7 Digital Hacks You Need to Know

Here at MerusCase, we're obsessed with finding the most efficient way to do everyday tasks and we're always on the lookout for new digital hacks. We surveyed our office, and these are the top suggestions our team had to share with you!

Hack 1: Reduce your physical paper with "Print as PDF"

In today's digital age, almost all of life's important to-dos can be handled online. For example, just this month, I renewed my drivers' license, filed my taxes, and paid all my bills online, which are all super important things to keep a record of. To many, keeping a record means physically printing out the confirmation page and filing it away; however, I like to digitally "file" it on my computer by utilizing the Print as PDF feature!

It's no secret that, at MerusCase, we all prefer Chrome - in fact, we constantly advise our clients to use Chrome in order to ensure a better overall user experience in MerusCase. That said, it's no surprise that Chrome is the only browser that allows you to Save as PDF when printing without having to install a PDF converter. If you're a Chrome user, then all you have to do is click File > Print > Select Save as PDF > Print. Upon "printing," your computer will prompt you to name your PDF and allow you to select where to save it on your computer!

If you're not a Chrome user, then you'll need to install a PDF converter to save documents and webpages as a PDF. If you need some ideas for which converter to use, I've used CutePDF in the past and I currently have Adobe PDF on my Windows 8 machine.

Pro Tip: This Save as PDF feature and more paper-reducing tips can be found in this whitepaper: How to Go Paperless.

Hack 2: Browser Shortcuts

We all know that you can open up a link in a new tab by right-clicking on it, but we have a few more obscure browser shortcuts that you're going to love!

• Restore the last tab you closed in your browser with ctrl + shift + T.
• Quickly highlight the url/address bar (without having to click into it) in Chrome with ctrl + L.
• Never type "www." or ".com" again. Simply type meruscase and hit ctrl + enter and have Chrome do it for you!
• In MerusCase, always take advantage of the built in Keyboard Shortcuts!

Hack 3: Never be bothered after hours (unless it's an emergency)

Trust me: this is less of a hack and more of a lifesaver. Do you like being woken up by group text message threads at 1:30AM? What about unintelligible phone calls from friends just getting back from the bar? No? Yeah, me neither.

If you don't like to be bothered while you're trying to get your precious beauty sleep (or are hard at work), I'm here to show you how you can activate your iPhone's Do Not Disturb mode! To activate, click on Settings > Do Not Disturb. Now, you can schedule when you want Do Not Disturb to turn on automatically, choose how you want to screen calls, and more.

When Do Not Disturb is enabled, calls and alerts that arrive while locked will be silenced; however, if someone calls twice within 3 minutes, the second call will not be silenced and you'll be alerted as you normally would. Alternately, if it's only group messages (like me) giving you problems, you can always mute individual conversations by turning on Do Not Disturb in the Details of that message.

Hack 4: Use emoji icons from your desktop computer

For years, I believed that emoji icons were only available on my phone, which made it virtually impossible to insert snazzy icons into tweets, emails, etc. while on my computer. Being the emoji lover that I am, I was excited when I recently found out that you can totally use emojis from your desktop computer!

For Macs: Unlock your Emoji Keyboard by pressing ctrl + command + spacebar.

For PCs: Install the Emoji Input Chrome Extension

Happy emoji-ing!

Hack 5: Combine multiple PDFs together 

Got multiple PDFs that you need to send together? Sometimes it makes sense to merge these separate PDFs into one organized file (such as when you send your resume, cover letter, and writing samples to an employer).

To do this, I generally use the Combine Documents tool in MerusCase. However, for our readers that are not (yet) Merus users, you can use Preview on a Mac or Acrobat Pro on a PC to combine documents!

Hack 6: Dump all your email into one inbox

If you're anything like me, then you probably have four (or more) different email addresses: one for work, one for personal messages, one from back-in-the-day that you still check for some reason, one for junk, and the list goes on... Well, if you'd like to receive and send all of these different emails from one inbox, it's time to forward all of your addresses to a single, master inbox!

Your email client should have step-by-step instructions on how to forward your email (like Gmail or Yahoo). Alternatively, you could just sync all desired inboxes to your MerusCase Messages Inbox!

Pro Tip: Forwarding your email is especially important if your firm's email address is currently yourlawfirm@gmail.com because, at some point, you'll want to switch to a custom domain address (such as name@yourlawfirm.com). This transition is seamless with the aforementioned email forwarding trick!

Hack 7: Get the most out of your 15 minute break

Now that April fools has come and gone and, with it, Google has taken away the delightful Google Maps Pac-Man, I'm returning to an old favorite: playing Atari Breakout with Google Images.

Try it out. Go to Google, type in "Atari Breakout" and go to Images. Enjoy!

Got some digital hacks you just can't live without? Let us know what they are in the comments! Psst -- don't forget to subscribe to get our helpful blog posts delivered straight to your inbox!

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This post was written by Kaitlynne Fuery, Marketing Operations Coordinator at MerusCase.

Note: This post features MerusCase Version 3.9 or earlier. As such, this post may no longer be accurate. For the most current and up-to-date information about the latest version of MerusCase, please visit our documentation at docs.meruscase.com.