Common Confusions

In HotDocs there are a some features which, while working as expected, may at first seem counter intuitive. The following is a list of common confusions and known issues:

Template Development

Microsoft Word Features that Cannot Be Used with HotDocs

Microsoft Word 2016 Right-click Menu Restrictions

Using Smart Returns

Clauses and Clause Libraries

Using Multiple Choice Merge Text

Ampersands in Variable Prompts

ASSEMBLE instructions must be included in the template as well as in the interview script

Template Uploading

Template ID Conflicts

Document Assembly

Problems with Text Pushing Too Far to the Left Side of the Assembled Document

Enabling Update table of contents, references, fields etc in HotDocs Server templates

Using the /nw Command-line Switch with the /of Switch Does Not Support Converting a Document to PDF

Work Around

Known Issues

Browser Interviews

See the Troubleshooting section of this help file to resolve other issues you encounter.

Template Development

Microsoft Word Features that Cannot Be Used with HotDocs

There are a couple of Microsoft Word features that are not supported in HotDocs templates. To avoid errors, we recommend you remove the following features from your documents before converting them into templates:

• Mail merge
• Smart quotes

Microsoft Word 2016 Right-click Menu Restrictions

Due to a change by Microsoft, custom right-click menus are no longer possible in Microsoft Word 2016. As a result, right-clicking on HotDocs fields within Word templates will no longer present a custom menu allowing you to edit the field or related component. This is unfortunate, but expected, behavior. HotDocs fields can still be edited by double-clicking in Word, and fields and components cat still be edited using the HotDocs ribbon in Word as well.

Using Smart Returns

We recommend becoming familiar with how HotDocs uses smart returns after inserting an instruction, before you develop any complex templates with multi-level lists. The way you set the smart returns options can alter the formatting in your assembled document. You can set your default options for smart returns at the HotDocs Options dialog box.

Clauses and Clause Libraries

HotDocs Clauses and Clause Libraries are an old feature which we do not recommend relying upon for your template functionality.

Using Multiple Choice Merge Text

If you are using merge text in a computation variable, make sure you remember to use quotations around the multiple choice variable name otherwise you will be using the option text. For example using «MCVariable» will use the option text in the assembled document but using "«MCVariable»" will use the merge text.

Ampersands in Variable Prompts

ASSEMBLE instructions must be included in the template as well as in the interview script

To ensure that templates are added to, and remain in, the assembly queue, you should include identical ASSEMBLE instructions in both your interview and template scripts. This way, no matter which script HotDocs processes last, it will put the desired templates in the assembly queue.

Template Uploading

Template ID Conflicts

When uploading multiple templates, you may encounter an issue with duplicate template IDs. If two or more templates share the same template ID, HotDocs generates an error message alerting you to the problem, and specifying the templates that are in conflict.

A conflict of this sort most often occurs in cases where you copy a template (whether using Widows Explorer, or HotDocs native copy a template feature) to avoid recreating all the components in the accompanying component file. Since HotDocs assigns a unique ID to each template, merely copying a template to another location in this way, and even renaming that copy, does not change the template ID. In such cases, you end up with two templates, each with the same ID number. The proper method for creating a copy is to use HotDocs to create a new template based on an existing template.

You can fix the problem that caused the error message by following the steps below:

To change a template ID number

1. In the HotDocs Developer library, select the template whose ID you want to change.

2. On the right side of the toolbar at the top of the library, click Component Manager; then just below the Save icon, click Component File Properties.

3. On the General tab, to the right of the Template Identifier box, click New. This updates the template ID.

4. Repeat until you resolve all ID conflicts; then try uploading again.

Document Assembly

Problems with Text Pushing Too Far to the Left Side of the Assembled Document

Templates developed in Word 2007 with smart tags enabled can display text incorrectly. This results from a bug in Microsoft's Open XML Format SDK. If you have templates automated from documents developed in Word 2007, be sure to remove the smart tags in your templates  or ask your template developer to resolve this problem.

Enabling Update table of contents, references, fields etc in HotDocs Server templates

On the HotDocs Server tab of Component File Properties, if you enable Update table of contents, references, fields, etc option, you may find that it does not produce exactly the same results as the desktop option of the same name on the Assembly tab. Unlike in desktop HotDocs, using this feature with server is known to occasionally alter or lose advanced formatting features in the assembled document. Not enabling this feature removes the chance of this error occurring but you loose the ability to dynamically update the table of contents, references, fields etc in the interview. If you choose to use this feature when converting a template for use with HotDocs server, we recommend testing all features that previously relied on the desktop version of this option.

Using the /nw Command-line Switch with the /of Switch Does Not Support Converting a Document to PDF

Known Issues

The following issues are known and are either not addressable by HotDocs as they originate in external software or are planned to be resolved the future releases. In the meantime you can use the workarounds listed below:

• Multiple choice variables populated using a SET instruction do not differentiate between upper and lower case when you edit an answer in the interview. For example, the multiple choice variable won't honour changing the answer "JOHN DOE" to "John Doe". It continues to display the uppercase answer until you make a character change, only then does it recognise you have typed in a new answer. To avoid this problem you need to add an ERASE VAR instruction to the beginning of your computation, rather than using CLEAR VAR. For example, a computation like this would honour the changes between upper and lower case:

ERASE MCVariable

ADD Txt1 TO MCVariable

SET MCVariable TO Txt1

• Double ampersand is not escaped correctly in the dialog title when the Combine Default Dialogs option is selected. When the Combine Default Dialogs option is on, HotDocs takes the variable title, for example "R&&D", and instead of correctly escaping the first ampersand, so it appears in the interview correctly as "R&D", it appears incorrectly as "RD". To avoid this issue it is best to not use Combine Default Dialogs if you want to use ampersands in your dialog titles and instead create your own dialogs using the component file.