Going from WP to Word is not fun. Neither is a root canal. One of those
things will do you some undeniable good. The pain from the other takes a
long time to subside. You will understand this better later. Meanwhile,
both Word and WP have their advantages and disadvantages.
As to creating "pleadings" the most typical uses of this I have seen in the
legal environment have the line numbers in a footer (or is it a header?)
probably created initially using the pleading wizard. Our local courts
don't require this but some of my work involves courts that do. (I think
the requirement is a remnant from the pre-word processing days long ago when
legal stationery was printed with lines and numbers. Most courts did not
actually require line numbering but lawyers probably thought their clients
would be impresssed with something that looked awfully "legal," which
probably made them feel a tad better about how much this was costing them.)
Even though the text of a legal pleading may be double-spaced, the caption
is usually single-spaced. Obviously half of the single-spaced stuff will
end up between line numbers. Double-spacing everything would look bizarre;
so would numbering each line, whether single or double spaced. You really
want to create a template (Word is actually based on templates--a blank
document in Word is based on a template called normal.dot.) You can use the
wizard, particularly to get the vertical lines and line numbers (you will go
nuts trying to do this yourself), but it is almost guaranteed that the
wizard will not produce exactly what you want anyway, so you will have to
tweak the result. Once you have things the way you want you should save the
pleading as a template (*.dot). After that you can pretty much forget the
wizard. Once you are comfortable with using a Word template you might want
to create different templates for courts that may require different formats.
This is a lot better than just keeping one document and using it as a "form"
You set up styles for the components of the pleading, such as Attorney name,
Court Caption, and the like. As a Word Perfect user you should be quite
familiar with the use of styles. Word styles are pretty similar, except
they will not store any text. As a practical matter, if the line numbers
are ordinarily used to refer to the contents of the pleading, brief, etc.
rather than the caption. How to make sure that your double-spaced stuff
lines up with the numbers? Stick a blank line somewhere in the
single-spaced part, such as the very top line of the pleading or arrange the
single spaced stuff so you get another line (or maybe get rid of one).
These links should help get you started:
Word v. WP:
http://www.addbalance.com/word/wordperfect.htm
Some Tips and "Gotchas" for those who are new to Word, especially if
migrating from WordPerfect
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/TipsAndGotchas.htm
Is There Life After "Reveal Codes"?
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/RevealCodes.htm
WordPerfect to Word converters (and why none of them are perfect)
http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/General/WordPerfectConverters.htm
For Word's best approximation to Reveal Codes, see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/General/RevealCodes.htm
Word v. WP:
http://www.addbalance.com/word/wordperfect.htm
Styles:
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/index.html
Styles: Using Body Text instead of Normal:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/NormalVsBodyStyles.htm
Customizing the Normal Template:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/CustomizeNormalTemplate.htm
Creating a Template - The Basics (Part I):
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/Customization/CreateATemplatePart1.htm
What is the relationship between a Word document and its template?
http://www.ShaunaKelly.com/word/templaterelations\index.html