Loading documents to Bundledocs

Introduction

If there is a civil legal dispute which has resulted, or may result, in litigation, you can use the Bundledocs system to store copies of relevant documents which you may find on your computer or phone, or in your paper files, or elsewhere. The Bundledocs system provides a convenient repository for the document copies and allows lists of documents and indexed eBundles of documents to be produced as required.

First of all create a Bundledocs "bundle", with the following options specified:

Display Date Format d MMM yyyy

Show Document Date on Screen

Apply source orientation on upload

apply OCR on upload

apply OCR to existing documents 

Page Size - A4

Zoom Level - Inherit

To load a document to the bundle, sign on to Bundledocs (which you can do from any device - phone, tablet or computer), then tap on the bundle, tap the Add Documents button and navigate to the document to be uploaded (see video). Alternatively simply drag and drop the document into Bundledocs.

Bundledocs Columns

When you first display a list of documents on Bundedocs there are two columns: Document Date on the left and Document Description on the right. When loading documents to Bundledocs you need to ensure that each column is correctly filled in.

Document Date column

Bundledocs usually sets the Document Date column for a document automatically using the file date/time but there are some document types where an electronic "original" does not exist (e.g. paper documents which you are only now scanning in where the original is paper not electronic) and in these cases you may have to type in the date of the original document as shown in the document itself. This is explained further below where it applies.

You should set the default Display Date Format in Bundledocs to d MMM yyyy (see video) as that is the format to use for most documents. For those documents for which it is not appropriate (e.g. JPG photos which have a time as well as a date) you can change the Display Date Format to d MMM yyyy HH.mm.ss immediately after loading the document, by tapping the Update Document button (see video).

Document Description column    

The Document Description you type in should be concise but should be sufficient, with the Document Date, to enable anyone to identify the document as shown in the example below.

Loading Paper Documents

To load a paper (or card) document to Bundledocs, scan it in as a PDF with a descriptive name including date like this

Letter Smith to Jones 21 Sep 2020.pdf

and load the PDF by tapping the Add Documents button (see video) or simply by dragging and dropping it into Bundledocs.

Note: always use a three letter short form for the month as shown in the example above, rather than e.g. 21 Sept 2020 or 21 September 2020,  so that Bundledocs  will automatically recognise the date , and fill in the Document Date column, when you load the document (as well as the Document Description being set to the filename).  

Once the date column has been automatically filled in the Bundledocs Date column you don't need the date (21 Sep 2020 in this example) at the end of the Document Description as well so it can be edited out (if you don't edit it out then the bookmarks generated by Bundledocs will have the date at the end twice which looks untidy and makes then slightly more difficult to read due to line wrap).   

21 Sep 2020         Letter Smith to Jones   

If the paper document is a letter with documents attached (or enclosed) you should scan in the letter and each attached document as separate PDFs. Load the letter PDF first, then go to Document Settings - Advanced, tap Choose Document to Upload and load the each attached document PDF as a sub-document.

21 Sep 2020         Letter Smith to Jones   

If a document is bound - e.g. a report -  and you can only scan one page of the document at a time, your scanner software should allow you to combine several scans into a single PDF which you can then load to Bundledocs. Before loading to Bundledocs, open the PDF and check that all pages are the right way up: if any are not, rotate them until they are and save. If your scanner software does not allow you to combine scans in a single PDF you can produce a PDF for each scan and then merge the PDFs into a single multi-page PDF using standard PDF software (e.g. PDF X-Change Editor) before loading to Bundledocs. Note that Bundledocs has its own merge facility but it is best not to use that because if you load two separate pages to Bundledocs and then use the Bundledocs facility to merge them together, then although the both merged pages will appear when you display the document in Bundledocs, one of the pages will be missing if you use Bundledocs to generate a ZIP file of documents - so it is a trap for the unwary. If you need to do a merge use standard PDF software to do the merge before loading to Bundledocs.

