Harvey for Word: How to Use

Overview

Harvey for Word helps with everything from day-to-day edits to structured contract reviews. You can draft with AI, get real-time answers, or run your playbooks to enforce standard all right in Word.

A few practical ways to enhance your drafting and review process with Harvey:

• Run a query over specific portions or your entire document using Assistant
• Get tailored suggestions from Harvey to edit a specific clause, or your full document
• Pull precedents from Vault
• Flag and review non-compliant clauses with Playbook review

Getting Started

The core features of Harvey for Word are:

• Assistant

  • Ask — pull insights or generate suggestions
  • Edit — draft changes using suggested edits
  • Draft — create new documents using natural language instructions
• Playbooks — apply your organization’s playbooks to review contracts
• Workflows — apply a repeatable set of steps that makes complex tasks faster and more consistent

Harvey will suggest prompts based on your document to help you get started, or you can dive into a workflow or playbook from the bottom navigation bar.

Using Ask Mode

Ask mode brings in Harvey's Assistant directly to Word to help with ideation and analysis. You can ask questions on highlighted text or the full document without needing to access Harvey in your browser.

Watch how it works

Here’s a short walkthrough showing Ask Mode in action:

Using Edit Mode

In Edit mode, you can make changes to your Word document through Harvey's suggestions and edits. Redline your document, either over specific text or over the full document. Then give Harvey natural language instructions (e.g., “Make this more in line with the uploaded precedent terms.”).

Key Features

• Make document-wide edits. Please note, we don’t recommend using this feature for documents over 100 pages at this time.
• Prompt Harvey to populate or edit tables and Harvey will suggest text to fill in or amend content within tables.

Follow the steps below to get started.

1. Select text you’d like to edit, or place your cursor where new content should go.
2. Add your instructions in the query box.
3. (Optional) Click the + icon to upload a precedent to guide Harvey’s suggestions. You may also have the option to select Web Search as a knowledge source if it’s enabled in your workspace. For Edit mode queries, you can view sources of information in the thinking state dropdown.
4. Select Edit mode, then click the arrow to run your query. Harvey will consider the specific legal context, jargon, and instructions provided to generate precise suggestions.
5. Review and apply changes. Auto-apply the suggestions, or review them individually to choose which ones to apply to the selected text.

   1. Accepted changes are applied as redlined tracked changes in the document, while dismissed suggestions are not applied.

Watch how it works

Here’s a short walkthrough showing Edit Mode in action:

Sample use cases

Here are a few prompt ideas for testing out this feature:

• Mark up this document to be more in line with the terms agreed to in uploaded precedents
• Make updates based on meeting notes
• Replace all instances of Party X with Party Y
• Fill out this template in accordance with the precedent

Using Draft Mode

In Draft Mode, you can create new documents in Word directly through Harvey’s drafting capabilities. Use this mode when starting from a blank document or when you want Harvey to generate a first draft based on your instructions. For example, you can open a new Word document, ask Harvey to “draft a NDA,” and optionally upload a sample NDA for reference.

Using Playbooks

Playbooks in Harvey streamlines contract review in Word by automatically applying your company’s established positions on documents. Learn how to apply them by reviewing Harvey for Word: Playbooks Guide.

Using Workflows

Apply a workflow to execute tasks more efficiently. Try one of the following workflows to get started.

Redact

Instantly anonymize sensitive information across a document.

• Catches 95-99% of the PII that should be redacted
• Of the redacted material, 95-99% is actually PII
• You can select any combination of preset redaction categories before generating redlines
• The original document will be unchanged, Harvey creates a new redacted copy

Convert to Template

Convert a document into a reusable template to standardize frequently used documents, such as engagement letters or NDAs, without manually removing client-specific details.

• When you select Convert to a Template, Harvey will scan your document and automatically identify personalized or variable information. This includes names, addresses, company names, dates, and contact information.
• These details will be replaced with labeled placeholders (e.g., [Name], [Address], [Date]) to create a clean, reusable template.
• You’ll have the opportunity to review, add, and edit all suggested placeholders before saving the final version in your workspace.

Translate

Automatically translate a Word document into the language of your selection.

• Note: this workflow is designed for documents using a single language. Multi-language documents may have varying degrees of success.

View History

If you’d like to revisit or continue in-progress work, you can access previous threads through viewing history.

Save to Vault

Quickly save your updated document to Vault using the Save button.

How Does Uploading a Precedent Improve Results?

When you upload a precedent(s), Harvey can automatically suggest changes to clauses, ensuring they align with successful language from past documents. When drafting or reviewing, leveraging proven precedents helps streamline language, ensuring efficient, consistent results. You can review and selectively apply these precedent-based suggestions to achieve optimal outcomes with greater confidence.

Example: If a strong non-solicitation clause is needed, and previous agreements (e.g., ABC123 and DEF456) have proven effective, Harvey will suggest edits that incorporate similar language. This approach enables drafters to rely on language with a proven track record to meet client needs.