The LawVu Add-in for Microsoft Word

How to install and use the new Microsoft Word Add-in for LawVu

Ben Kidd avatar
Written by Ben Kidd
Updated over a week ago

In this article:


Overview

The LawVu Word add-in is designed to let you open, edit, and save documents to and from LawVu without logging into the main LawVu application.

With the LawVu Word add-in, you can quickly and easily edit files that exist within LawVu, without the need to first download the documents to your PC. These can then be saved back into LawVu as new versions or as entirely new documents. When opting to overwrite as a new version, LawVu will display the version history to provide an accurate audit trail.


How to Install the LawVu Add-in

To access the Microsoft Store simply click Insert in the toolbar in Word, select Add-ins and go to Store.

Alternatively, you can search for the Microsoft Store via your preferred search engine. Once in the Store search for "LawVu" then simply follow the on-screen instructions.

Here is the direct link to the Word Add-in in the MS store:


System Requirements

To use the LawVu Add-in, you will need a Microsoft Office 365 subscription.


User guide

Upon logging into the LawVu Add-in, the LawVu taskbar will appear on the right side of the screen.

If you dismiss the LawVu taskbar, you can access the same options using the LawVu

Add-in options in the Word toolbar.

Save a document to LawVu

To save a document to LawVu choose the Save to LawVu option.

You will be prompted to select the appropriate matter or contract, either from a recent list or by searching the matter or contract in LawVu.

Once a matter is selected, navigate through the folders (if any) and then click the Save to Folder button.

To save a contract, you have two options: 'Update contract' or 'Save to Files'. Choosing 'Update contract' will save the document as the main contract file. To update the contract file, click on the existing contract document, update the file name (if needed), and click
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Save as the latest version. Note: The contract file will only be replaced if the existing contract file is a Word document.

To 'Save to Files', navigate through the folder structure (if any) in the Files Tab and save to the desired folder.

Saving a file you previously saved in LawVu

When saving a file you've previously saved in LawVu using the Word Add-in, the system will remember the location you had saved it before and inquire whether you'd like to replace it with the latest version or save it to a different location.

The Save button saves the file as the latest version. If you want to save the file in a different location, go through the Save as.. option. Click Choose Location to browse to a different matter or contract and optionally give the file another name.


Open a document from LawVu

To open a document from LawVu, click Open from LawVu and select a matter or contract from the recent matter list, or search for the specific matter or contract. You will see the list of files contained therein.

Navigate through the folders, if any, to find the file you want to open. You will see the success message as a new window opens with the selected document.

You can then edit the document and save it back to LawVu. (See above instructions for Saving a Document to LawVu)

Please note that only .docx format documents are supported. Other file formats remain visible but cannot be opened if incompatible with Microsoft Word. For contracts, you can also open and edit the main contract file.


Populate a Word Template

You can populate a Word template with information from LawVu. This template contains merge fields that correspond to the values stored in the LawVu matter/contract fields.

To start populating your template, choose the Populate template option from the add-in taskbar and decide whether you want to populate from a matter or a contract.

Note: only .docx files will be displayed.

Once you select the matter/contract you want to pull the data from, you will get two options: Populate and save to matter/contract and Populate only

Once you make your choice, you will notice the file will populate with the field values in the matter/contract. It will also tell you all the merge fields that it has found in the document that it could not replace, if any.

If you select Populate and save to matter, it will ask for the file location where you want to save the newly populated file.

The workflow above is similar to contracts. Upon saving the populated file to LawVu, you will get the option to either save it as a file in the Files section or save it as the main contract file.

How to create a merge fields template

To create a merge fields template that you can use to auto-populate fields, your Administrator will need to navigate to the Matter details of the corresponding matter type by going to Settings / Matter management.

Click to copy the desired merged field :

and then paste it into your template :

Continue doing this for all desired merge fields, and then use the process above to auto-populate the template.


Common issues

Potential Issue: Unable to open a particular file.

Method of Resolution: Check the file format. Only modern .docx files are currently supported. Older .doc files will need to be saved to your PC and have the format converted to .docx

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