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 PATHAGORAS™ Users' Guide, Part 4
Comments would be greatly appreciated to improve the usefulness of the text below and of the program.  Section E. Document Assembly: Alternative Assembly Methods
Summary:
PATHAGORAS provides multiple ways to accomplish the large variety of document assembly tasks that you may have in mind for it. Sometimes the checkbox is the best tool. Sometimes it doesn't serve your need (such as when you just want to insert a single clause, or when the order of the clauses on the Checksheet don't fit the order you want in a particular document). Here are some alternative document assembly techniques. 'Mouseless' Document Assembly
PATHAGORAS offers a variety of document
assembly functions that can be performed without the user having to
list his or her hands from the keyboard.
(1) One of PATHAGORAS most impressive and
powerful features is its ability to quickly locate and insert into your
active document a clause from any glossary or any folder of clauses
maintained as a book in your current library. All the user needs to do
is to type the name of the clause onto
the editing screen followed by the press of <Alt-G>.
The simplicity of this operation causes many users to say 'what next?'
but that really is all there is to it. You should be aware of the
following, however. For this feature to work most efficiently, the
clause should reside in the Position
#1 book of your default library, or it should reside in a
glossary that has been built using the prefix/suffix naming convention.
Here is how it works in operation: If PATHAGORAS detects a
prefix/suffix pattern in the name of the requested clause, it goes
directly to the glossary that has been associated with the prefix to
find the text. Otherwise, PATHAGORAS looks in the
Position #1 book. If PATHAGORAS still cannot find
the term, it pauses and asks if you want it to look in the remaining
books and other sources, including your AutoCorrect library. If you
have misspelled the term, you can cancel the search at this point and
start anew.) <Alt-G>
is PATHAGORAS' universal 'trigger key'. It is used for many
other handy functions that can be called directly from the keyboard.
See this
link for other 'mouseless'
operations using <Alt-G>. (2) PATHAGORAS
can also 'mouselessly'
build
an entire document form a series of clauses all of which begin with the
same
prefix (see the discussion below regarding the 'Prefix/Suffix
Naming Convention'). Many operators find it easier to power
type in a list of short, numerical suffixes than to hunt for and check
those same clauses in PATHAGORAS' checkbox form. Another benefit
to
using the hand-type method (as opposed to checkboxes) is that the user
has control over the order in which
clauses
will be inserted into the document. (With the checkbox method, clauses
can
only be inserted in alphabetical/numerical order.)
See this link for other 'mouseless' operations using <Alt-G>. Drop-Down Lists
This feature is similar to the 'mouseless' document assembly
function described above where the user types the name of a desired
term and presses <Alt-G>. In that situation, Pathagoras would
quickly hunt down the clause and place the text into your document.
However, that requires that you to know how to 'spell' the term. That is not always so easy. (Is John Smith's address 'smith,john' or 'smith_john' or 'smith,j'??) With this feature, all of the terms in (up to 2) selected glossaries are displayed in always 'on screen' dropdown lists. Just scroll the list and click on the desires clause. (The lists appear on the main menu like the list of fonts or the list of styles.) This feature actually works faster than the <Alt-G> routine. Whether spelling is the issue or not, drop-down lists can dramatically improve your efficiency in document assembly. The drop-down list are easy to create, easy to change and are 'sticky' (i.e., they will return in the state in which you left them when you exit and then re-enter Word.) They can be lists of your most frequently used terms and documents or perhaps. The lists can be either glossary terms or documents in your folder. The action of drop-down lists is similar to the action of a double click on the checkbox screen, but it is infinitely faster. (However, you may still use, and may wish to use, the checkbox screen, especially if you need to refer to the subject of the clauses displayed. (On the subject of 'subjects,' you can take full advantage of the drop-down lists, by simply printing out a list of the clauses and their subjects. See the 'Print Checksheet' option on the initial Books & Libraries screen.) To create a drop-down list: (1) click the document assembly icon. (3) Select a book. (3) Click the 'Create Dropdown List' option button. (4) Press Next. That's it. The list will appear in Word's menu bar area. Then its simple 'drop and click'. A couple of additional hints, tips and tricks about this feature: a. The glossary displayed in the dropdown list need not be in your active library. This feature effectively increases the number of possible glossaries at your fingertips to 12 (the 10 in the current library, plus the two in the dropdown lists). b. Trick: Populate the list using the terms in a 'simple list' glossary. A 'simple list glossary' is just a series of words or phrases stored in a document. See Part 5c of the Users' Guide for more info on simple list glossaries. (PUG_5c.htm). A simple list glossary allows you to quickly pop words and short, single line phrases into your document. While the words in a simple list glossary can be normal text (names, description, unique practice words, that you might need for common documents) consider adding to the simple list glossary the names of frequently used glossary terms that reside in other glossaries (signature blocks, addresses or other common multi-line phrases. Or include term names that you frequently use but that are hard for you or others to remember: "con345wtemp". Use the drop-down feature to insert the raw name from the simple list glossary into your text. All that's left for you to do is to press <Alt-G>. Your imagination will provide other nifty ways of using dropdown lists in your daily routines.
