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HotDocs Professional Edition 6/PDF Advantage |
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HotDocs Professional represents a synergy of text document automation and Portable Document Format (PDF) graphical forms, featuring template automation tools, an intuitive user interface and integration with many computerized office suites. Assembled documents can be saved in either Microsoft Word, Corel WordPerfect or Adobe Acrobat PDF. The PDF Advantage Professional feature enables creation of easy-to-use forms from virtually any document including pre-existing PDF forms. Answers can be input either in response to predetermined interview questions or in ad hoc fashion by being directly entered onto a form. Interestingly, these manipulated PDF documents remain in PDF format. HotDocs 6 has several significant changes and improvements to earlier versions. As in previous versions, HotDocs 6 consists of a pair of files — a template file and a corresponding component file. When a template file is opened in HotDocs 6, however, its corresponding component file is changed automatically to be compatible with Version 6 internal formats. Accordingly, any HotDocs file opened in Version 6 is inoperable under previous versions. HotDocs has been a standard for document assembly excellence and efficiency for many years; it still sets this standard. If you are not conversant with document assembly, in general, and with HotDocs, in particular, there will be a significant learning curve before you have mastered the underlying document assembly engine. The HotDocs Professional CD includes a comprehensive tutorial that introduces you to the HotDocs approach to assembling documents using templates and clause libraries. Installation of HotDocs 6 from the HotDocs 6 Professional CD was straightforward. However, following the instructions to immediately insert the second CD, containing PDF Advantage Professional, seemed to confuse the operating system, which kept asking for the first CD. After several attempts to swap CDs seemed to result in an endless loop, the system was cold-started and installation of PDF Advantage from its own CD proceeded as if nothing happened before. To assemble a document, first select the appropriate template from the Assemble Template Window, then click the “Assemble” tab. Alternatively, you can click the “Assemble” option of the “Template” menu. Either way, you are greeted with the new HotDocs user interface consisting of a series of custom-designed dialog boxes and other screen vehicles for receiving your feedback about what to incorporate into the document being assembled. The first question asked is whether the Answer File should be selected from already-generated Answer Files. You are then presented with a splitscreen with an “Interview Outline” window on the left that shows a descriptive title for the type of information sought, and a corresponding “Dialog Pane” window on the right that shows the interactive dialog for a highlighted Interview Outline. Thus, you can input requested information in any order as long as all of the prerequisite information is input prior to document assembly. HotDocs 6 enables you to indicate how the assembled document should be handled. You can click a “Save” button to save a copy of the assembled document in a file. Alternatively, you can save a copy of the assembled document as a PDF and send it to your default word processor; save a copy on the Windows Clipboard; or click the “Go To” button to proceed to “Preview” to view a rough draft of the assembled document without saving it. Another approach for assembling documents with HotDocs is to insert particular groups of text called “clauses” into an existing or new document. According to HotDocs’ procedures, a logical collection of such groups of text is stored in a “clause library.” Once you open a clause library (from the HotDocs Template Library), you select particular clauses to be inserted into the document being assembled. For each invoked clause, any predefined input dialog is opened automatically. The right pane contains a splitscreen showing in the left pane a list of all of the clauses in the library; the right pane contains a subset of these named clauses, showing the clauses that have been selected to be included in the assembled document. In between each of these two panes, is a vertical series of icons corresponding to adding/inserting a clause, removing a clause, viewing a resource and previewing a clause. To create a new template, click “New Template” to open the dialog box. This dialog box requires you first indicate the type of template to be created, then you name the template file and identify the template by assigning a title and further description, if appropriate. The type of template files and corresponding file extensions are specific to the type of Word, WordPerfect or HotDocs template being created. After you specify the type of template file to be generated, enter a suitable name in the “File Name” window. Then, after you click in the “Title” window, HotDocs automatically adds the associated extension