TimeLiner 4.0 - Jun/Jul '99

TimeLiner 4.0

One night, a few years ago, I sat watching my supervising attorney hunch over his desk with a wood ruler in one hand and a pencil in the other. It was the night before trial, and he was drawing horizontal and vertical lines on a piece of paper, painstainkingly hand-creating a timeline of events to blow-up as a trial exhibit. We both knew this was an antiquated way to perform this task, but the case had a small budget, and we obviously had little time to spend learning a new computer program. Looking back, I wish we had TimeLiner 4.0.

Although TimeLiner was designed for teachers, legal professionals can quickly adapt this program to prepare factual chronologies and timelines for cases. It's a quick, cost-effective way to understand the factual history and relationships between different events. Plus, the timelines can be used as exhibits at trial and depositions.

Installation was easy. I had no problems or crashes with installing or configuring the program to my system. The opening dialog box offered four different types of timelines. The standard timeline is a typical chronological timeline. The next choice is a floating timeline, which isn't anchored to a particular year -- good when you don't need specific dates. I disregarded the next choice offered, a geological timeline (not useful in a legal environment). The last choice, custom timelines, works for non-time-based data such as percentages, distances or temperature.

This program offers four different modes in which you can work on, view and print timelines, ranging from a "bird's-eye view" to a "walkthrough" featuring event flags and their corresponding dates. Each view can be customized graphically.

Choosing the standard mode, I created a timeline showing an accident and plaintiff's subsequent medical treatment. It took only 20 minutes. I could expand and compress the Compact and Banner views from one page to numerous pages. After I completed the timeline, the print preview command gave me a clear view of the entire timeline layout. I did experience a small glitch printing the timelines, however. The print command and Ctrl+P did not respond when I tried to print a landscaped timeline. I had to go to print preview to print a landscaped orientation of the timeline.

Finally, I spent just a little time trimming and taping the timelines together. The timelines can also be pasted into other programs and graphics can be added to the timelines.

With its customization tools and graphic options, I found TimeLiner to be perfect for the law office, despite its educational roots. And for only $79.95, this is the perfect program for any attorney who never wants to create a timeline by hand again.

Tom Snyder Productions
(800) 342-0236
www.teachsp.com

Windows (all), Mac

$79.95 and up

Reviewed by Melynda Hill-Teter, contract
litigation paralegal, Mesa, Ariz.

Jun/Jul '99 Issue

PROS
Create a short timeline in under 10 minutes; easy to get started.

CONS
Oriented to educators; no built-in spell checker; timelines must be trimmed and/or taped together.

VERDICT
Makes quality timelines affordable.