If the document is a card photo see here for more detailed instructions.

Loading JPG Photos 

To load JPG photos to Bundledocs, you sign on to Bundledocs from the phone where the photos are and load the JPGs by tapping the Add Documents button as shown in the video below. See here for more detailed instructions. 

Loading Emails

1. Check that the Use Email Attachments Where Possible Account option is set in Bundledocs.

2. Temporarily set the bundle default Display Date Format in Bundledocs to d MMM yyyy HH.mm  (see video).

3. Download the emails to your device as EML or MSG files then load those EML/MSG files to Bundledocs as illustrated in the video below.

How you download emails to your device as MSG or EML files depends on the email system you are using. The video above shows emails being downloaded from Gmail on the web but there are other alternatives. 

1. You can log on to your email system on the web and download from there. Exactly how you do this depends on the email system but, for example:- 

• using Outlook Web App start a compose window, click and drag the emails into that window where they will appear as MSG files, then click on the download arrow on each MSG file. When you are finished you can cancel the compose window.

• using Gmail open each email in turn, tap on the three dots, and select download message    

2. You can use an email app on your device. Exactly how you do this depends on the app but, for example:-

• Using the Email app on a Samsung phone, open each email in turn, tap of the three dots, and select save email as file

• If you are using Outlook on a Windows computer you don't actually need to download the emails first - you can simply click-and-drag them straight into Bundledocs.

When you have finished loading all the emails to Bundledocs change the bundle default Display Date Format back to d MMM yyyy which is the normal Display Date Format for most document types (other than emails and JPG photos) - see video. 

For each email you have loaded you need to edit the Document Description to include sender and recipient names as shown in the example below.

If any of the emails you are loading have attachments, they will appear in Bundledocs as sub-documents.

You don't need to (and generally should not) edit the filenames in the Document Description for attachments: just leave them with the names they had when they were sent by email - Letter and Contract in the above example - so that they continue to match the names of attachments as stated in the header of the email message. 

Loading Instant Messages

Systems for sending instant messages - e.g. SMS text messages or WhatsApp messages - typically do not have any facility to download individual messages (unlike email messages which can each be downloaded as individual EML or MSG files) but you can page to a message on your phone screen and take a screenshot. 

Before taking the screenshot turn your phone to the horizontal position so that you capture a "landscape" image. The method used to take a screenshot on a device depends on what model it is but on iPhones it is usually pressing the home button and power button at the same time. On Android devices it is often pressing the volume down button and power button at the same time. The screenshot takes a JPG or PNG image of what the phone's screen is displaying at the time. If the message you want to capture is longer than can be seen in the screen at one time you can, when taking the screenshot, press the scroll down button three or four times to capture several screens' worth of text.

You can capture more than one message in a screenshot and you might want to do that if there there are two or three relatively short related messages - for example if there is a request and a response, or a query followed by an explanation. But you should not capture more than 6 screens' worth of landscape text in a single screenshot as that will be about the size of an A4 portrait page. If you capture more than 6 phone screens into a single JPG or PNG then if it is subsequently fitted to A4 size characters may be too small to easily read.

Note that if a text message is quite long, the messaging app might initially just display the first 20 lines, for example, followed by ...Read More. In this case, of course, you need to tap on "Read more" so that the entire message is displayed before doing a screenshot.

Some messaging apps show the time and date on the first message of each day but for subsequent messages, later on in the day, only show the time. In this case you might need to capture the first message of the day, even if it is not itself relevant, in order to be able to demonstrate the date of those messages which show only the time. 

Some messaging apps display the date of recent messages as "Today", "Yesterday", "Tuesday", "Monday", etc. and only display the full date for messages over 7 days old. In this case, if you want to capture messages less than a week old, you would need to wait until they are over a week old in order to capture the full date.    

