Concordance Basics. Part I

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1 Concordance Basics Part I 1

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3 Getting Started 1 Familiarity with the Concordance environment is the first step in learning the multi-faceted features of this powerful program. This chapter focuses on learning how to change database views, navigate documents, and customize your layouts. Viewing the Case A database can be defined as a collection of individual records (documents) that can be viewed, sorted, searched, filtered, annotated, and printed. Each record consists of fields which contain varying types of data, including text, numbers, and dates. Concordance is an electronic database system that is designed to handle high volumes of documents, perform powerful searches, and create comprehensive reports from the results. Figure 1.1: The Opening Screen 3

4 4 CHAPTER ONE: GETTING STARTED This chapter does not address database creation, document/image importing, or converting from earlier versions of the database to the current version. For information on these topics, refer to Appendix A: Creating, Loading, and Exporting Databases and Chapter 8: Database Toolbox. The Concordance Environment To launch this program (after you have installed it), double-click the Concordance icon on your desktop. The following window will appear, as shown in Figure 1.2. Figure 1.2: The Navigation and Workspace Areas The initial Concordance screen is divided into a Navigation sidebar on the left and a Workspace area on the right. The left sidebar is known as the Task pane, which is divided into different sections called panels. There is a pin icon in the upper right of the Task pane. By clicking the pin icon, you can keep the Task pane visible at all times (pinned) or hidden and only available when you click the Task pane tab (unpinned). The Workspace area, on the right side of the screen, shows a Welcome page containing links to resources, tutorials for getting started, and more. The Workspace area displays your documents when you open a database. Opening a Database To open an existing database, click the Open Database link in the upperleft Task pane area (or select File > Open Database from the menu bar). The Open dialog box will appear, and you can navigate to the desired database.

5 Viewing the Case 5 Once a database is open, a new tab is added to the top of the Workspace area, showing the name of the database. If initial settings have not been modified, the database will open in Browse View, which displays one record at a time. Each record lists individual fields, which appear vertically on the page, as shown in Figure 1.3. Figure 1.3: Browse View Each field name is followed by specific data, which can be in text, numeric, or date format. By default, empty fields do not display; however, you can click Tools > Empties on the menu bar to view (or print) empty fields. Working with Browse and Table Views The default view for Concordance is Browse View, which presents one record at a time. However, there are other ways of displaying your data, including Table View. To switch to Table View, click the icon on the Standard toolbar as shown in Figure 1.4 (or click on the View menu and select Table View). Figure 1.4: Browse and Table View Icons in the Standard Toolbar In Table View, your screen displays a list of records in a tabular format, as shown in Figure 1.5. This is a very efficient layout, as records are arranged in spreadsheet style, and each record displays as one line. A group of records can appear on the screen at once, which can be an advantage when viewing search results.

6 6 CHAPTER ONE: GETTING STARTED Table View Shortcut Menu Figure 1.5: Table View There are useful options available in Table View, including the ability to send data to an Excel spreadsheet, change the order of displayed fields, and more. To access these options, click your right-mouse button on any record to display the Table View shortcut menu, as shown in Figure 1.6. Layout opens the Table Layout dialog box, where you can choose which fields are displayed and the order of their appearance. Changing the layout updates the field display in Table View, as explained in the next section. Figure 1.6: Table View Shortcut Menu The Font option lets you change the typeface and color in Table View. The View image option opens the scanned image associated with the current document (see Chapter 2: Working with Images for an overview of the Concordance Image program).

7 Viewing the Case 7 The Tally feature counts and displays the unique items in a field. When you right-click on a field and select the Tally option from the shortcut menu, the results are displayed in the Tally task pane (see Chapter 3: Tagging and Editing Records for details about this popular feature). Send to allows you to send record(s) to Excel or to CaseMap. Table View Field Display In Table View, you can select which fields appear, the order of their display, column widths, font style, and color. There are important reasons to control the layout of fields on your screen. Large text (paragraph) fields, if included in Table View, will impact screen refresh times and will slow the return of search results. For this reason, text fields are not usually displayed in Table View. To manage the fields appearing in Table View: 1. Right-click on any record, and select Layout (or click View > Table View > Table Layout in the menu bar). A dialog box will appear, as seen in Figure 1.7, containing the Layouts and Available fields panes. 2. Click and drag fields from the Available fields window to the Layouts pane to add more fields to the Table View display. Press the Delete key in the keyboard to remove fields from the Layout pane. It is important to note that by pressing the Delete key, you will not be deleting the field or its contents from the actual database. You can also change the order of fields by dragging them up or down in the left pane. Figure 1.7: Table Layout Dialog Box

8 8 CHAPTER ONE: GETTING STARTED Figure 1.8: Split-Screen Menu Split-Screen Display The Split-screen display is a combination of Browse View and Table View. Click on both the Browse and Table icons in the Standard toolbar to achieve this effect. You can also access this feature by clicking on View > Split screen > Enable on the menu bar. The menu options allow you to choose between a horizontal or vertical split-screen. Navigation Buttons Figure 1.9: Horizontal Split-Screen Display The Navigation buttons on the left sidebar allow you to navigate between specific controls on the Task pane, including Databases, Search, Tags, and more. Navigation buttons display as either text (in the expanded view as shown in Figure 1.10), or as icons (in the compressed view, as shown in Figure 1.11). To change from text view to icon view, drag the dotted section (circled in Figure 1.10) in a downward direction. Figure 1.10: Navigation Buttons (text view) Figure 1.11: Navigation Buttons (icon view)

9 Viewing the Case 9 Figure 1.12: Dynamic Browse Toolbar Dynamic Toolbar in Browse View Dynamic toolbars display at the bottom left of the Concordance window. They are called dynamic because the tools (buttons) will change as you switch between views. In Browse View, the toolbar includes: The First tool button displays the first record in the database. The Previous tool button shows the previous record. The Next tool button displays the next record in the current query, or the first document in the database if you are browsing. The Last tool button shows the last record. The Go To tool button allows you to go to a specific record number. The Previous hit button jumps to the previous search hit. The Next hit button moves to the next search hit. The View image tool opens a picture of the images associated with the current record (see Chapter 2: Working with Images, for more detailed information about the Concordance Image viewer). The Copy tool will copy the document data from entire fields. The Font button will change the data font in the database. Dynamic Toolbar in Table View The Table View toolbar includes the following buttons: The Go To tool allows you to specify a record number to go to. The View image tool opens a picture of the images associated with the current record (see Chapter 2: Working with Images, for more detailed information about the Concordance Image viewer). The Font button will change the data font in the database. Figure 1.13: Dynamic Toolbar in Table View

10 10 CHAPTER ONE: GETTING STARTED The Status Bar The Status bar is located at the bottom of the Concordance window and displays the record count. The Status bar shows both the document number that is currently highlighted, along with the total number of records in the current set. If a search has been performed, the records will be out of their original order (the order in which they were loaded); however, the number that appears in brackets represents the record's original location in the database. Figure 1.14: Status Bar Case Study: Ben Suess, Practice Support Manager HellerEhrman LLP San Francisco, California Concordance is a widely-known application with a large market penetration, so that when we collaborate with other law firms, many of the attorneys already know it. Our attorneys really like the familiar Windows-style interface and the ability to associate their records with tags. A lot of our clients have Asian-language documents. Concordance's new Unicode-compliant upgrade now enables us to search these documents. The Concordance 2008 upgrade represents a quantum leap for us in using this program. Bringing up your data is not complete without viewing and manipulating the corresponding scanned images. The next chapter, Working with Images, introduces Concordance Image, the image-viewing program bundled with Concordance.