Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers PDF software designed for legal-specific tasks such as deal books and ebriefs (see article below), a PACER alternative that integrates with Dropbox, an iPad app for trial presentations, and an iOS and Mac app for tracking shipments sent via the USPS and more than 240 other carriers. Don't miss the next issue.
PURPOSE-BUILT PDF SOFTWARE FOR LAW PRACTICE
More than anyone else, the legal profession has made the Portable Document Format (PDF) its own. This explains why large software companies that serve the mainstream toss law firms a few bones in their PDF products. However, these products will never match those built from the ground up for the needs of law practice.
pdfDocs 4.1 … in One Sentence
Launched this week, DocsCorp's pdfDocs 4.1 is PDF software designed to help law firms manage their document workflows.
The Killer Feature
Legal teams often need to collect documents from various sources in one place, apply a uniform set of changes, and output a PDF document. pdfDocs has a new technology called Organizer Project that streamlines this process. An Organizer Project is a matter-centric workspace that resides on a local or network drive. You can create as many as you need, and create templates for your staff to ensure consistency.
You can add virtually any document type to an Organizer Project, including email messages and Microsoft Office documents. Thanks to pdfDocs' integrations, you can tap into a variety of sources such as Windows Explorer and your document management system. You can also copy documents from one Organizer Project to another.
Once you've added all the documents you need, you can reorder them, exclude one or more pages or documents, wrap the project within your firm's stationery, apply Bates numbers, headers and footers, and watermarks, etc. Lastly, pdfDocs creates a single document that you can save in PDF, PDF/A, JPEG, or TIFF format. From there you can email the final document to clients, save it to your document management system, etc. You and your colleagues can edit the saved Organizer Project any time.
Other Notable Features
pdfDocs offers other ways of interacting with PDF documents. For example, Single Document mode enables you to open and work with one PDF document. You can edit, annotate, comment, split, sign, redact, stamp, OCR, etc. pdfDocs also enables you to convert PDF documents into Word, Excel, or PowerPoint format, as well as automatically convert email attachments into PDF format upon sending.
Binder Project mode enables you to create closing books, deal books, and ebriefs with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of documents (PDF and other formats). An executive at DocsCorp describes Binder Project mode as "Organizer Projects on steroids." A Binder Project can handle any existing folder hierarchy on a local or network drive or in a document management system. After adding the documents you want, you can rearrange them, brand the Binder Project with logos and stationery sets, use a Word document as a cover page, and apply watermarks, headers and footers, date/time stamps, and security settings.
The Make Binder command converts all the documents in the Binder into PDF format, generating a printable table of contents, cross-document bookmarks, links, and an optional auto launch file for a CD or DVD. You can output to a single PDF file or keep all the documents that comprise the Binder separate. If you create the same types of Binders repeatedly, you can save your settings as a Binder Project Template.
What Else Should You Know?
The new version of pdfDocs sports an interface similar to that of Microsoft Office 2013 aimed at making tasks easier to perform and thus reducing training time. Pricing depends on number of seats you need. Learn more about pdfDocs 4.1.
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