Quick Start Guide. DropDown Lists

Transcription

1 Quick Start Guide DropDown Lists Document assembly is the process of moving text from a source (a book of terms ) into a final product. The core of the Pathagoras system is the Clause Selection Screen. Pathagoras displays all clauses in a selected book onto that screen. There, you can select one, several, or all of the displayed clauses for insertion into a new or existing document. As powerful as that is, when you just want to insert a single clause or document into your current project, the steps needed to display the Clause Selection Screen seems a lot to go through. 1 Consider creating DropDown lists if you frequently find yourself using a single files. Definitions: In general, a dropdown list is any of those lists that already sit at the top of your Word editing screen that give you quick access to Word settings. For example, Word presents styles and fonts in dropdown lists. You simply point and click to an item, and Word does the rest. The same with Pathagoras DropDown Lists. A Pathagoras List is a standard drop down box that contains a listing of all files in a particular folder. The folder is not a special folder that is created especially for Pathagoras. Pathagoras never requires such things. Rather, the folder can be any Windows folder. And the folder can contain anything. In most cases it will contain Word documents, but the choice is yours. The folders can be text files, images (.jpg or.gif,.tiff, etc. files), Excel spreadsheets, PDF files, or..., well, you get the picture -- anything. From any DropDown Lists, if is point and click to instantly move the contents of any file from the list into your document. Two clicks to be precise: one to drop down the list, and the other to select the file. No navigation required. Creating a DropDown List takes 30 seconds tops. Once created the DropDown List remains always active, always visible and always ready. When you exit Word and then return, so do the DropDown Lists. You can maintain up to 10 DropDown Lists simultaneously. That represents a lot of forms and clauses that can be made instantly available. To our knowledge, no other program offers this. Let s get started. With DropDown Lists, clicking in text, images or the content of any other file can be as easy as changing the font style on a word. You can have up to 10 DropDown lists active simultaneously. This makes available hundreds, if not thousands of your most frequently needed terms, clauses, documents, and images. They are all instantly inserted with no navigation whatsoever! Pathagoras lets you create DropDown Lists in one of two ways. The first is from an existing document assembly book that you have already shelved in a library. The second is 1 In addition to DropDown lists, Pathagoras has several other shortcuts for quick insertion of a single item. We have dubbed the first shortcut mouseless assembly. Simply type the name of the document to the screen and press <Alt-G>. However, for mouseless assembly to work, the document must (1) be in a SuperBook (a SuperFolder or SuperGlossary) or (2) must be named in the prefix/suffix style, with the prefix registered with Pathagoras or (3) you must know the full DOS path and correct spelling of the document or term s name. But if you have that information, just type the full document name and press <Alt-G> and Pathagoras will get it for you. DropDown Lists 1 Last Revised 2/19/07

2 what we call freestyle. You simply navigate to a folder (any folder containing any content) and tell Pathagoras to use that folder as the DropDown List source. A) Let s try the from an existing book method first. We will create a DropDown List of the terms in the Will Clauses book. ( Will Clauses ships as part of the DemoDocuments.) 1) Click the Document Assembly icon on the Pathagoras toolbar. In the screen that opens, select the fourth item ( Will Clauses ). 2) A box opens in the middle of the Libraries & Books screen. At the bottom of the list is Create DropDown List. Click it. 3) Click the Next>> button. Figure 1. Create DropDown List from book in library. In a matter of seconds, Pathagoras will transfer the names of all of the documents in the Will Clauses book into a DropDown List. It is now on your screen (look in the menu area). Once it is on screen, it is ready to use. Just point and click. Figure 2. The Will Clauses dropdown lists displays in the Menu area. You can now point and click to insert any item contained in any DropDown List into your current document. (Of course, before pointing and clicking, make sure that you have moved the insertion point of the cursor to the location in your document where you want to add content. DropDown Lists 2 Last Revised 2/19/07

3 Figure 3. Will Clauses dropdown list 'dropped down'. Select a clause B) The freestyle method. 1) Click on the word Pathagoras in the Pathagoras tool bar. This will drop down a collection of Pathagoras features. Click the Create DropDown List entry. 2) Following the prompts, select the type of content you want the DropDown List to contain. Your choices are documents, templates, spreadsheets, images, Word Perfect files, PDF files, and others. 3) Navigate to the folder that contains the files that you wish to be inserted into the DropDown List. 4) If you elected to populate the list with Word documents, you will be asked whether you want the list to display the document s name or subject. If you have assigned a subject and want to use it for the display, select Subject. In almost every other case, select name. 5) You will be asked to give the list a name. The default name will be the name of the folder which contains the terms. You can accept that, or type in anything else. Make sure that the list name is descriptive not only for you but for others who may need it. 6) That is it. DropDown Lists 3 Last Revised 2/19/07

