The Software Lady
The Software Lady's Mission
To provide automation, training and support of Microsoft Word and Corel WordPerfect in order to decrease the time it takes for small businesses to assemble, format, save and retrieve professional-looking documents.
Mary McArthur's Experience in Brief
Mary McArthur's teaching background coupled with years of software troubleshooting have enabled her to teach and support users, from beginning to advanced. She has a broad background in using, troubleshooting and developing instructional materials for wordprocessing, spreadsheet, database, time-keeping, bookkeeping and network administration software. Mary found her calling in the DOS world and she has supported PC users ever since. She is less experienced with Apples, though the last few years, she has supported several Mac users with Microsoft Word for Mac and Pages.
The Software Lady's Services
In the early days of personal computing, Mary McArthur's experience covered a broad range of software. Over time, the ever-increasing number of programs, free and on the market, made it impossible to keep track of all of them. The Software Lady narrowed her focus largely to wordprocessing. She works with document-intensive businesses, such as law firms, real estate offices, medical transcription services and authors.
Though she focuses on wordprocessing software, Mary's expertise in Microsoft's Access, Excel and PowerPoint, Intuit's QuickBooks and Quicken, Timeslips, Internet browsers, e-mail programs, case management systems, network management, website maintenance and Visual Basic enable her to provide assistance in many situations.
Below are basic descriptions of her services. The menu at left gives you access to more detailed descriptions and examples of macros, templates, shortcuts and integration of these wordprocessing elements with a database.
Wordprocessor Programming
Mary McArthur creates macros, templates and shortcuts to help users produce documents in less time, with less frustration and with more consistent formatting. A single keystroke or two mouse-clicks can insert text or initiate some feature, such as typing the current date, the firm name, a signature block or inserting a graphic signature. More advanced macros can present choices to the user, then enter text or perform functions corresponding to his or her choices.
When macros and templates are integrated with a database, the automatic insertion of current data decreases the possibility of out-of-date details being used in new documents. Shortcuts can be assigned to keystroke combinations, such as a letter combined with Shift, Alt and/or Control, and to buttons on the Quick Access Toolbar or options in a dialog box.
Whether for a few shortcuts or a robust macro/template/database system, the investment in wordprocessing automation saves hours of formatting and document fill-in time for staff on a regular basis, increasing office productivity.
Template Formatting and Coding
Mary assists with standardizing various document designs and sets up templates. Templates, formerly called "boilerplates", are documents that contain formatting and text for a business's frequently-used documents. They can be any kind of document: letters, contracts, forms, pleadings, medical authorizations, deeds, wills, any documents that are used on a day-to-day or even annual basis.
Templates often begin as individual documents. The information that is unique to the original document is removed and replaced with placeholders, such as "**" or "
A step often missed is the stabilization of the formatting in such documents. The inclusion of styles and the setup of shortcuts to apply those styles enables a user to apply formatting (headings, indented quotations, numbered paragraphs) quickly, which ensures consistency.
As mentioned above, integrated with a database, macros can insert data from the database into coded placeholders in the templates.
Mary codes templates to bring in corresponding fields from online data, whether it be a case management system or other third-party database. Case management programs that use Microsoft Word's "merge model" have inherent weaknesses that require additional staff effort after a document is generated. Mary makes suggestions for creating user-defined fields to decrease the need for that additional effort.
Document Formatting
Mary helps people set up their own templates, styles and shortcuts. She troubleshoots documents that are giving them sass and can format complex documents for them.
Training and On-going Support
Mary McArthur provides robust support for Microsoft Word and, to a lesser extent, Corel WordPerfect. She develops instructional materials and teaches classes for customized shortcuts, as well as for the software in general. Basic software training is available from several entities in Albuquerque, so The Software Lady tends toward more advanced wordprocessing topics.
Mary recently taught a class entitled "Formatting a Book Using Microsoft Word"; her approach draws heavily on the information in her book, "Style is Everything in Microsoft Word". This class has a formatting portion (designing text elements, setting up styles and formatting text), an automation portion (creating tables of contents, tables of authorities and cross-references) and tips for making wordprocessing easier. For the more technically-oriented, she provides assistance to users writing their own macros and teaches them how to distribute their shortcuts within a small office.
Classes can be held in one-on-one or small group settings at your site or in a training facility. Training via Zoom may be an option.
One-of-a-kind services that The Software Lady has provided on occasion include converting documents from one wordprocessor to another; reformatting documents en masse when standards change and converting data from one format to another, such as from a "flat file" to a relational database or from text files or a spreadsheet to a standard database. See Examples of Shortcuts for some others.
For further information or to arrange a demonstration of shortcuts, contact The Software Lady.