In this instalment of the Essential Copywriting series you’ll learn how to use style sheets in MS Word to create well-organized, more SEO-compliant copy. I’ll also tell you about the navigation sidebar and how to insert a table of contents.

In this instalment of Essential Copywriting, I’m going to give you some tips that should help you be more productive when using Microsoft Word. And as a freelance copywriter you’ll be using it a lot, no matter how you feel about it.

Today’s essential copywriting post covers what you’ll need in terms of hardware, software and backup strategies to get up and running (and stay that way) as a freelance copywriter.

In the first post of my new Essential Copywriting series, I talk about rules: rules that govern rules, the rules you’ve made for yourself, and the rules others will expect you to follow.

If you are a copywriter who has decided it’s time to leave the agency life behind and start freelancing, may I say to you, “excellent choice.” Sure, it’s a big decision, but if you wanted affirmation that it’s a viable career move, here it is.

There is a listlessness that comes over me in January as I am finally clear of all the best-of and worst-of lists that crowd my rss and social media feeds at the end of the year. One list did have a winning suggestion though – banishing the phrase “bucket list.”

Back in my agency days I had a client whose in-house design team was responsible for laying down the law regarding their online brand standards. It is of course right that they should take ownership of their brand. One of their laws, however, was that all headlines on their website should be in title case. Allow me to explain why this is a bad idea.

A while back I wrote a post about QR codes. It’s not a pet topic of mine, but I do have one on my business card. I have one on a self-inking rubber stamp. And of course there’s one on this site, if you happen to want to continue reading this on your iPhone. But are they worth loving or hating – or even arguing about? (Spoiler: no).

I’ve managed to trip over the Business Insider article entitled “Death to the QR Code” twice in the past week, mostly as a result of marketing colleagues passing the link around via Twitter or LinkedIn. And if the purpose of that provocative headline was to drag more eyeballs onto the Business Insider site, then I must concede its success.

I wasn’t sure that QR codes would catch on in Canada before they became obsolete, but they seem to have been quite widely adopted here finally. And as I had created mobile versions of this site and my portfolio site, it seemed sensible to incorporate a QR code into my new business card design, which was uploaded to an online print service earlier this week.