4 Using DropDown Lists Point and click. That is all there is to it. But here is where you should let your imagination run wild for a little bit. Because so many folders (up to 10) can be simultaneously presented inside of DropDown Lists, it is quite easy to assemble complex documents from a multitude of sources. Drop down a list, select an item, drop down another list, select an item, and so on. Those who need to mix images and charts with regular text will find Pathagoras to be an incredible tool. Figure 4. DropDown lists display in the Menu area. (5 DropDown lists are displayed here.) Because you are always working in Word, you don t need to stop the assembly process in order to edit your work. You can edit any text, delete any text, and do anything you want to with text that you have called in during any step. Note: A Dropdown List is a document assembly tool. It presumes that you are building or adding to a new document. Only a copy (and never the original) of the selected item is inserted into the active document. But all formatting from the original is maintained. Advanced (and not so obvious) DropDown list features: At the foot of each dropdown list are a series of options that make each list even more useful and flexible. Here is what you will see when you scroll to the bottom: DropDown Lists 4 Last Revised 2/19/07

5 «Open Folder»: Don t navigate to the folder to see its full contents. Just click this item and you will be taken directly to it. Open documents, edit them, resave them. All from this one line. «Save Doc To Folder»: Let s say that you have created (or copied from another source) a new document and that you want to save it to the folder that is the source of the DropDown List. Simply click this entry and you be taken there. No navigation. (If the book is a glossary, this item will read «Add H lighted Text». Same idea. Same ease of use.) «Virtual Checksheet»: Create a Clause Selection Screen from the entries in the DropDown List. Very helpful when you want to quickly select and assemble multiple items in the list. Imagine document assembly of image files. Or WordPerfect files! Also very helpful if you want to create a sub-set of this list. Create the Clause Selection Screen, select just the clauses you want and choose the Create Dropdown List option from the Clause Selection Screen. Instantly, you have a shorter dropdown list containing a hand picked selection of terms. «Copy to CPP»: If you have purchased multiple licenses and established a Pathagoras Network, you will be shown this option which, if pressed, will upload the information in this DropDown List to the Common Profiles Path. From there, other users can download the List. «Tree Service On»: A tremendously powerful and exceptionally useful feature available only in Version 12+. Turn Tree Service on and the dropdown list will contain not only all files in the selected folder, but links to all sub-folders beneath the parent. Click the subfolder and the list will then contain the files within the selected sub-folder. Navigation (actually, it is absence of navigation) has never been easier. «Create Printout»: Need a hard copy of the contents of the dropdown list? Click this entry to transfer the information to a Word document for editing/printing. «Refresh»: If you have added more items to the folder or glossary, refresh the list to include the new additions. It takes just a second or two. «Delete»: Delete dropdown list from the display. «Wider» & «Narrower»: Adjust the width of the display with these buttons. List information: If you click either the first or the very last entry in the list, you will see a page of information regarding the list. It may be helpful in determining any unusual behavior of the list Alternative method to create a DropDown List. You can also create a dropdown list from the Clause Selection screen. There is a radio button just for that purpose. While the immediately preceding method will place all items in the book into a drop down list, this allows you select the specific items you want in the list. DropDown Lists 5 Last Revised 2/19/07

6 Figure 5. Create DropDown List of selected elements in book. Last words: Because you can so easily create, delete and recreate DropDown Lists, don t get hung up on how best to create one. Just do it, and just play with them until you get the hang of it all. Keep the following points in mind: Pathagoras doesn t care whether a DropDown List contains links to complete documents, to individual clauses, to pictures, spreadsheets, PDF files, or whatever. If Word has the capacity to insert a particular kind of file, it can be fed into a DropDown list. By the same token, if Word cannot import it, then it cannot be the contents of a DropDown list. Take advantage of your lists, and the assembly speed then allow, by using all 10 DDLs available. Perhaps one DDL would contain links to basic (skeletal) form documents. In the next DDL you might have a listing of individual clauses that are potential filler for the skeletal form. DDL #3 might contain images to which you want to have point and click access. And DDL #4 might contain other clauses on the same or a completely different subject. Flexibility is the name of the game here, and Pathagoras provides the ultimate in flexibility. DropDown Lists 6 Last Revised 2/19/07