to the file name and assumes you want to echo this name for the title. If the title differs from the template name, erase the name in the title field window and enter the appropriate title. Further identifying information can be entered in the Description field. To complete this “New Template” dialog, indicate whether the template is new, corresponds to an open file, or corresponds to an unopened file you select via the “Browse” button. Then click the “OK” button to commence the new and improved HotDocs 6 template creation process. Whenever a HotDoc 6 text template is being created, the HotDocs Editing toolbar is displayed automatically. Containing a treasure trove of a dozen instantly available features and functions, this editing toolbar contains the following feature buttons: (1) Variable Field; (2) If; (3) Ask; (4) Insert; (5) Repeat; (6) Edit Component; (7) Test Assemble; (8) Component Manager; (9) Clause Library; (10) Save Template; (11) Close Template; and (12) HotDocs Help. The crux of the template creation process is to insert variables into a document as a replacement for specific values. For example, if a document contained the attorney name “Al Harrison,” you would convert this information into a variable field with a variable name such as “Attorney Name.” To make this happen using the “Editing” toolbar, you would first highlight the text “Al Harrison” and then click the “Variable Field” button. This action invokes the “Variable Field” dialog box, which presents a series of check boxes, windows and buttons that define the variable type, the variable name and its field properties. The variable type might be Text, Number, Date, True/False, Multiple Choice, Computation and Personal Information. Storing name information will be a text variable containing a character string. By clicking the “Use Default” box, this format window becomes active. You can then click the down-arrow on the drop-down window to signal HotDocs to display the choices for default text formats. The text can be all lower case letters, capital letters or a combination of both. Next, you indicate whether only one occurrence of the textual string should be replaced with the variable Attorney Name (via the “Replace Once” button) or whether every occurrence should be replaced (via the “Replace Multiple” button). If the “Replace Multiple” button was clicked, a “Find and Replace” dialog box appears to confirm whether you want to replace the name as originally entered (and automatically copied) in the “Find What” window. HotDocs also gives you the option to specify — before any changes are made to the underlying document — to explicitly check the “Match Case” click-box or the “Find Whole Words Only” click-box. Finally, after completing this verification protocol, you click one of the action buttons: Replace, Replace All, Find Next or Close. Another new feature is of particular interest to the legal profession is the ability to create templates based on electronic Adobe Acrobat forms. Since PDF has become a standard for virtually all business and financial forms, being able to convert government-sanctioned forms into a HotDocs template is a huge step forward. All that is required of you, assuming you have obtained the HotDocs PDF Advantage Professional Edition add-on to HotDocs 6, is to first convert the PDF form into HotDocs PDF Template format (HPT) via the HotDocs PDF printer driver. Unlike textual templates, which are created and assembled in a word processor, PDF templates are created and assembled in HotDocs Automator. Adobe Acrobat isn’t needed to achieve this powerful PDF document assembly — only the free Acrobat Reader. Another useful aspect of HotDocs PDF Advantage is that entries can be made to PDF forms without first generating a PDF template. If you have a one-time or occasional need to use a government form, you don’t have to actually generate a template. Instead, after creating a PDF template-formatted file (HPT), you can interact with individual fields that are already located on the form. First, click the “Select Fields” button. Then, to prepare a particular field to receive live input, locate the mouse pointer in the left edge of the field, click in that location, then drag the handles of the rectangular input field toward the right extreme of the field on the form. You can adjust the field length, which allows you plenty of room for entering a text string. You then release the mouse and input the information directly into this field. While you can’t spellcheck using this methodology — other than visually — you can cut-and-paste text from your word processor. The easiest way to do this is to click the “Detect” button to advise HotDocs automatically to detect the borders of the clicked blank field; HotDocs generates a data field in the blank space. |
LexisNexis Price:$600; $100 for upgrade from Edition 5.x; $80 for PDF Advantage bundled with HotDocs. Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP Reviewed by Al Harrison, a patent attorney and intellectual property lawyer at Harrison & Egbert in Houston. PROS CONS VERDICT |
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