It is a bit of a waste of time, every time a new 'simple will' client comes in, to have to display and then methodically check off each clause in the CheckBox form to build the will. On the other hand, creating simple wills from complete documents is also counterproductive, since it defeats the 'change a clause only once' inherent in Pathagoras' document assembly philosophy. (Remember, even 'simple wills' have great variety--married, single, children, one child no children. The number of permutations is still substantial.) So, if you currently keep a collection of complete 'hard text' documents, and then a change to a particular paragraph is needed, you would need to open and change all documents which use that common clause. However, if the 'simple' documents are built from references to clauses (instead of including the actual text), a change doesn't create a difficult editing (or memory--which documents used that clause) situation. When there is a change to text required by a new law, new office policy, a better way or saying things or simply the discovery of a typographical error, it is not necessary to track down each document in which that 'hard coded' text exists. Just go to the source clause and change it there. All future documents assembled with reference to that clause will automatically reflect the change. Okay, the problem is well stated above. What's the solution? Clause-sets. A clause set is a 'document' or a glossary term which comprises only (or primarily) references to clauses. When PATHAGORAS detects a clause set, it will hunt down the text represented by each of the clauses in the set and insert that text into your new document. (Presumably, the clause always contains the most up-to-date language, and therefore the resulting document is the 'freshest' it can be.) By using clause sets, you can essentially have a complete 'document' at the ready, but will always be calling into the most current version of the text. Creating Clause-sets: You can create a clause set either manually or automatically. Manual creation is simply typing onto the editing screen the desired clauses in the order in which you wish for them to appear in the final document. (The ability to control the order of the clauses is one advantage of clause sets over assembly by the CheckBox form.) Each clause reference must being enclosed in "<<" and ">>" braces (no quotes). Note: The '<<' and '>>' marks do not represent a 'secret code' that requires special keystrokes to implement. They are simply the 'lesser than' and 'greater than' symbols above the 'comma' and the 'period' on your keyboard.) Your final product may look something like this: Dear Shawn,Your final product can also be just clause references, such as: <<txt100>>
Automatic
assembly of Clause Sets: To
create a clause set 'automatically', simply run through a typical
document
assembly
routine:
1. Press
the DocAssembly icon, select the book and click <Next> to display
the
CheckBox form. Check off the clauses which you want to be in the
ultimate document.
2. BUT before pressing the <Next> button to assemble a document, check the box on the form (further down in the button stack) that says "Create Clause Set." 3. Then press
<Next>. The selected clause names will be typed into a
new, fully
editable
document. Pathagoras will even enclose them in the double braces for
you.
4. Modify this document to your hearts content, adding new clauses, adding text between clauses (making sure that you are typing between, and not 'inside' the double braces). You can change the order of the clauses, and add anything else you want into the document (pictures, boxes, lines, etc.). 5. Save
your clause-set out to a
proper
location:
NOTE: The 'set_' prefix is required only if you intend to use the automatic filtering discussed above. If you would prefer not to name your clause sets with the prefix "set_", Pathagoras will not mind. But, you should still name your clause sets in such a way that they will appear at the top or bottom of, or otherwise clustered within, the CheckBox form next time you call it. HINT: A 'clause-set' based in a glossary typically will call in glossary terms within that glossary. But it can also reference and call in a document which resides in the same folder as the glossary. Simply reference the document name within the clause set in the typical open/close braces fashion, but insert a period as the first character following the opening braces. E.g., <<.nameofdocument>> NOTE:
In the above examples, the clauses were built from one glossary. PATHAGORAS
allows you to mix
and match terms within a clause-set. The only requirement is
NOTE: A 'clause set' is not the same as a 'source document.' The source document is the original text. A 'clause set' is merely a reference to that text. In a sense it is the 'reverse-engineered' version of the original document. Inasmuch as PATHAGORAS reassembles a clause-set from simple clause references back in a complete document, by choosing enough clauses to reside in the clause set, the user can potentially recreate an exact replica of the source document.
Final Exercise: To close this section, I want to leave you with a bit of PATHAGORAS' 'mouseless' magic. After you have created your first clause set, type its name to the screen. (Be sure to include the prefix 'set_' if that was part of the name.) Press <Alt-G>. Just like the example presented at the beginning of this Users' Guide section wherein PATHAGORAS mouselessly inserted a single clause into your text, now you can mouselessly assemble a complete document! When you see the speed of this kind of document assembly, hopefully you will appreciate the tremendous value that PATHAGORAS can add to the document creation side of your practice. Part
A of this
Section 4
provides the new and experienced user an introduction to document
assembly.
Part B of Section 4 discusses the two main document assembly screens. Part C of Section 4 discusses the engine behind the surface: the Settings screen. Part D will guide you through the steps needed to create your own document assembly system. Part F demonstrates how to personalize a document or form for a specific client or customer. Part G takes you step-by-step through the process of adding 'books' to your libraries. View Part 1 of Users' Guide (Introduction) View Part 2 of Users' Guide (PathSmart module) Return to Part 3 of Users' Guide (SaveSmart module) Continue with Part 5 of Users' Guide (Glossary module) View Part 6 of Users' Guide (Database Link module) View Part 7 of Users' Guide (Other Features) Revised 1/10/05
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