Draft First-Pass Contracts in Word with Spellbook

1. Go to spellbook.com and sign up for the free trial.
2. Verify your email and complete the account setup with your firm name and practice area.

What you should see: A dashboard or welcome screen confirming your account is active, with instructions to connect it to Microsoft Word. Troubleshooting: Use a work email rather than a personal one, since Spellbook will later connect to your Microsoft account for the Word add-in.

Office add-ins install through Microsoft's own add-in store, a mechanism built into Word itself, so this step uses Word's standard installation path rather than anything Spellbook-specific.

1. Open Microsoft Word.
2. Go to the Insert tab and look for "Get Add-ins" or "Add-ins" in the ribbon.
3. Search for "Spellbook" in the add-in store and select it to add it to Word.
4. Sign in with the Spellbook account you created in Step 1 when prompted.

What you should see: A Spellbook panel appears, usually docked to the right side of your Word window, with a chat box and a set of action buttons. Troubleshooting: If your firm's IT setup restricts add-in installation, you will need an administrator to approve Spellbook as a trusted add-in before it will appear in the store.

Open the contract template you want to work from, whether that is a commercial lease, a service agreement, or an NDA.

1. Use File > Open and select your saved template.
2. Confirm the Spellbook panel is still visible and connected to this document.

What you should see: Your template's full text in the main Word window, with the Spellbook sidebar active alongside it.

Rather than asking it to rewrite the whole document at once, work clause by clause for your first few uses so you can evaluate the quality of each suggestion.

1. Highlight the clause you want to adjust, for example the indemnification section.
2. In the Spellbook chat panel, describe the change you want in plain language.
3. Review the suggested language it returns.

Example prompt to test with: "Adjust this indemnification clause so the client's liability is capped at the total contract value, and flag anything else in this section that seems one-sided."

What you should see: Suggested replacement language displayed in the sidebar, along with a brief explanation of what changed and why.

1. Click the option to insert the suggestion into the document.
2. Confirm it appears as a Word tracked change rather than overwriting your original text silently.
3. Repeat for each clause you want Spellbook's help on.

What you should see: Red and underlined tracked changes in your document, exactly the format you would expect from a human associate's redline. Troubleshooting: If tracked changes are not turned on, go to the Review tab in Word and confirm "Track Changes" is active before accepting any Spellbook suggestions.

Spellbook drafts from general patterns and precedent language, not from knowledge of your client's actual negotiating position or risk tolerance.

1. Read every inserted clause in full, checking it against what your client actually agreed to.
2. Adjust or reject anything that does not fit the specific deal.
3. Accept the tracked changes you are keeping and finalize the document.

What you should see: A clean, finished contract with your own edits layered on top of Spellbook's first draft.