XpressDox Document Assembly » Getting Started

Less paste, more speed

Chris — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 08:12:29 +0000

Do you know most international accounting practices rely on Document Assembly technology? They use Document Assembly to solve a problem they have in common with you: How to produce lots of documents as efficiently as possible.

Your profession is paper-intense. Every day your office may produce hundreds, if not thousands, of standard letters and other more complex documents. And in most cases these documents are produced by cutting and pasting from precedents or pre-existing documents.

The embarrassing problem is that sensitive information from an old document may be left in the new one, or client information may be transposed inaccurately by hand. This method of working is extremely inefficient and prone to error. And without care grammatical and spelling mistakes also creep in, which apart from inconsistent formatting, add to make your documents look unprofessional.

But imagine having Microsoft® Word linked to your live client data, whether it's stored in Outlook, Excel, SQL, or even your accounting or CRM system. Then each time a letter is required simply run the appropriate template, choose the client from a list, and instantly and accurately all pertinent information is merged into your new document.

What about more complex documents, like financial statements? The process is exactly the same, and your client's latest financial figures are included directly from your database in a fraction of the time it would take you to produce their statements manually. And your XpressDox template can include and exclude individual Notes to the Financial Statements based on its advanced document logic capabilities.

All this minimises errors, ensures your firm's latest letterhead is used, and speeds up document production. This functionality can be purchased outright, or rented for as little as R50 per user per month excluding VAT.

If you are interested in seeing what Document Assembly can do for your firm, download a trial copy of XpressDox. (You'll need Microsoft® Word 2003 or later to run XpressDox.) Then, if you would like to know more about the product, or arrange an online demonstration, email me at chris@xpressdox.com.

Document Assembly is no longer a “nice to have” for your profession—it is one of the few real ways left to increase productivity and enhance your firm's image!

Last chance to introduce a friend

Peter — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:29:39 +0000

There's only 1 day left. Yes, the XpressDox special offer ends tomorrow.

How can you benefit? Simply introduce a friend to XpressDox, and if he or she downloads a trial version before the end of March 2010, we'll give you a full commercial licence worth $149, as our special gift to you.

Hurry! This special offer ends tomorrow March 31, 2010. Here's the link again.

Reminder to introduce a friend

Chris — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 12:49:33 +0000

This is just a short note to remind you that there's only 15 days left to cash in on the XpressDox special offer.

How do you benefit? Simply introduce a friend to XpressDox, and if he or she downloads a trial version before the end of March 2010, we'll give you a full commercial licence worth $149, as our special gift to you.

Hurry! This special offer ends on March 31, 2010. Here's the link again: http://www.xpressdox.com/introduce-a-friend/.

Share your productivity secret with a friend

Chris — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:37:25 +0000

You've known about XpressDox for a while now, and already you have benefitted from its powerful document automation features. Isn't it time to share your productivity secret with someone you know?

Introduce a friend to XpressDox, and if they download a trial version we'll give you a full commercial licence worth $149, as our special gift to you.

Hurry! This special offer ends on March 31, 2010. Here’s the link again: http://www.xpressdox.com/introduce-a-friend/.

Best regards
Chris Pearson

A fear of apples

Peter — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:45:56 +0000

In a recent post author and agent of change Seth Godin describes how, in our industrialized world, people become fearful of all sorts of things, even apples. They’re afraid to buy the wrong kind, to make a purchasing mistake, or "some kind of pie mistake," Seth says.

"People are afraid of tax accountants, iPods, chiropractors, non-profits, insurance brokers and fancy hotels. They’re afraid of anything with too many choices, too many opportunities to look foolish or to waste time or money."

At your own pace

It could be that you’re afraid to try document assembly for similar reasons. Perhaps you don’t know what it is or you’re afraid to waste your time and money. Here are some reasons why trying XpressDox Docussembly™ document assembly software shouldn’t raise your anxiety level:

You’re welcome to try a full product version of XpressDox Docussembly™ for free for as long as it takes for XpressDox to gain your trust.
Because your trial version is not constrained by time or features, you can evaluate it at your own pace.
XpressDox installs on your PC, so you don’t need server infrastructure knowledge (or permission) to use it.
XpressDox presents as an add-in to Microsoft® Office Word, so if you’re familiar with word processing you’ll feel right at home with this document assembly software.
In 5 minutes you can be filling your own simple templates, and move on to more complex document assembly applications as your trust and confidence grows.
And if you decide to use XpressDox Docussembly™ commercially, you’ll find it great value for money.
Plus you can use all the trial templates you’ve created, which means the time you spent evaluating XpressDox is not wasted.

