When a witness is making and signing their statement, they will have in front of them a copy of each document they refer to in the statement. They will identify the document by description and usually also by an exhibit mark - e.g. "...the letter I sent him on 25th March 2024: I refer to the letter marked PMJ21". The exhibit mark might be in the form PMJ21 (the 21st document referred to in the statement of Paula Mary Jones) or it might be in the form R12 (the 12th document listed in the Respondent's statement of case). As a consequence of seeking to avoid duplication in the eventual eBundle, and of seeking to place a single copy of each document in its logical position, a copy of each document referred to in a statement will not immediately follow the statement in the eBundle: a single copy will be in the appropriate position in a chronological section elsewhere within the eBundle. So each mention of an exhibit mark in statements should be hyperlinked to the relevant document within the eBundle so that the user, when reading through a statement within the eBundle, can quickly bring up each document referred to. To save the laborious task of manually setting up a hyperlink for each mention of an exhibit mark, automatic hyperlinking is desirable but sometimes hyperlinking automatically is not easy to do...
You might come across the situation where one statement uses references which are not suitable for automatic hyperlinking. For example a Statement of Case might not have document references in the text but just have a numbered list of the documents referred to at the end. Or a Statement of Case might refer to documents in the text just by a number 1, 2, 3, etc. so that any attempt at automatic hyperlinking based just on a digit would pick up too many random occurrences.
In this, and other situations where automatic hyperlinking is not possible, you can, as a second best, automatically add sub-bookmarks under the bookmark for the statement in question so that the reader, when reading through the statement in the eBundle, can tap on each sub-bookmark in the bookmarks pane to the left each time they come across a reference when reading through the statement displayed in the main pane on the right.
To create the sub-bookmarks you first need to decide on a format for the sub-bookmarks which identifies the statement concerned by a prefix and also allows each sub-bookmark to be matched with the corresponding reference in the statement. Some examples are given below.
If the Respondent's statement of case just has a numbered list of the documents referred to at the end, or if it refers to documents in the text just by a number 1, 2, 3, etc., you could create sub-bookmarks named R1 R2 R3 etc.
If documents accompany the statement of case with pagination - e.g. if there are, say, 30 documents accompanying a statement of case page numbered 1 to 40 (40 rather than 30 because some documents consist of more than one page) - then if each document has a serial number that should be used rather than than a page number but if the documents are not numbered and all there is available to use is the pagination then the page number of the first page of each document could be used. For example you could use A1 A4 A6 etc. if the first document accompanying the Applicant's statement of case is three pages long, and the second document is two pages long, etc. In this case the numbers will not be consecutive but it is better to use numbers actually quoted in the statement of case - so that it is possible to cross-refer - even though they are not consecutive, rather than create a wholly new consecutive numbering system.
To add such sub-bookmarks to a statement bookmark you can use the following procedure: -
Ensure that the relevant prefixed number appears at the end of the bookmarks of each of the target documents.
Temporarily add a header using Organise - Header and Footer - Add and selecting a macro of Bookmark Title and a distinctive colour and font.
Select one of the prefixed numbers at the top of a sample page.
Then choose Bookmarks - from page text and, in the panel, select add the new bookmarks tree to the existing one and Location... Before and ignore consecutive duplicate bookmarks. Then tap Add and Text Matching Options and in the panel tap Get style from selected text tick Match Text Case... no restrictions tick Match text pattern and enter an appropriate pattern such as \bR\d{1,2}\b Then tick Match text case and Limit bookmark title to matching pattern only and tap OK. Tap Title Formatting and in the panel tick insert text before each title and enter doc followed by a space. Tap OK. Tap OK.
The sub-bookmarks will then appear at the top of the bookmarks pane. Select all the sub-bookmarks and move them together underneath the bookmark for the statement. Then select the bookmark for the statement and choose Bookmarks - sort and, in the panel, select Sort bookmarks alphabetically and Use bookmarks...children of selected and Sorting type... ascending. Then tap OK.
Remove the header using Organise - Header and Footer.
If a witness statement refers to an exhibit which contains more than one document then the statement is likely to quote the page number within the exhibit of each document referred to like this:
The first invoice I received was dated 1 May 2015. I refer to a paginated collection of invoices marked JJS12 - this invoice is on page 1. The next month I received an invoice dated 15 June 2015. A copy if this invoice is on page 3 of exhibit JJS12...
To create the sub-bookmarks you could use tags like this
JJS12.1
JJS12.3 etc.
assigning each document a starting page number suffix.
In this situation to add sub-bookmarks to a statement bookmark you can use the following procedure: -
Ensure that the relevant prefixed number appears at the end of the bookmarks of each of the target documents.
Temporarily add a header using Organise - Header and Footer - Add and selecting a macro of Bookmark Title and a distinctive colour and font.
Select one of the prefixed numbers at the top of a sample page.
Then choose Bookmarks - from page text and, in the panel, select add the new bookmarks tree to the existing one and Location... Before and ignore consecutive duplicate bookmarks. Then tap Add and Text Matching Options and in the panel tap Get style from selected text tick Match Text Case... no restrictions tick Match text pattern and enter an appropriate pattern such as \bJJS12\.\d+\b Then tick Match text case and Limit bookmark title to matching pattern only and tap OK. Tap Title Formatting and in the panel tick Search and replace bookmark title with text patterns enter a Search For of ([A-Z]{2,3}\.)(\d+) and a Replace by of Exhibit $1 page no $2 tick Match Text case and Use regular expressions and tap OK. Tap OK.
The sub-bookmarks will then appear at the top of the bookmarks pane. Select all the sub-bookmarks and move them together underneath the bookmark for the statement. Then select the bookmark for the statement and choose Bookmarks - sort. In the panel select Sort bookmarks alphabetically and Use bookmarks...children of selected and Sorting type... ascending. Then tap OK.
Remove the header using Organise - Header and Footer.
Disclaimer
This information page is designed to be used only by clients of John Antell who have entered into an agreement for the provision of legal services. The information in it is necessarily of a general nature and will not be applicable to every case: it is intended to be used only in conjunction with more specific advice to the individual client about the individual case. This information page should not be used by, or relied on, by anyone else.
The information on this page about specific computer techniques is provided for information purposes only. Every reasonable effort has been made to ensure that the information is accurate and up to date at the time it was written but no responsibility for its accuracy, or for any consequences of relying on it, is assumed by me. You should satisfy yourself, before using any of the techniques, software or services described, that the techniques are appropriate for your purposes and that the software or service is reliable.
This page was lasted updated in June 2025. Disclaimer