TechnoLawyer: Post

Mark Sargis, Tip: Convert Image-Only PDFs into Editable Word Documents

TechnoLawyer member Larry Olsen asks:
"I am enquiring about the existence of cost-effective software that can reliably convert incoming PDF files into Word files (.doc) at the mail recipient's desktop. Hopefully such software would enable Word documents conversion into pdf files — again at the desktops. Our firm of 35 humans have networked smart desktops — high speed. Any advice? Many thanks."

Bob Lee responded:
"If you have the Standard or Professional version of Acrobat 7, choose File: Save As. In the "Save As" dialog box, you can choose Microsoft Word Document from the pop-up menu. Then just click the Save button, and open the document in Word. Voila, you are done!..."

Please note: If your original PDF document is only a scanned-in image, when you "Save As" into Word format, you will only get an image of each page pasted onto each page in Word. If you want to manipulate the text in Word, you must first perform a "Recognize Text Using OCR" function in Acrobat 7 (in the drop-down menu under Document, called something else in Acrobat 6). Acrobat's OCR functionality isn't the best, but at least it's available right in the program.

Mark R. Sargis
Bellande & Sargis Law Group, LLP
Chicago, Illinois

[Publisher's Note: Learn more about Adobe Acrobat. — Sara Skiff]

About Answers to Questions
Posts like the one above appear exclusively in Answers to Questions, a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. You can subscribe here.

Lamont Harris, Review: Canon DR-2580C Scanner

TechnoLawyer member Edward J. Quinlan asks:
"We are a small five lawyer firm which uses a Microsoft based network, Windows XP and is trying to make more effective use of technology. We have a single page document /photo  scanner from HP which reportedly causes more problems when we try to scan documents than its worth. We are looking for a reliable multi-page scanner which will scan documents and photos without the need to make formatting corrections and adjustments. In fact a major client is now requesting that we scan and electronically send documents in a format that cannot be changed so as to prevent tampering with the records. Also any recommendations concerning separate software (if any) which will make the process smoother would be welcome."

We recently purchased a Canon DR-2580C for our 4-lawyer office.  It comes with a 50-sheet automatic document feeder, and will scan up to 25 sheets per minute.  Duplex scanning is supported.  There is an optional flat-bed scanning attachment.  Without the flat-bed attachment the footprint is very small.  One of the best features is that it comes bundled with Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Standard.  So far we have been very satisfied.

J. Lamont Harris
Henthorn, Harris & Weliever
Crawfordsville, IN
www.henthornlaw.com

[Publisher's Note: Learn more about the Canon DR-2580C. — Sara Skiff]

About Answers to Questions
Posts like the one above appear exclusively in Answers to Questions, a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. You can subscribe here.

Caren Schwartz, Review: QuickBooks 2006: Is it Worth the Upgrade?

TechnoLawyer member David Marcelino asks:
"Does anyone out there use QuickBooks for both billing and time entry?  I am currently using Timeslips for time entry. Timeslips has frustrated my office.  We are tired of the instability."

Larry R. Vollintine responded:
"I am a solo.  I use QuickBooks 2002 Pro for my time keeping and invoicing since I went solo in June of 2002. For the first couple of years, QuickBooks was so unstable that the only way I could console myself was to remind myself that this is why I believe in gun control.... I was told by the accountant that QB now has a new version coming out which is geared to a law practice. I haven't been tempted because of past problems w/QB.  But, I fear switching to a different program and having to transfer or convert all the existing data to it...."

Neil Squillante responded:
"Larry, you need to upgrade. I'm not usually so forceful, but we're talking about a program central to your practice. Perhaps QuickBooks Pro 2002 was a lemon, but we use QuickBooks Premier 2006 on Windows XP — it is quite stable...."

With regard to Larry Vollintine and the use of QuickBooks 2002, I definitely agree that he should upgrade. Some additional information that might be useful to know is that the older versions of QuickBooks did not do a good job of using and releasing memory. Therefore, if you did not have a lot of memory on the computer or you were going in and out of programs, QuickBooks tended to display the behavior Larry sees, crashing. The past few versions have fixed this issue and QuickBooks 2006 also uses a new format that makes it run faster and is more stable. The cost to upgrade to v2006 is not much, especially compared to the cost of your time.

Caren Schwartz
Time & Cents Consultants, LLC
Software for managing time, money and contacts
www.timeandcents.com

[Publisher's Note: Learn more about QuickBooks. — Sara Skiff]

About Answers to Questions
Posts like the one above appear exclusively in Answers to Questions, a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. You can subscribe here.