So while you may be spoilt for choice at your local produce market, you should be in no doubt about trying XpressDox Docussembly™ document assembly software. There’s nothing to fear.

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Getting started with XpressDox

Peter — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:05:16 +0000

If you’re new to XpressDox Docussembly™, or to document assembly software, you may benefit from downloading and reading this quick start guide.

In it we briefly describe what is document assembly, how to create and run a sample template, the Template Author’s Toolkit, and more. You’ll find out how easy it is to use XpressDox Docussembly™ software to meet your document assembly needs.

Don’t have XpressDox Docussembly™ yet? Simply supply us with your contact details below and download your FREE! trial today.

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Docussembly™ in 4 easy steps

Peter — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:31:26 +0000

You’ll find that it is very easy to produce finished documents with XpressDox Docussembly™ document assembly software. There are only 4 steps to it:

Choose a template from your template library.
Run the template.
Type your answers.
Review your completed document.

Why not try it yourself? If you don’t have XpressDox yet, download it now by supplying your contact details below.

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Produce an assembled document in 4 easy steps with XpressDox Docussembly™

Quick start guide to XpressDox

Peter — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:44:12 +0000

With XpressDox Docussembly™ document assembly software you need only 4 steps to produce a complete document:

Open a new Microsoft® Office Word document, and then start typing your template document.
Wherever you want a data element, or variable, simply click on the ‘Insert Field’ button in the XpressDox menu.
Once you have your document set up, click on the ‘Save Template’ button in the XpressDox menu, and give your template a meaningful name.
To run your template, click on the ‘Run Template’ button in the XpressDox menu, then fill in the items on the form.

That’s how easy it is to produce a complete document in XpressDox Docussembly™.

Why don’t you give it a try? If you don’t have XpressDox Docussembly™ yet, fill out your contact details below to get your FREE! XpressDox trial today.

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6 ways to find help fast

Peter — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:03:40 +0000

If ever you get stuck in XpressDox Docussembly™ document assembly software and don’t know what to do, please remember that help is always close at hand. Here are 6 ways you can get help when you’re using XpressDox Docussembly™:

1. Template Author’s Toolkit. When you’re authoring templates the Template Author’s Toolkit is an ideal resource to consult.

From the XpressDox ribbon or toolbar click Toolkit > Template Author’s Toolkit to get the toolkit dialog to appear. Once you have located the command you require, double click on it to insert an example of the command in the template you’re working on. Simple!

And if you’d like to customize the commands with your own data element names before you insert them into your template, there are a number of wizards in the Template Author’s Toolkit to help you through the process.

2. Blog. Press the Help button or F1 function key at any time in the Template Author’s Toolkit and a search dialog will appear. Type in the name of the command you require more information on and you’ll be linked directly to the extensive reference material and help available on the XpressDox web site.

3. Frequently Asked Questions.If you have a more general question, the FAQ section is ideal place to find an answer.

4. Forum. XpressDox runs a support forum where users of XpressDox document assembly software can ask for help on specific issues, and members of the community can answer. This is a great way to tap into the wisdom of the XpressDox Docussembly™ community.

By the way, you don’t need to register on the forum before you’re allowed to post your question, but it would be great for the rest of the community if you did.

5. Sample templates. Sample templates, data sources, and configuration options have been installed in the My Documents\XpressDox\Samples folder and are intended to show some of the capabilities and features of XpressDox Docussembly™.

6. Email. And if you couldn’t be bothered with any of this, you’re welcome to send us an email and we’ll answer you just as soon as (super-)humanly possible!

So, although we hope you’re never stuck when using XpressDox Docussembly™ document assembly software, if ever you are please remember there are many ways to find help fast!.

An overview of XpressDox Docussembly™

An overview of XpressDox Docussembly™

Peter — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:07:33 +0000

(Download this overview as a .pdf document.)

Welcome to our quick tour of XpressDox Docussembly™, the remarkable new document assembly software system which will increase your productivity and change the way you produce your documents for ever!

Once you have installed XpressDox, it can be accessed from the Microsoft® Office Word ribbon or toolbar. The first thing you’ll notice about XpressDox is that Word loads faster, since it is loaded into memory on startup. So before you even begin harnessing the power of document assembly with XpressDox, you’ll already be saving time!

