Useful Computer Skills for the CM/ECF Environment

The skills summarized in the following pages assume a basic knowledge of Windows, Lotus

Notes, WordPerfect and

CM/ECF. These ideas have been contributed by many generous people.

While the document is designed for court users and standard court software, the concepts are also

useful in law office settings to achieve a paperless (or "less paper") environment. If you know of

other skills beyond the basics that may be useful in the CM/ECF environment, or if you find

needed corrections, please e-mail

[email protected].

This document has hyperlinks, and is meant to be used in electronic form. An electronic form of

this document is available at http://www.utd.uscourts.gov/judges/nuffer_resources.htm.

Table of Contents

Before Starting.............................................................................................................................. 1

System Requirements.................................................................................................................. 1

Basic Skills.................................................................................................................................. 1

Multiple Monitors or Large Monitors......................................................................................... 2

Windows......................................................................................................................................... 4

Windows Settings ....................................................................................................................... 4

Windows Explorer Techniques................................................................................................... 5

Details View and Sorting........................................................................................................5

Renaming, Copying, Cutting and Pasting............................................................................... 6

Universal Windows Skills........................................................................................................... 7

Right Click.............................................................................................................................. 7

Open in New Window ............................................................................................................ 7

Paste Special ........................................................................................................................... 7

Make sending email enclosures easier........................................................................................ 8

Warning about Temp Files.......................................................................................................... 9

Hints for working with Lotus Notes.......................................................................................... 10

Open more than one window.................................................................................................... 10

Find........................................................................................................................................... 10

Search This View...................................................................................................................... 10

Index the database..................................................................................................................... 11

More Search This View options ............................................................................................... 11

All Documents View................................................................................................................. 12

Select multiple documents........................................................................................................ 12

Sort by any column................................................................................................................... 12

Create folders............................................................................................................................ 13

Create an archive....................................................................................................................... 13

Working with enclosures in Notes............................................................................................ 14

Copy and paste...................................................................................................................... 14

Save All................................................................................................................................. 14

Edit a Notes attachment........................................................................................................ 14

Interoperability between Calendar and Mail............................................................................. 15

Adobe Acrobat ............................................................................................................................ 17

Acrobat Preferences.................................................................................................................. 17

Acrobat Tips.............................................................................................................................. 18

Full Screen View................................................................................................................... 18

Definitions............................................................................................................................. 18

Find/Search........................................................................................................................... 18

Getting PDF information into other documents........................................................................ 19

Copy and paste...................................................................................................................... 19

Save to Word or RTF format ................................................................................................ 19

Snapshot tool......................................................................................................................... 20

Recognize Text Using OCR.................................................................................................. 20

Annotating and Highlighting .................................................................................................... 21

Highlighting.......................................................................................................................... 21

Strikethrough and underline.................................................................................................. 21

Text box................................................................................................................................ 21

Shape..................................................................................................................................... 22

Note comments ..................................................................................................................... 22

Moving Pages............................................................................................................................ 23

Creating Hyperlinks and Bookmarks in PDF Documents........................................................ 24

Westlaw Hints.............................................................................................................................. 26

To copy text from Westlaw into WordPerfect.......................................................................... 26

E-Research in Westlaw............................................................................................................. 28

Creating Hyperlinks in Opinions.............................................................................................. 33

CM/ECF....................................................................................................................................... 36

Leveraging the power of CM/ECF with Multiple Windows .................................................... 36

Jazzing Up CM/ECF Docket Text............................................................................................ 38

Finding Email Addresses.......................................................................................................... 41

Revised March 17, 2006

Before Starting

System Requirements

To easily use the techniques described in these materials you should have:

Personal computer with at least 512 mb RAM

Large monitor or multiple monitors (or superhuman patience and tenacity)

Word processing program

Lotus Notes email or other email program

Adobe Acrobat Standard or Pro or equivalent

Basic Skills

The skills explained in these materials all assume you can already:

 access the Internet using an Internet Browser such as Internet Explorer or Netscape

Navigator.

 do all of the following when using an Internet Browser:

• Use the Forward and Backward buttons

• Set up bookmarks (like the court’s website)

• Click on check boxes using a mouse [or trackball or touchpad]

• Type in text boxes

• Download files

• Print documents

• Set my home page address

• Use hyperlinks

 access the court’s website at http://www.utd.uscourts.gov.

 use a windows-based word processing software package like Corel WordPerfect or

Microsoft Word to create documents like motions, proposed orders, and/or other case

correspondence.

 use Adobe Acrobat Reader software to view and scroll through documents downloaded

over the Internet as PDF (Portable Document Format) files.

 create, scan and print a document into a PDF format. This requires software beyond

Adobe Acrobat Reader.

 save a document that you created by naming it and saving it as a file in a computer drive

folder or directory, and later find the file to reopen the document.

 use the e-mail system in your office; attach a document to an e-mail message; open a

document that has been e-mailed as an attachment; and save the attached document in a

specific location.