Maurice Turner, Review: GotToMyPC v. Windows Remote Desktop

TechnoLawyer member Edward F. Harney, Jr. asks:
"I am somewhat baffled at why folks would want to use GoToMyPC.com, especially in a small firm setting. We used PCAnywhere for years but switched to the Remote Desktop Connection application that comes free with Windows XP. It is incredibly quick and can be used on any machine that has XP. You just type in your static IP address and it is like you are sitting at your desk almost. Graphics take a bit of time to transmit but everything else is virtually seamless. With respect to GoToMyPC.com, is there something I am missing here? Is there a reason to use GoToMyPC.com instead of RDP with XP?"

The short answer: simplicity. Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) built into Windows XP requires a static IP address. If you are at all concerned about security or you work in an environment with more than one computer a static IP address exposed to the Internet is rare and considered a major security risk. Firewalls and routers need to be configured so that ports are unblocked and are allowed to forward requests and transmissions in order for RDP to function properly. Clients for other platforms, such as PocketPC and Mac OS X, are also available for free.

The GoToMyPC.com service acts as an intermediary by keeping track of the dynamic IP address of the computer that you are trying to connect to so that you don't have to. To do this it does require that you install the small GoToMyPC.com application on each computer that intends to remotely access.

Maurice Turner

About Answers to Questions
Posts like the one above appear exclusively in Answers to Questions, a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. You can subscribe here.

Clint Pullin, Tips for Using Acrobat to Comment on Draft Documents

TechnoLawyer member Austin Barsalou asks:
"Hi, I have a question. The Property Owners Committee of the Texas Bar Association Real Estate, Probate and Trust Law Section is working on a draft of a uniform law for property owners associations and needs a way for a variety of interest groups to review and comment on our working draft of the Texas Uniform Planned Community Act ("TUPCA"). Are you aware of a reasonably priced software solution to deal with this type of application? Thank you for your assistance."

Adobe Acrobat Pro 7.0 allows you to send out documents for comment by the public by way of e-mail or by using an Adobe owned server for browser based review and commenting. The process resembles the track changes feature of MS Word, but appears more robust to me. It has check off functions to show that a comment has been reviewed, accepted, rejected, etc. You can color code comments by different people. For example, commercial building owners could be assigned one color while apartment owners or industrial property owners could have different colors assigned. Public comments can be made by people who have Adobe Reader 7.0. Adobe Reader is freeware, and a link to a download can easily be made in the document or e-mail.

R. Clint Pullin
Legal Assistant
Legal Division
Department of Insurance

About Answers to Questions
Posts like the one above appear exclusively in Answers to Questions, a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. You can subscribe here.

P. Douglas Folk, Tip: Acrobat Professional or Standard; How to Offset the Cost of Acrobat

TechnoLawyer member Michael Commins asks:
"I was recently told by a local legal support vendor that Acrobat Professional is the only version of Acrobat to consider using in a law office. Before he told me this, I had purchased 3 licenses for Acrobat Standard for our firm. Should we move to Professional?"

Professional has some annotation features that are not included in the Standard edition that are a must if you use it for document mark-ups and send files to clients and other users who don't have Acrobat (e.g., those using the free Reader). We purchased Professional for the lawyers in our office who are doing contract reviews and other more intense mark-up work on their files.

You can offset some of the added cost of buying Professional (or Standard for that matter) by using some of the freeware or shareware PDF file converters available in the marketplace for your secretaries or other people who don't need to do anything more than convert a scanned image of a document, or Word or Excel files, to a PDF file before e-mailing it somewhere. Several capable utilities are available as freeware or shareware from www.tucows.com, although I notice one of the more popular ones, AAbby Finereader, is now sold as a commercial program for $299, which is about what you pay for Acrobat.

P. Douglas Folk
Folk & Associates, P.C.
Phoenix, AZ

About Answers to Questions
Posts like the one above appear exclusively in Answers to Questions, a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. You can subscribe here.

Benjamin M Martin, Review: Windows XP Remote Desktop with Cisco VPN Client

TechnoLawyer member Edward F. Harney, Jr. asks:
"I am somewhat baffled at why folks would want to use GoToMyPC.com, especially in a small firm setting. We used PCAnywhere for years but switched to the Remote Desktop Connection application that comes free with Windows XP. It is incredibly quick and can be used on any machine that has XP. You just type in your static IP address and it is like you are sitting at your desk almost. Graphics take a bit of time to transmit but everything else is virtually seamless. With respect to GoToMyPC.com, is there something I am missing here? Is there a reason to use GoToMyPC.com instead of RDP with XP?"

