DropDown
Lists
- Imagine an “always on, always available” list of your favorite documents or terms.
- Imagine being able to click on any entry in the list and the item is instantly (we mean instantly) inserted into your document.
- Imagine that the list can contain not only terms in a glossary, or documents in any folder, but also pictures, and spreadsheets and WordPerfect (yes, WordPerfect!) documents.
- This is what drop-down lists are all about. But you really have to try them to appreciate their power and usefulness. It’s easy.
It is very easy to create a dropdown list. It does depend upon whether the source of the list is an existing “book” (a glossary or a folder of documents already shelved in a library) or a non-shelved item (such as a folder of pictures, W/P documents, etc.)
A. To create a DropDown list from a library source (a 'book' that can be displayed via the Books & Libraries screen):
- Click the document assembly icon (the 3rd button from left) to display the Libraries & Books screen (below).
- Select the book to populate the dropdown list. (“Will” glossary selected in the below example.
- Click the 'Create DropDown List' option button (located at the bottom of the white options box).
- Press <Next>.
- Repeat for the second through fifth lists, if desired. If you wish to overwrite an existing drop-down list, you will be asked 'which one?'
B. To create a DropDown list from a non-library source (typically non-Word files, such as Excel spreadsheets, images, WordPerfect files, etc.)
- Display the Pathagoras Utilities/Settings screen and select the DropDown Lists tab.
- Click the <Create Non-Library DropDown List> button. Follow the prompts to select the kind of file that will populate the list and to navigate to the folder that contains the desired files.
- Repeat for any subsequent lists, if desired.
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That's it. After that, it's simply 'drop and click.'
The dropdown list appears in Word's menu bar area, just like the ‘Fonts’ and ‘Styles’ lists. When you click an item, the text associated with that item (a phrase, address, a paragraph(s) of text, entire document, a picture, a spreadsheet, etc.) instantly appears at the cursor location.
A couple of additional hints, tips and notes about this feature:
- The glossary displayed in the dropdown list need not be in your active library. Therefore, the 'dropdown list' feature will effectively increase the number of possible glossaries 'at your fingertips' to 15 (the 10 in the current library, plus the five dropdown lists).
- When you add terms to a glossary via the simple 'Highlight & Add' method, the term will automatically be added to your dropdown list (if displayed).
- At the bottom of each list is a series of bracketed commands which (a) provide 'help' on how to use the lists; (b) allow you to instantly open the glossary for easy editing; (c) close the list; and (d) view information about the underlying glossary or folder.
- Consider using terms in a 'simple list' glossary. A 'simple list' glossary is just a series of words or phrases stored in a document. Each term in the glossary is a single line of text. See Part 5c of the Users' Guide for more info on simple list glossaries. (http://www.pathagoras.com/PUG_5c.htm).
Populating a dropdown list with the terms in a 'simple list' glossary will allow you to quickly pop words and short, single line phrases into your document. Words in a simple list glossary can be normal text (names, descriptions, unique-to-your-practice words, hard to spell words, etc.) that you might need for common documents. Or see the tip below.
| Tip: Consider including in your 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 the full DOS path name to frequently used form documents (e.g., "C:\office forms\contracts\Retainer Agreement.doc"). Use the drop-down list feature to insert into your current editing screen the raw name (correctly spelled) of the item. Then press <Alt-G>. Pathagoras will quickly hunt down the term in its host glossary or document from the proper folder and insert its full text. |
So what's the drawback? Very little. Because only names of glossary terms are shown, you will have to know what each term represents. So, if you have terms where the subject matter is not obvious, you may wish to use the 'double-click' feature of the traditional check-box screen. Or, simply print out a checksheet of the clauses and their subjects. (Click the 'Print Checksheet' option on the Books & Libraries screen to create a fully editable listing of clauses and their subjects.)
The following functions are available with each dropdown list and can be found in the Footer Section of each list:
Refresh, Replace, Wider, Narrower, Create Checkbox screen, easily adding text to the glossary reflected in the list.
Is the dropdown list too narrow to display the full name of your document or term name? Not to worry. You can easily change the width of any lists. Look for the <<Wider>> and <<Narrower>> buttons in the footer section of each list.
NOTE: A dropdown list of terms need not be from a book in your current library. That means that you can have up to 15 books (glossaries and folders of documents) active at a time: 10 in your default library and 5 in your dropdown lists.