This list of Basic Skills is adapted from

http://www.utd.uscourts.gov/cmecf/documents/skillschecklist.pdf

Page 1

Multiple Monitors or Large Monitors

Fundamental to the ability to work

effectively in the electronic world is an

electronic desktop. In the paper world,

we work on a large desk to be able to

work with many items at once. In the

electronic world, a large virtual desktop

enables us to work simultaneously with

many electronic sources of information

while we do our work, which may

include electronic composition, analysis

and communication.

Multiple monitors or large monitors

allow view of many source documents

(Westlaw, Lexis, PACER, CM/ECF,

PDF files) while composing other

documents (Word or WordPerfect or

CM/ECF). Multiple documents from

the same application may be viewed

side-by-side. Copying and pasting

between screens or windows is possible

because all monitors are connected to the

same computer. The photo at right

shows two rotated flat panel displays.

If using multiple monitors, it is best to

use identical displays.

Operating systems since Windows 98 permit creation

of a large "virtual display" which spans several

physical monitors, if the computer has a video display

hardware which can drive two monitors.

This dual display capability is built into most laptop

computers. (control panel at right)

The dual display features are regulated in the Display

Properties control panel, Settings Tab.

Microsoft help pages:

Turn_on dual monitor support

How to Enable Multiple Display Support Using Windows

HOW TO: Set Up and Troubleshoot Multiple Monitors in

Windows 2000 (This article includes information on

installing multiple display adapters.)

HOW TO: Configure and Use Multiple Monitors in

Windows XP

Page 2

In many desktop computers, it is possible to use two standard display adapters to drive dual

monitors to create a large integrated desktop.

Hardware Requirements for Multiple Display Support in Windows 98

Hardware Requirements for Multiple-Display Support in Windows XP

Many manufacturers supply single slot display adapters with two heads (cable connections)

which support two monitors on each card.

NVIDIA ATI (use keyword "dual display" to search products) Matrox

Many display adapters are able to use special software which

permits rotation of displays. A rotated flat panel allows the

user to "page through" documents and see an entire page at a

time on the virtual desktop. The user's experience with

electronic documents then resembles use of paper on a physical

desktop.

NVIDIA software ATI software

WordPerfect document Adobe Acrobat document

Page 3

Windows

Windows Settings

Set your computer to show file

extensions and to show full paths

in the title and address bars. This is

very helpful when finding

documents.

Access this menu from any

Windows Explorer window, and

pick TOOLS -- FOLDER

OPTIONS. Apply these choices to

ALL folders.

The full path for a file shows

precisely where it is located.

File extensions are the three

characters after the “.” in a file

name. If this extension is visible, it

is a lot easier to know the difference

between a PDF (Acrobat) document

and a WPD (WordPerfect)

document.

Page 4

Windows Explorer Techniques

Details View and Sorting

More file information is available in the Details view in Windows Explorer (and any Open or

Save dialog box).

In Details view, you may sort by any of the columns, enabling you to put the oldest or newest

documents at the top of the list or sort by file name. Click at the top of a column to sort by that

column. This view is sorted by Modified date.

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The Details view is available in any Open or Save dialog:

You may need to enlarge the box by tugging at the lower right corner.

Renaming, Copying, Cutting and Pasting

By right clicking on a file in the Open or Save box, you can rename it, copy or cut it, and

navigate to another location to Save it. (The file must not be open or in use.)

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Universal Windows Skills

In almost all Windows based programs, there are some universal skills that make work easier.

Right Click

Right clicking usually reveals a menu. The menu varies

from program to program and depends on what you click

and what you are doing at the time. Most commonly used

commands for that situation are on the menu that appears.

Right click menu in Acrobat Standard Right click menu in WordPerfect

Open in New Window

Almost any time you are working in a

program with hyperlinks, you can choose to

open the link in a new window. Right

clicking reveals the menu option. This gives

you two windows in the same program. See

how this works in CM/ECF.

Paste Special

Sometimes when copying text from one program to paste into another, the receiving program

misinterprets the copied material. Strange characters or formatting may appear. Instead of

paste use paste special and choose to paste “unformatted text.”

The pasted material will not carry unwanted formatting to its new location.

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Make sending email enclosures easier, go to Internet Explorer, Tools, Internet Options:

Click the Programs tab.

