Editing and Preparing Documents
With legal documents, things like font, margins and headings are often unique. If your forms don’t look like the ones the court clerk’s office is used to seeing, it immediately raises a red flag and increases the likelihood that your paperwork will be rejected, even if they actually meet substantive legal requirements. Microsoft Word and other apps with document editing options like Google Docs are coded differently and support different features. While Google Docs has become a popular choice for word processing, it lacks many MS-Word features that are essential to properly formatted legal documents. For this reason, most of the documents you’ll receive are created using MS-Word.
Editing PDFs
In most cases, documents will be in MS-Word possibly with one or two PDFs included. Those PDFs tend to be state-issued or agency-issued forms, which are often used for record-keeping purposes. Often those don’t require any additional information or signatures so they are already in the right format.
If you need to open and edit a PDF for any reason, it’s important that you open it in Adobe Reader. This is because other readers, including the default readers on iPhones and iPads, affect formatting, and often show empty fields that would have been filled in if the document was opened in Adobe Reader.
Adobe Reader is available free. If, after downloading Adobe, your document doesn’t open, check your settings to make sure it is set as your default for PDFs. For iPhones and iPads, download the latest version of the Adobe Reader app. You can download Adobe Reader for Windows, Mac OS and Android here.
Why MS-Word?
If you want to edit one or more documents for any reason (ex. e-filing, self-customization) the only way to keep the document looking exactly like the original is to open and edit it using the same software used to create it. If you try to edit Word documents using Google Docs or another app, some documents may not convert properly and there may be formatting problems, which affect things like where lines, paragraphs, and pages end. Other common formatting issues users see when converting documents from Word to another app are additional spaces between words and sentences, missing headers and/or footers, and margin shifting. Font differences can also occur, even when fonts have the same or very similar names.
Will I need to edit my documents?
The primary reasons for editing documents are:
- To add information. It some cases, it may be necessary to fill in blanks on one or more documents, either by hand-filling info on a blank line on a hard copy, or by downloading the document and typing in the information.
- To add an electronic signature. If you need to submit documents electronically, you can either use a handwritten signature on a hard copy or download the document and type in a signature in an accepted format (ex. /s/John Smith).
- To self-customize. Some customers decide to make changes to their documents, either because they received a notice requesting changes or because they want to add or remove language to better suit their circumstances. There are two ways to self-customize documents. First, you can log in to your TotalLegal account to make any desired changes to your responses, and then receive rebuilt documents incorporating your changes by e-mail or have them printed and shipped. The other way to self-customize documents is by downloading and editing as needed.
How to Get Free Microsoft Word
If you don’t need to open your documents for printing, editing or e-filing, the easiest thing to do is have them printed and shipped to you by TotalLegal. However, if you need to download and edit your documents for any reason, below are links for free versions of Word for iOS, Android and Windows 10.
Download Word for iOS
Download Word for Android
Download Word for Windows 10
With these free versions of Word, you can open and print Word documents from any device, although you may not be able to edit depending on your device. Only Office 365 subscribers are able to access all features on all devices. Windows, Android and Mac users can edit documents for free using these apps if you are using a device with a screen that is 10.1” or less. People using larger tablets or pc users will only be able to open and view them, not edit. With iOS, you can edit documents for free on any device except iPad Pro, which only allows you to open them, but not edit. iOS users with screens bigger than 10.1” or who use iPad Pro and laptop/desktop users who don’t have editing capabilities with the free version of Word can sign up for Office 365 and get a personal account for $6.99/mo, which will unlock the full features for Word as well as premium versions of Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive and Outlook on any device.
Converting MS-Word Documents to PDF
Most systems only accept PDFs so you may need to convert them. There are two ways to do this. (1) Complete and sign hard copies of your documents as needed, and then either scan or photograph them, or (2) open the documents in Word, edit and/or e-sign as needed, and then convert the Word document to a PDF.
Converting JPEG or PNG Image Files to PDF
If you want to submit documents electronically but don’t want to open and edit them using Word, you can instead print them (or have TotalLegal print and ship them to you), and then scan or photograph them with your mobile device and convert those into PDFs. Each page must be clear, complete, and legible, and all pages must be combined into a single PDF in the correct order.