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 - a prefixed number - 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 most courts and other tribunals require each mention of an exhibit mark in statements to 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.
Hyperlinking manually can be a laborious task particularly if there are many statements and each statement refers to many documents. I am told (June 2025) that an automatic hyperlinking feature is planned for the eBrief Ready system but as of now (or if you are not using eBrief Ready or a system with similar facilities) then it is possible to hyperlink automatically using ordinary PDF software as explained below.
In order to be able to hyperlink automatically you need to ensure that each document within the eBundle which is referred to in any statement has its exhibit mark at the end of its bookmark. There can be more than one exhibit mark in a document's bookmark, each one separated by spaces, if the same document is referred to in more than one statement with different exhibit marks.
Ensure that each exhibit mark appears in a bookmark followed with a space. You can do this by adding exhibit marks to the end of the document name before the eBundle PDF is generated. If you are using the Bundledocs system, another way of achieving this is to enter the exhibit marks in the Custom Text field of each document and specify a Bookmark Description Source Code (Document) of @Customtext.
Create the hyperlinks from the bookmarks using PDF software. For example, if you are using PDF X-Change Editor you can choose Bookmarks - Create Links and in the panel select Use Bookmarks... all bookmarks, untick Create links on top of others tick Match only full words and choose a page range which just includes witness statements - not any other documents nor any index pages in the eBundle. Enter a Match Text Pattern of ([A-Z]{2,3})(\d{1,2})\b and tap OK.
Note 1 If some documents are referred to - e.g. in a statement of case - using an exhibit mark where the prefix is a single letter - e.g. R1, R2, R3, or A1, A2, A3 etc. - then you can use the same procedure as above but using ([A-Z]{1,3}\d{1,2}) instead of \([A-Z]{2,3})(\d{1,2})\b
Note 2 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 situation although the above procedure will not add hyperlinks in that particular statement, you can, as a second best, if you are using Bundledocs, after doing the above procedure to add hyperlinks to other statements, automatically add sub-bookmarks named with a prefixed number 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 as they read through the statement.
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