Make sure Lotus Notes is selected as your Mail Program

(assuming Notes is what you use for email).

Now, in Word Perfect and Acrobat Standard or Pro (but

not in Acrobat Reader), when you select FILE, SEND

TO, Mail Recipient, the current document will be an

email attachment to a new email. The email opens for

you to complete and send with the enclosure attached.

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Warning about Temp Files

When working in Notes or CM/ECF, you may be working in a file that is not really saved

anywhere you can find it again. Windows creates temporary files to work with documents it

assumes you only want to view.

For example, if you OPEN a WordPerfect attachment in Notes, make edits and Save it in

WordPerfect, you will lose your edits, because you were working on a temp file. (Hints for

Working With Lotus Notes suggests SAVING that attachment if you intend to work on it, or

using the Notes EDIT feature.)

Similarly, if you are viewing a PDF document by clicking on a CM/ECF link, and then using

Acrobat to make

annotations or highlight the document, those edits will not be saved in the court

file version of the document and will not be saved on your computer in a location that you can

find. So, you must SAVE A COPY or SAVE AS before doing work with a PDF document from

CM/ECF.

Page 9

Hints for working with Lotus Notes

To open more than one window open, right click the icon and select open a new window. This

lets you see your calendar and inbox at the same time.

Notes has a great find feature (control – F):

But Search This View is even more powerful:

When you Search This View, the text of each message in the view is searched.

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You may need to index the database if the button at the far right does not say “indexed.”

To create an index, select FILE DATABASE PROPERTIES and on the magnifying glass tab,

Create index.

When using the Search This View command, if you click the MORE down arrow, you get more

Search This View options, allowing you to search by date, author, and on multiple words.

Page 11

The All Documents View will let you see and search ALL DOCUMENTS!

You may select multiple documents at one time by pressing the spacebar when the document is

selected, and then using the mouse or arrow keys to move on to other documents. They need not

be contiguous.

Note that in any view, you may sort by any column that has an arrow or caret (Who, Date, Size

in the above example).

When multiple documents are selected, you may select

from the ACTION menu to do something to all the

documents. Be careful! The command at the right will

FORWARD all selected documents.

Page 12

Create folders to hold your messages:

You may create folders inside of folders.

If you create an archive, you can keep these folders on your own computer and not exceed your

mailbox quota. In Lotus Notes Help, see Archiving mail messages to free up space.

You can set up archiving to be “automatic” which scares me, or just set up the archive, use

Search this View and multiple selection (with the space bar) to cut and paste items into the

archive.

Page 13

Working with enclosures in Notes:

You can copy and paste an enclosure from one

Notes document to another:

Right click the enclosure to bring up the menu

Use traditional copy and paste to move the

enclosure. Note the other options on the menu –

SAVE ALL is useful to put multiple enclosures into

a single location.

Note also that the menu has an EDIT option.

If you double click an enclosure, you also get some options, though fewer than with a right click.

If you want to edit a Notes attachment

without saving it somewhere, and then h

to go through the trouble of attaching it again,

click EDIT. The changes you make will be

saved in the Notes attachment. (So, this

procedure is NOT GOOD if you want to save

both the unedited version and the edited

version.) This is helpful if you are circulating

a document for quick review and only need to

save the final version.

aving

Page 14

When you finish editing the Notes attachment

(in WordPerfect, for example), SAVE it, and

then return to your Notes message. New

buttons on the email message now require you

to Save and File or Save and Close the Notes

message. Save and Close the message, and then

you can forward, reply etc.

Interoperability between Calendar and Mail

Notes will let you email a calendar entry and copy an email message into a calendar entry.

If you want to tell someone else about a calendar entry, open it and FORWARD it.

Page 15

If you receive a meeting invitation that contains information about the meeting, Copy Into New

Calendar Entry:

The entire mail message, including attachments, will copy to the calendar entry. This is useful

for agendas and travel itineraries.

Remember, you can also copy and paste a Notes attachment into a calendar entry. Or you

can include any document as an attachment for a calendar entry, just as if you were attaching a

document to an email message.

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Adobe Acrobat

These tips pertain to Acrobat Standard or Pro, though some will work with Acrobat Reader. If

you want to create or manipulate PDF documents, you need more than Acrobat Reader.

Acrobat Preferences

Adobe Acrobat, used to view PDF files, allows a user to customize preferences to operate better

under CM ECF. The locations of these preferences options may appear in different places in

different versions of Acrobat.

