Saving Recyclable Text as Quick Parts in Microsoft Word

By Deborah Savadra

Let’s face it, a lot of the text in legal documents has been recycled from previous documents. If you’re tired of searching for then copying and pasting common elements like signature blocks or notary acknowledgments from old documents, only to have to correct formatting or reset client-specific data, you’re going to love Quick Parts.

Make Your Own Reusable Building Blocks in Word

Quick Parts is part of Microsoft Word’s Building Blocks feature, which is where Word stores all sorts of built-in reusable design and data elements like page numbering, watermarks, text boxes, tables, headers and footers. But you can make your own reusable elements with just a few clicks.

The next time you find yourself looking for a prior example of something you use a lot in your documents — say a notary acknowledgment form — try this:

  • Copy an example of the form from a prior document
  • Open a brand new document (either using Ctrl-N or File >New >Blank Document)
  • Paste the example into the blank document.
  • Clean up the font and paragraph formatting to match the Normal Style (that’ll prevent formatting headaches later), and genericize the date- and client-specific information…

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