The Perils of Direct Formatting

You find yourself working on a legal document with numerous paragraphs that begin with a number followed by a heading that precedes a paragraph (e.g., "10. The Seller's Options. The Seller will have the following options"). In the legal industry, there is a right way and a wrong way to format a heading with this particular formatting. The wrong way would include direct formatting. What is direct formatting?

Direct formatting is the process of applying formatting directly to text (characters) and paragraphs. Now, you may be thinking: "What are the formatting icons for if not for applying formatting?" You're right, the icons are for applying formatting directly. However, when you're formatting a document with Microsoft Word, each click of an icon inserts invisible codes into a document. The more codes you insert, the more likely you are to corrupt your document...in time. In addition, Microsoft Word's infrastructure supports the application of formatting with the use of Styles (please see our previous post on "Styles").

In the legal industry, direct formatting is considered objectionable. When a document is lengthy and contains multiple types of paragraph and character formatting, page numbering and page layouts, it is imperative that only a minimal amount of direct formatting is used, if any. Using the example in the first paragraph, by the time you reach paragraph 10, if direct formatting is employed, you will have inserted coding for each numbered paragraph that precedes it, which expends time, and time is revenue saved or spent.

Lesson 4 of "Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010 for Law Professionals" provides a comparison of direct formatting with correct formatting steps for numerous character and paragraph formatting attributes. Lesson 8 discusses the use of Styles and why it is imperative that formatting begin and end with Styles, highlighting the simplicity of this important feature.

You can learn more about word processing for law professionals when you purchase "Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010 for Law Professionals" by clicking the following link. http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00350I2B6.

KAS Training is providing free webinar training to anyone that purchases our book between May, 2010 and October 31, 2010. Check our website for details. http://www.kastraining.com