It is convenient to have PDF

documents appear in a separate

Acrobat window rather than

inside the web browser. To

make Acrobat open a new

window and NOT open inside

the web browser, make this

selection so that you will NOT

“Display PDF in Browser:”

If the computer monitor is large

enough to make a full-page

document readable, it is

convenient to set Adobe Acrobat

preferences to open a full page

of a document in a window, so

that the “Page Down” and “Page

Up” keys will allow you to page

through a document. To set

Adobe Acrobat preferences to

open a full page of a document

in a window, make this

selection:

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Acrobat Tips

Full Screen View

To make a document appear full screen in Acrobat and Acrobat Reader, press Control L.

Control L will revert to normal mode.

Definitions

Two definitions of the basic types of PDF documents are important to understand this section. A

PDF file may be either:

• A “text” PDF created by selecting a “PDF creating” printer after you create your word

processing document, or by using the WordPerfect “Publish to PDF” command or the

Adobe PDF button in Microsoft Word. This method of creating a PDF results in a file

that you can search for text, and from which you may copy and paste text. The PDF

document may also be “SAVEd AS” in Microsoft Word format or RTF format. This

will extract most of the text from the file (though formatting may be a little funky).

Because of these features, this sort of PDF document is often called a “text” PDF.

• An “image” PDF made by scanning a document, with a scanner or a photocopier with

“scan to PDF” ability. But if a PDF file is created by this method – scanning – then the

file cannot be searched, copied from or SAVEd AS to Word or RTF format. This sort of

PDF document is often called an “image” PDF.

Find/Search

To search an Acrobat text based document, press Control – F or, on the Edit menu, select Search.

The results list has a hyperlink to each location of the search text. This won’t work with scanned

documents (image PDF).

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Getting PDF information into other documents:

Information from a PDF document may be used in other documents in several ways.

If the PDF document is text based you may copy and paste, using the Text Select tool.

You may also Save to Word or RTF format, resulting in a complete data file with all text in the

document, though formatting may not be preserved.

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If you are working with an image based PDF, created from a scan, or containing images you

need to work with, use the snapshot tool to capture an image of a portion of a PDF document.

This image may be pasted into another document, such as a Notes message.

You may also use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software included with Acrobat

Standard and Pro. Be sure you are working with a scanned PDF document by attempting to

select text with the SELECT tool.

Then, with the document open, on the Document Menu, pick Recognize Text Using OCR

(called Paper Capture in some Acrobat versions):

In the dialog that appears select as much of the document as

you want to work with in text. In this case I only wanted the

current page:

Page 20

Now, the text selection tool will work in the document, for as much of it as you “recognized.” If

you OCR the entire document, you can search it all. You may also SAVE AS an RTF file or

Microsoft Word document. Be careful to proofread any text extracted in this manner.

Annotating and Highlighting

PDF documents may be annotated and highlighted. Select the Highlighting tool on the Toolbar

if it is showing or on the Tools, Commenting, Highlighting menu.

Select text and it will be highlighted.

Note that there are also strikethrough and underline tools.

To insert text, you may use a text box:

Page 21

You may cover things up with a white rectangle shape, with or without a border. Note this is not

an effective method of redaction.

Acrobat also permits you to place Note comments on the document.

The Note shows if you place your cursor over the Note icon:

or if you click on the Note icon, the text of the Note is revealed:

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Moving Pages

To move pages in a PDF document, you may:

Click the Pages tab and drag the pages around. You

may even drag pages between documents.

Or you may use the Document, Pages, commands:

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Creating Hyperlinks and Bookmarks in PDF Documents

The easiest way to create hyperlinks in a PDF document is to create the document with

hyperlinks in a word processor and let the PDF conversion convert hyperlinks and bookmarks.

You must have first created hyperlinks and bookmarks in the word processing document. These

may include tables of contents, indexes, or Westlaw hyperlinks.

In WordPerfect, select Publish to PDF,

and make sure the option is selected to Include Hyperlinks and Generate Bookmarks.

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In Microsoft Word, you must use Adobe PDF Maker installed with Acrobat Standard or Pro

Make sure conversion settings are set to Add links and bookmarks

Then create the PDF document with the PDF Maker menu icon:

Page 25

Westlaw Hints

To copy text from Westlaw into WordPerfect, find the text and select it:

Then click TOOLS in the lower right corner

and select Copy With Reference:

A frame will pop up with the text

and reference, and instructions:

Click COPY

Page 26

and then

Paste Special

–

Unformatted

Text to place

the text and

reference

into your

word

processing

document.

There will be a little reformatting to do but the essential information is in place.

Pasted data

Page 27

E-Research in Westlaw

Why print from Westlaw when storing your cases as e-research lets you copy and paste from

those cases directly into your document? And you can even highlight and annotate these

Westlaw cases just like paper print outs.