As a newly-hired IT Manager here, we just setup new servers to replace the much, much antiquated old ones. Thus, the attorneys are now able to remote desktop from home and access their files, etc.

I've suggested using Remote Desktop built into Windows XP because it is very easy to use since all you need to know is the IP address or the computer name. In order to use the computer name, you must establish a VPN connection to your server to provide a secure connection and then you launch Remote Desktop and type in your computer name and, assuming it is turned on, it's as if you're sitting right in front of it.

We use the Cisco VPN Client that we received with our new Cisco PIX firewall.

The point though, is be sure to make a VPN connection to your server before you remote into a workstation since you're dealing with very important data and you don't need anyone "sniffing" it out of the connection.

Hope this helps,

Benjamin M Martin
IT Manager
Bassett Law Firm LLP
Fayetteville, AR

[Publisher's Note: Download Windows XP Remote Desktop. — Sara Skiff]

About Answers to Questions
Posts like the one above appear exclusively in Answers to Questions, a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. You can subscribe here.

Michael Proctor, Review: Fujitsu ScanSnap fi-5110EOX2

TechnoLawyer member Charles West ask:
"I'd like to hear opinions from users of the Fujitsu ScanSnap fi-5110EOX2 for its application in a solo law office. What is the impact of no TWAIN or WIA drivers and does the 600 pixels of the ScanSnap (versus 1200 pixels of its competitors) matter significantly?"

This shet-fed scanner has been effortless to use, and was, you'll pardon the pun, a "snap" to install and setup. The software allows easy organization of all images. As for the TWAIN problems — for those who need that (whatever it is), it is a simple matter to continue to use a flat bed (better resolution for SOME things) machine, just as I have elected to do. The little ScanSnap is no doubt the best tech/office purchase I have made in years. I have no complaints about the 600 resolution — and with a decent printer — the end result is very, very good quality. As always, it depends on what you are scanning and why. If you just want to move toward the "paperless" office, this is the way to go.

Mike Proctor

[Publisher's Note: Learn more about the Fujitsu ScanSnap fi-5110EOX2. — Sara Skiff]

About Answers to Questions
Posts like the one above appear exclusively in Answers to Questions, a weekly newsletter in which TechnoLawyer members answer legal technology and practice management questions submitted by their peers (including you if you join TechnoLawyer). Like all of our newsletters, it's free. You can subscribe here.

Eric Imperial, Ten Minutes of Your Time Could Yield a Huge Return

TechnoLawyer publisher Neil Squillante asks:
"What is the best advice you ever received regarding your legal career? How have you put it to use?"

Despite all of the technological advances that have benefited lawyers — whether practicing solo or in a large firm — clients still appreciate the simplicity of a handwritten note. Few things provide the same personal touch for clients who, like us, are besieged by e-mails, voicemails and faxes. The tenth of an hour you invest in writing a note could yield a huge return one day.

Eric H. Imperial
The Law Offices of Eric H. Imperial
Washington, DC
www.imperiallaw.com

About Fat Friday
Posts like the one above appear exclusively in Fat Friday, a weekly newsletter that features a grab bag full of genuinely useful product reviews and tips on a wide variety of topics. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. You can subscribe here.

Tom Raftery, Review: Ergonomic Split Keyboards; Microsoft Natural

TechnoLawyer asked:
"What advice can you give TechnoLawyer subscribers considering an ergonomic split keyboard? These keyboards always seem to generate praise, but do they have any drawbacks?"

After a shoulder operation ten years ago my left arm was in a brace. The only keyboard I could use was the split variety which I would prop up on the brace for my left hand. After the brace came off I continued to use the split keyboards. They are by far easier on the wrists and, in my case, the shoulders. I have tried several, but my favorite is still the Microsoft Natural Keyboard with the bevy of buttons above the function keys. I believe that Microsoft discontinued the version that I use, so I find them in various places who still have them in stock.

Thomas J. Raftery
Carlisle, MA

[Publisher's Note: Learn more about Microsoft's Natural Keyboard series. — Sara Skiff]

About Fat Friday
Posts like the one above appear exclusively in Fat Friday, a weekly newsletter that features a grab bag full of genuinely useful product reviews and tips on a wide variety of topics. Like all of our newsletters, it's free. You can subscribe here.