Tech Tip: Office 365 server connectivity

If you just moved to Office 365, but use Outlook on premises, or if you just bought a new computer that will run Outlook and connect to Office 365, this quick tip might be for you.  If things work during initial setup, but you lose connectivity later and can't get it back, IPv6 may be the culprit.  Office 365 does not play nicely with some IPv6 implementations (depends on the ISP, apparently).

In Network Connections, right click and choose Properties.  On the dialog that opens, scroll down in the protocols list and look for check marks by both IPv4 (Internet Protocol Version 4) and IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6).  Uncheck IPv6 and see if Outlook instantly connects.  Hope this saves a few people from migraines.  Note: you can find Network Connections by right-clicking the windows icon in the lower left corner of your screen in Windows 8.1.  I think you can also find it by hitting the start button in Windows 7, but it's been a while since I had a Windows 7 machine.

Word 2013: Revisiting pleading alignment issues

First, let me apologize to regular visitors for the drought this last month.  A new firm to attend two, back to back colds, and an appellate argument had me running on fumes.  I intend to remedy the silence this week.  Before getting back to law, however, I need to revisit an issue I touched on once before - the exciting topic of line alignment in pleadings in Word.  See this prior post, explaining how to fix a problem I see all the time.

It turns out that my solution for fixing the problem does not work in Word 2013 (which I am using exclusively as a result of selecting Office 365 as the delivery mechanism for Office - and I highly recommend it, for the most part).  More specifically, Word 2013, when using the most current document format (docx, without the compatibility option enabled at the time you save), does not even incorporate the setting described in my post linked above.  Those settings are "deprecated."  It seems that Microsoft, in all its wisdom, thought a new layout engine for Word was in order.  I couldn't find a way to control text alignment with line numbering at the top of documents.  But Microsoft must surely have a way to do this that I just can't find, right?  Sooooo, no.

If you don't believe it, check out the thread I opened on Microsoft's technet site.  Now, to be clear, I am still not 100% convinced that what I am trying to do can't be done in Word 2013, using the current document format without the compatibility mode active.  The not-so-informative response I received is not filling me with confidence.

I may try to contact the Office team directly and see if they can suggest something.  If I have any luck, I will let you know.  Until then, I will keep cringing at Word pleadings that are misaligned on the first page.