Find the case/statute/article you want in Westlaw.com

Let your cursor pass over the button in the upper right corner.

Select Download from the dropdown menu.

In the dialog that appears, click on Current Destination Properties. (Setting Properties only has

to be done once for the rest of your research career.)

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In the dialog that appears, select

1. The name of your word processor (Word Perfect if you work for the courts and MS

Word if you work anywhere else in the entire world)

2. Single Column (important for readability on the screen)

3. Save these selections as my default destinations

(These three steps are set as your future preferences – you won’t have to change them again.)

Click Save

Deselect “Include a Summary Page”

Click “Send Request”

Page 29

You will see a “processing” notice:

Then in the File Download box, click SAVE

Navigate to the folder where you want to save the document:

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Name the document something sensible! The Westlaw proposed name is NOT helpful.

After the document SAVES

Click OPEN

If you see a summary page one –

you don’t need it – select and

delete all the data on that page.

When the actual document is

on the first page, CONTROL S

to SAVE again.

Page 31

Now, as you work through the document (notice how nice it is to read in one column format) you

can highlight as you go, and this is in your permanent record.

In Word

Perfect, the

Highlight

command is

ALT –T

ALT-H

ALT-O

Or you can

click the

HIGHLIGHT

tool on the

toolbar.

In Word, choose VIEW TOOLBARS REVIEWING TOOLBAR and use the highlighter tool:

Page 32

Creating Hyperlinks in Opinions

Westlaw and Lexis have automated tools to create hyperlinks to research sources in your

WordPerfect, Word or Web Page documents.

WestCiteLink Lexlink These work very

well.

It is also possible to create hyperlinks manually. This process will be demonstrated for Westlaw

hyperlinks in WordPerfect.

Find the reference which you want to turn into a hyperlink.

Select the cite and COPY.

Open Westlaw.

Paste the reference into the FIND box. Click GO

When the case comes up, press the Result List tab. There should be 1 case shown. (If there is

more than one case, the balance of this process won’t work.)

Page 33

RIGHT CLICK the blue case name in the result list entry, and select COPY SHORTCUT

Return to your word processing document and select the entire reference.

Select TOOLS, HYPERLINK:

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PASTE into the box that appears:

Click OK.

The reference will change appearance (depending on the style of hyperlink in your document)

and if you place your cursor over the reference, the link will appear.

Clicking on the link will open Westlaw and ask for your password.

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CM/ECF

Leveraging the power of CM/ECF with Multiple Windows

Looking at a motions report in CM/ECF (and almost every other screen) we see a docket

hyperlink.

RIGHT CLICK that hyperlink and select OPEN IN NEW WINDOW

Now we can see two CM/ECF screens at the same time. (Note that only one screen has the

blue bar.) In this view we can scan the docket (on the right) and verify that all documents related

to the motion are showing on the motion report (on the left).

Page 36

It is also possible to RIGHT CLICK the blue bar and OPEN IN NEW WINDOW. Here I clicked

CIVIL, and selected OPEN IN NEW WINDOW.

This allows docketing while looking at the docket or a motions report.

Page 37

Jazzing Up CM/ECF Docket Text

It is possible to use HTML code to dress up CM/ECF docket entries. This has been done by

default in one standard entry in our system, the Notice of Hearing. The text enhancement helps

the notice stand out.

A CM/ECF user may create special formatting in any docket entry with the use of HTML

(HyperText Markup Language) code. The HTML code must be manually entered.

Compare these two docket entries. The first includes several HTML coding features that were

inserted by the docketer:

Line breaks

Bold type

Italics

Hyperlink

Page 38

HTML coding is not too hard, but should be practiced in the TEST or TRAIN database.

creates a line break.

All other HTML code requires a beginning code and ending code.

bold

italic

underline

Here is an example of HTML coding entered in the next to the last screen in CM. Note the

beginning and ending codes.

In the final CM docketing screen, the effect of the HTML coding shows in part. Bold does not

show (because everything in this screen is bolc) , but italic, underline, and breaks do show.

Page 39

The full effect of the HTML code shows in the NEF and docket entry:

Notice that a carriage return entered in CM docketing does not even create a space. So, don’t use

carriage returns in CM docketing.

Page 40

Finding Email Addresses:

CM/ECF can help you find email addresses in Utilities, Mailing, Mailing Info for a Case.

Note that you may copy and paste all email addresses for counsel from the lower part of this

screen:

You may also find email addresses at

http://www.utahbar.org/forms/members_directory_search.html and

http://www.lawyers.com/find_a_lawyer/name_search/

Feature custom to District of Utah. Posted on Ed’s Place.

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