Replies

None of that seemed to make a difference, but thanks for the suggestions. Turns out that when you use HTML as your mail editor you lose the options in the print window. I appreciate the help.

No, neither of us was using Word as our mail editor, but you pointed me in the right direction. I’m using Rich Text format and she and another person with the same issue were using HTML format. When we changed hers to Rich Text, she regained the print options. Interesting!

Thank you for your help.

Found my own answer. In case anyone is interested, I set up a rule to move a copy of messages received from a distribution list to another folder. So far, each message received from anyone in the distribution list (the one I used contains close to 400 members) has been copied to the specified folder. Neat.

Thank you for the suggestion. I checked out the site and forwarded the information to the powers that be. That appears to be the only potentially workable option, so far – if we want to invest in another program.

I’m disappointed that Microsoft hasn’t provided a way to do this. It would seem to be a logical option to have been included in the software, as secretaries always need to be able to merge from their assignments’ Contacts folders.

Many thanks for your response. I always appreciate the help we get here.

Thanks for the suggestion. We’ve thought about it, yes, but in a law firm so much information is confidential that, in some cases, the fact that a person appears on a list could breach confidentiality, particularly if it appeared in a public folder. Not only that, but with as large a firm as we have – 170 attorneys – that would be a huge folder.

We have had people who have created a public folder between themselves with limited permissions, and copied all contacts into it. The problem with that, of course, is keeping it synchronized with the “regular” Contacts folder. The dream here is a way to give a delegate permission to see the actual folder for another person as an Outlook address book for a merge.

Thanks again for your suggestion.

I’ll pass your ideas on to our “developer,” and see what he thinks. The secretaries who are sharing attorneys’ Contacts folders do have the folder in their folder lists, so that wouldn’t be an issue. However, I suspect that he will not be too happy about opening Word from Outlook. I know that there can be issues with normal.dot and DOCS Open when running multiple sessions of Word – one of the reasons we try to discourage people from using Word as the e-mail editor.

Thanks for your suggestions. Any and all are very helpful. I appreciate them.

I’ve used that method myself. I believe that public folders are also available as Outlook address books, and could be used. I’m hoping that there’s something I don’t know about – maybe even at the Exchange server level – that could let them use the actual folder. As you mentioned, the risk is that maintenance issue – and the fact that the copied folder may not be up to date. Thanks for the suggestion, tho’! You always have good ones, and I appreciate your posts.

Many thanks, Paul. We’ll give it a shot.

Thanks, Rajesh! When we move to Word XP, we’ll be anxious to try this.
Karnie

We try and try and try to get people to quit using Track Changes, including messages to them every couple of months about the issues involved. In fact, that’s why I questioned the veracity of the Alcatel document – I want to include it in my message about the problems. Unfortunately, we still have people who won’t listen. “Our clients insist that we use it,” is a common theme. We can only keep warning them…! Thanks for your replies.

Is this Alcatel document an authentic document/situation? Are the phone numbers, etc., fictitious? How credible is it? I’d like to use it as an example available to users in a law firm, and I’ll probably get creamed if I say it’s authentic and it’s not! A fellow IT member is already questioning it. Thanks.

Phil, I’ll pass this on to her, but I think it has to do with the fact that we are using DOCS Open and CompareRite, so our red-line version comes from CompareRite. The red-lining, etc., does not then show as a change, as it was part of the “original” document created by the CompareRite process. If the other users make changes to that document, yes, we can use track changes to show the changes they made, but she then either has to go in and manually remove the red-lined information created by CompareRite, or cut and paste the new changes to a “clean” copy of the version from which the red-line was created. (Am I making sense? I hope so.) That’s why the user should make any new changes on a clean copy of the document on which we can track the changes, as opposed to on the red-line version.

We regard everyone’s suggestions as a form of brainstorming, and really appreciate the opportunity to exchange ideas. Thanks again for your suggestions. The secretary involved has now asked me for the URL for this group, and probably will ask you all her own questions in the near future!

Thanks for the suggestion, Phil. I forwarded it to the secretary most concerned, and thought it a good one until I realized that her major problem with that is that she then needs to cut and paste all the additions, deletions, changes, etc. to the clean copy of the document since there’s no way to get rid of the red-lined stuff automatically once you have accepted changes originally. I think she’s decided that the protect forms option will work, since we don’t think the users read this Lounge and know about the conversion to .rtf. At least, we hope they don’t. I really appreciate the time you and so many others put in answering my questions – and those of others in the Lounge.

I think we’ve decided that the protect forms option will be the best bet and are hoping that they don’t know about this lounge and learn about converting to an .rtf file. Thanks for that bit of information – and also the reminder about the print setup issues. As far as the password being forgotten issue, in this instance it is only the redline version that will be protected to discourage the users on the other end from making changes to it. We could always do another redline on this end, if necessary, so that shouldn’t become an issue. As far as .pdf files go, please see response to previous suggestion. Thanks for the valuable suggestions. I always know I can count on helpful advice in this group.

Thanks for your suggestions. We thought of the .pdf option, but not all of our users have Acrobat Writer. Not only that but while the specific attorney involved is a whiz with e-mail, he’s not interested in becoming particularly savy about “new technology.” Since he sometimes send these documents on his own, and for the above reason, we decided that option wasn’t appropriate for their needs. As usual, I appreciate the help of other Loungers. I think we have our answer now, based on the protect forms option. Thanks again.