The XpressDox menu

Since many users will only be running templates, this icon is first in the list, closely followed by the productivity Utilities such as number to words. For those users who will create templates, the Template Author section contains any document template command you can think of.

One of strengths of XpressDox Docussembly™ is the fact that even novice users can create their own templates with very little training. In its simplest form, you can simply Insert fields into a Word document by clicking on this button:

or you can even type the fields into the document as text, like this <>. It is also really easy to open an existing Word document, and then add fields wherever you require them.

Once you have created your template, use the Save Template button in XpressDox to save it to the location of your choice. Then, select Run Template from the XpressDox menu, and that’s all there is to it.

Of course, as you become more proficient in using XpressDox Docussembly™, you’ll want to make use of more advanced commands, and there are a number of ways you can improve your XpressDox document assembly vocabulary.

The first step is to have a look at Common Tools in the XpressDox menu, or to click on the Tool Kit and use the Wizards that will create your commands for you. There’s also built in Help, which links you to www.xpressdox.com where you may access even more useful resources.

For example, there’s the XpressDox cookbook, and for advanced “Ninja’s” there’s the XpressDox user reference guide. If that still isn’t enough, you can always copy commands from the Sample Templates that ship standard with XpressDox, and paste them into your own template.

Template library

As you create templates, they are stored in a Template Library, and you can specify the directory or folder structure you require. In addition to a list of Recent Files and Folders, you can also save files to My Favourite Templates. In larger corporations, there may be separate areas for enterprise-wide templates and for your own templates, or alternatively the system administrator can restrict certain users to only be able to Run templates and use the Utilities.

Again, you’ll find that in the beginning you’ll simply let XpressDox do the thinking for you, and you can then create your own Template Library structure when you have a better idea of the structure you need.

Incidentally, by default XpressDox saves its templates and documents in Word 2003 .xml format, which means that you won’t have problems loading .docx (Word 2007) documents in Word 2003. With Word 2007 you also have the option of saving your documents as .pdf files.

Clause library

Another really powerful document assembly feature in XpressDox Docussembly™ is its Clause Library which allows you to create any number of clauses and place them in specified folders. Then, in XpressDox you can select all of the clauses you need for your document, and import them on-the-fly.

XpressDox also allows you to incorporate paragraph numbering into your clauses.

Number to words

It is still required in various parts of the world that numbers or currency amounts in certain documents need to have the number stated in words following the number in digits.

XpressDox includes a really powerful number to words conversion utility, which remembers your default settings for the next time you need it. This utility operates manually, or can be accessed through a document template.

Tool kit

The Template Author’s Toolkit will assist you to get the most out of XpressDox. In the left hand pane, you can view all of the XpressDox document assembly template commands, using Wizards to incorporate them in your template, or simply dropping the example into your document for editing outside of the Toolkit.

In the right hand pane, all of the fields you have used in your template are displayed, and simply by double clicking on a field name, you can add repeating fields to your template.

Dialogs

Another really exciting advantage of XpressDox Docussembly™ is that it creates its question and answer dialogs automatically, so you don’t need any programming skills to create them.

Simply add your fields to your template, and XpressDox will create your dialog when you run the template. It’s that easy!

If you wish, you can customize your dialogs by adding tabs for different sections of a template, or creating a section tree on the left-hand side of your dialog for repeating variables.

You’ll also have noticed that XpressDox generally makes use of simple fields, although it can also include multiple line fields, radio-button selection, lookup lists, date selection, and checkboxes.

It also goes without saying that XpressDox can handle any document assembly calculations you can come up with, without breaking into a sweat! If you look at the above example, you’ll notice another few buttons.

Save Merged Document allows you to save the completed document at run time. Use Previous Data allows you to re-use data you have captured to complete another document, or to Use Other Data which you have captured before, and saved for later use.

And you’ll be pleased to know that you can integrate XpressDox with virtually any database on the market, even going as far as completely integrating XpressDox Docussembly™into your own software application.

XpressDox configuration

Lastly, you can also customize your XpressDox environment, specifying which folders you will use for departmental templates, completed documents, and data.

In short, XpressDox Docussembly™ can be anything you want it to be – from an easy to learn document assembly software system for novice users through to a total document solution for advanced users and even programmers.

XpressDox Docussembly™– finally, the document assembly product you have been waiting for!