Create a PDF copy of the scrolling screenshot JPG or PNG (using standard PDF software such as PDF X-Change Editor) giving the PDF a filename which includes the date and time of the first and last message it contains e.g. Messages between Smith and Jones 13 Jun 2023 13.51 to 18.41 and then load the PDF to Bundledocs by signing in to Bundledocs and tapping the Add Documents button as shown in the video below.

As well as allowing text messages to be sent, most messaging services allow files to be sent which usually appear as thumbnails (which can be tapped to download the file). It will usually be necessary to load the file separately to Bundledocs using whatever method is appropriate for the file type.

Loading Documents obtained from Public Sources

You may be able to obtain some relevant documents to load from public sources

Loading Other Documents

There are some particular things to bear in mind about loading certain document types from your phone, tablet or computer.

Checking the documents' descriptions once you have loaded them

Check the Document Description and amend as necessary for each document you have loaded (see video). 

When checking the Document Description of a document you will probably need to view the contents of the document. To view a document in Bundledocs, you tap the preview button (on the far left of the document line) but the preview panel, which is then displayed, freezes the document line display underneath so that you can't update the document description while you have the preview panel open! The way round this problem is to tap the download source button at the top right of the preview panel. That will download a copy of the document to your computer which you can then open. You can then close the preview panel and amend the document description as necessary, viewing the contents of the downloaded document at the same time. If it saves time you can copy/paste selected words in the downloaded document into the Document Description field. 

When typing in the Document Description, the objective is that the description should be concise but should be sufficient (in combination with the Document Date) to enable anyone to identify the document.  It should not be more than 90 characters and will normally be much less than that.

So, as an example, in the case of an email a concise description would indicate that the document is an email and give the names of the sender and recipient:

If there is only one person with the surname Smith and only one person with the surname Jones you can shorten the Document Description to Email Smith to Jones, but don't use just initials - Email JS to PJ - as the  Document Description you enter is the name which will eventually be seen by the judge (in the eBundle), if there are legal proceedings, and needs to be readily understandable. If the sender or recipient is a company with a long name such as The Blue Arrow Company (United Kingdom) Limited you can abbreviate this to e.g. Blue Arrow but don't use just initials unless, perhaps, if the initials are very well known such as M&S or BT.

Check dates as well   

If you have followed the instructions above the dates of all documents in the Bundledocs date column should be correct. Nevertheless it is worth checking, at the same time as you check the Document Description for each document, both the Document Date itself and the Display Date Format (see video). JPG photos, being timed documents, should have a Display Date Format of d MMM yyyy HH.mm.ss

Documents which are not timed, such as letters sent through the post, should have a Display Date Format of d MMM yyyy It is sometimes the case that only the month and year of a document is known (e.g. a Google Street View image) and in that case a Display Date Format of MMM yyyy can be used.

Sort into date order

Invariably chronological order is the best way of organising documents in a section so, once you have checked that all document dates are correct, sort into chronological order and save the order (see video).

Consider using a bookmarked PDF bundle to double check

When you think each document has the correct date and description you might want to go through all the documents in sequence to do a double-check. The quickest way to do this is to  is to generate a PDF "bundle" of documents  bookmarked with the date and description of each document and use that to do the checking, clicking on each bookmark in sequence. To generate a bookmarked PDF bundle, set the Zoom Level field for the bundle to inherit, then tap the Generate button and set a Bookmark Description Source of Source Code and enter a Bookmark Description Source Code of @Description (@Date) and untick Show Document Description on Documents. Then tap the Generate button at the bottom right of the panel. When the bookmarked bundle has been generated, tap the Download Bundle button to download the bookmarked bundle PDF.

If you find it easier to check on paper you can print a document bundle. If you are producing a PDF to print tick Show Document Description on Documents. Set a Document Description Source of Source Code and enter a Document Description Source Code of @Description (@Date) Then tap the Generate button at the bottom right of the panel. When the bookmarked bundle has been generated, tap the Download Bundle button to download the bundle PDF so that you can print it.

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 April 2024. Disclaimer