Tip #209 - Use a “Blank” Template to Create New Documents in Your Cases

Many of you are familiar with the regular Document Templates used to generate finished documents in SmartAdvocate. Occasionally, you may want to create a new document in a case, but do not need to have data from the case merged into the document, i.e., you want to write the content of the document from scratch. Additionally, you will want to have that new document saved to the file once completed.

Rather than creating the document outside of SmartAdvocate and then uploading it to the file, you may want to consider using a “blank” template instead. Using a template (albeit a “blank” one) eliminates the need to upload the document to the case after you have completed your draft.

How To Create The “Blank” Template
A blank template is created much the same way you would create any regular document template. The exception, is that this template will not have any content, i.e., no merge codes, no text, etc. Here’s a few easy steps to help you create it:

1. Open Microsoft Word to new document (blank page)

2. Access the SmartAdvocate plugin on the Word tool bar

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3. Click the “Save As” button (left hand side of the tool bar), and accept the default to Save As “Template”

4. Give the blank template a name, e.g., Blank Document

5. Choose a category and sub-category from the available dropdowns if necessary, although you may want to leave the Category as “All” since the template will most likely be used to create all different types of documents. The other items on the dialog box are optional.

6. Save the new template

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You will use the “Blank” template the same way you will use any other regular template to generate a document. The only different is that when the Blank template is used you will need to type or copy and paste the desired text into the document when it opens.

Helpful Tip
You may want to give the final document a name when the dialog box opens and the document starts to “merge”, since the resulting document will have the name “Blank Document” or whatever name you gave the template. This would also be a good time to indicate who the document is going to, and also to supply the final Document Category and Sub-Category.

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