I recently published Time-Saving Microsoft Word Customizations and Tools in the Oklahoma Bar Journal. As Barron Henley of Affinity Consulting frequently notes, one of the challenges of Microsoft Word is that you can work with it for years and your skills won’t improve much because so many of the powerful tools within Word are hidden so deeply you would never stumble across them.

In this column I discuss a few basic features of Microsoft Word that are very useful for lawyers. But for those who have not done so the real “gold” in this column is learning how to add the items you frequently use to the Quick Access Toolbar and how you should customize the Status bar. Many Word users will find that they will save several minutes every day just by adding the email Command to their Quick Access Toolbar because, in my world at least, you often want to email a document immediately after you have completed and saved it.