels. We’ve identified four key areas to focus on,
which if addressed will save a significant amount of time.

Cleanup

The importance of having streamlined cleanup tools cannot be emphasized enough. Cleaning up a
document is one of the most time-consuming tasks for any professional, taking focus and attention
away from the truly important work. Just like rebooting a computer, starting fresh in a clean container is
often the easiest way to resolve most frequent and common problems.

Numbering

The synergy that exists between numbered lists and styles is complicated and all too often
misunderstood. Defining multi-level numbering properly and building outline schemes into styles can be
a challenge even for the most advanced Word Processors. In order to address these problems,
synchronizing numbering and styles, so they work together instead of independently is imperative.

Styles

Building Styles in Microsoft Word is the single most important aspect of assembling a well-structured
Word document, period the end!

PDF vs Word

A PDF file is essentially an electronic printout of your document, whereas Microsoft Word has been
designed for ease of editing. This fundamental difference in architecture requires a deep understanding
of how Word works in order to get content out of PDF and into Word as quickly and accurately as
possible.

Document Processing Needs Love Too!

These invaluable resources (people and processes) cannot and should not be neglected. Focusing on
automation, implementing the right software, standardizing on DEG’s Standard Styles Framework for
legal documents and delivering quality training will drastically improve efficiencies inside your firm.

About DocStyle

Dedicated to the development of practical legal-centric productivity software solutions, our mission is to design comprehensive tools that aid the collaborative efforts of legal professionals everywhere. DocStyle focuses on improving efficiencies in two ways, legal focused PDF to Word conversion and processing Word documents quickly with automated intelligence.

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