A recent article on Law Technology News by Kim Walker provides the steps to using redaction tools in Adobe Acrobat (versions 8 or 9) and MS Word 2007. If you're using these tools, redaction can be a simple, safe process to prevent access to metadata or private information.
How to Keep Sensitive Data Blacked Out
If you've been experimenting with using OpenOffice.org's Writer in addition to or instead of MS Word and found a few unpleasant surprises, check out this short article from CNET.com. Dennis O'Reilly provides some tips on how to get OOo Writer and MS Word to work together better. He also mentions a few features in that don't transfer back and forth happily, with unfortunately, no quick fixes.
Okay, so we know by now that Microsoft Vista has issues, but how about MS Office 2007? Is it safe? Will it be a fairly painless upgrade like that past couple of Offices have been? What's up with this "ribbon" business, anyway?
According to MS, the ribbon replaces the traditional menus and toolbars. It is part of the Office Fluent UI (The Microsoft Office Fluent user interface overview). The ribbon presents commands organized by tabs that are grouped by common tasks. The tabs are meant to simplify the tasks that we previously have used through menus and toolbars because they are organized "in a way that corresponds directly to the tasks people perform in these applications." So says Microsoft.
Also, as mentioned by a Law.com Legal Technology article, Is Your Firm Ready for a New Desktop?, the file format for Office 2007 has changed. Files are no longer appended as .doc, .xls, .ppt, etc. They are saved as XML files and so will have an "x" appended to the previous extension (.docx, etc.). This format is not compatible with previous versions of Office without downloading the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack.
Between these two changes, Office 2007 appears to be packed with some re-training needs. While you don't have to run Vista in order to upgrade to Office 2007, there are still some major changes to consider.
I generally use between 5 and 10 or more software programs a day. While I consider myself to be pretty techie (no doubt my family would use the word nerdy), I know there is a LOT more out there that I could know about any of the programs I use. It's pretty easy to learn how to use a program, using only the parts and pieces you need, without taking the time to become an expert. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
However, there are some programs that can save time and money in the long run with time and money invested initially in training. Word processing can be one of those programs. Roberta Gelb writes in Beware the Hidden Costs of Bad Formatting from Law.com Legal Technology that learning how to use a word processing system's formatting capabilities (she uses MS Word as an example) could increase staff efficiency and therefore save money through staff time.
And you don't have to necessarily take a full class to learn specific functions in a program. Microsoft (easy example) has a great how to web site. You can read through how-to articles, take short tutorials, find tips, wander through the training section...
I can attest to this from personal experience. While it can take some time to get the hang of using the styles and formatting features--especially when using MS Word and it's infuriating tendency to take over and do what it wants--once you have it conquered, you can do some great things with formatting and updating documents.
Rick Broida of lifehacker.com has written a blog post with some great tips for personalizing Microsoft Word and it's extremely annoying habit of making your decisions for you: Make Microsoft Word less annoying. If any of these MS Word tendencies have irritated you for just about ever, now is your moment of revenge. And if none of the settings Broida details does the trick for you, you can still use the same general instructions to browse around Word's options and maybe find that elusive checkmarked setting that is driving you to distraction.
Even if you've been using Microsoft Office or Corel WordPerfect forever, you can still learn some great tips from the Microsoft and Corel web sites.
Microsoft offers free live and archived (on-demand) webcasts (usually about an hour long) on programs within Office: Word, Outlook, Excel, & PowerPoint. While these are interesting and helpful--and most importantly--free, you do have to go through an annoying registration process to view them.
Microsoft Office Tips & Tricks
Microsoft Office Newsletters
Corel's take on support is a bit different--less techie, also free, and without having to give away your blood type to retrieve. They provide tutorials along with a "tips and tricks" section. Corel also has newsletters on specific programs.
Corel Community
Take a few moments to randomly link around in both MS and Corel's web sites. You might be surprised with the helpful information you can find.
What could you do with an extra few hundred dollars? What if you didn’t have to buy or upgrade to a new expensive software package or networking system? Consider using open source software and you can use your extra money to take your favorite law librarian out to lunch—or go golfing, whichever comes first!
Open source software (OSS) refers to software that has been made available not only for (most often free) use, but with its source code—the actual computer code written by the programmers—fully intact, enabling anyone with the knowledge and desire to study, change and improve the design (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software). There are hundreds of software options provided as open source software (see this list of open source software packages provided by Wikipedia for some ideas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_software_packages). I would like to point you to a couple of particularly popular programs for this post.
Before we get to that point, though, let me dispense with one of the myths involving OSS. There are often arguments against OSS with regard to customer support, security and reliability. In actuality, OSS programs are frequently more robust and reliable than proprietary software. If you run into a quandary, sometimes you can contact a developer directly through email. And even if one of the main developers is unavailable, many of these projects have large communities providing real-world feedback, revised code, and advice for users. As pointed out by one developer, “having such access is extremely valuable, especially if it means bypassing the "user support" droid in Bangalore who knows less than I do about the product and is reading from a script” (http://www.neilgunton.com/open_source_pros_cons/).
So, how can OSS help you? Well, the knowledge that you don’t have to be an über-geek to use most of this software is a good thing. Plus, software that has been around for a while and gained a large following is usually compatible with Windows, Macs or Linux, older and newer. OpenOffice.org (http://www.openoffice.org/) is one such program. This office suite contains a free set of products that are compatible with many other office suites, including Microsoft Office: Writer (word processor), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (graphics), and Base (database).
If you already have an office suite, you can consider another helpful OSS tool to create PDF files—PDFCreator (http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/). PDFCreator works like a printer and creates PDFs from any Windows program.
Another very popular software program is the browser created by Mozilla called Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/). I suggest retaining Internet Explorer as there are always sites that will view better in one browser or another, especially if they haven’t been coded to standards. Still, Firefox has become so popular that even the new Internet Explorer 7 browser (currently in beta-testing - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/ie7betaredirect.mspx) has included many of the options now in Firefox (tabbed browsing, built-in search tools, integrated RSS capabilities, better printing options and more).
The above description of OSS and software suggestions are just a microscopic speck of the magnificent world of OSS. If you would like some further resources or have any questions, please feel free to contact Katie Jones (kjones2@state.wy.us – (307) 777-7509).
Every word processing document that is created, modified, viewed and forwarded is replete with metadata (background information such as your name, initials, name of your computer, name of the network server or hard disk where you saved the document, and more) that may be more than you want others to know. There are some tools provided by Microsoft to decrease this hidden data (see http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA010776461033.aspx and http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA010777371033.aspx).
Here is another option to remove metadata when converting a Word document to PDF format, posted by Cindy L. Chick to the LawLibTech blog. The National Security Agency has provided instructions to further reduce metadata: Document on Redaction.
