Transcript Bundle Creation

One of the services we provide for clients is the creation of linked transcript bundles which allow counsel to easily view supporting documents when they're mentioned in the body of the transcript.

These documents can be case law, exhibits, written arguments or other days of transcript from the trial.

This article explains how to create these useful bundles.

For information on how transcribers and reporters prepare Catalyst transcripts for bundling, see Transcript Bundles on the legal wiki.

There are several ways to create a transcript bundle, but the preferred software to use is first Adobe Acrobat, then Nuance PDF and then Catalyst. If you don't have access to one, at least you can use the instructions that follow to create the bundle in other software.

Begin by restoring the Catalyst file. You may wish to select all the days you're working on and right click them to set the “job status” to “in progress” so you can easily keep track of the days you have and haven't linked yet.

Create a folder where you'll be saving the PDFs. We recommend using cloud or network storage for this
(X: drive or Sync) to avoid the potential for disaster inherent in keeping your PDFs locally.

Ensure you have access to the exhibits, case law and other documents you'll need to link.

You may encounter “marked-up” PDFs created with a special electronic whiteboard (SMARTboard). These should be flattened for compatibility; otherwise (depending on their PDF software) counsel may not see the important markings.

The easiest way to flatten a PDF is to open it in a PDF reader, print to PDF and ensure that “Print as image” is selected in the options. Reopen it to check that it looks good before continuing.

If you do not have a PDF printer installed, Reportex IT recommends Bullzip, which is free and reliable.

Now that you have the transcript open, you may see a number of bracketed notations. If you do not see any brackets, follow the instructions that do not include brackets. Search for an open square bracket to ensure you have the correct version of the transcript: you should get a number of hits that are not “[sic]” notations.

A note about brackets: The [ ] notation should be added to an optional section of formatting that might need to take place. This would need to be ordered by the court to permit us to insert this type of notation. It shouldn’t be used in discovery or without a court order.

That being said, if there are brackets in the transcript, the brackets are where you will be placing most of your links, and they look like this:

MS. JONES:  It's exhibit 48, My Lord [EX 48].

Tip: Set up and memorize keyboard shortcuts. It's good to have “underline” and “insert an attachment point” mapped. We use “Ctrl + Shift + U” and “Ctrl + Shift + A,” respectively. Make sure “single-key accelerators” in selected under Edit > Preferences > General or keyboard shortcuts will not function.

Starting at the top of the document, search for an open square bracket. When you find one which indicates a link should be added, select the text inside the brackets, underline it, and set an attachment point (this is where keyboard shortcuts come in handy).

Next, double-click the attachment point (it should look like a small piece of paper). A browser window will pop up where you can navigate to the document you want to attach.

Tip: Linking all of a certain kind of document at once can help you avoid spending too much time browsing. For example, link all the exhibits, then link all the reference days of transcript, then link all the case law.

Starting at the top of the document, search for “exhibit” and find each heading where exhibits are marked. Select the text “EXHIBIT XX:” or “EXHIBIT XX FOR IDENTIFICATION:”, underline it and set an attachment point. Ensure you are placing the attachment point AFTER the “<new line paragraph>” code – the Reveal Codes window (Ctrl + Shift + R) will assist with this.

Once you've finished the exhibits, search for “document” if there are documents for ID.

Press F8 to go through the hidden text markers and see if there are any hidden text notes to attach files.

Next, search “submissions” and link submission headings (e.g. “Submissions for the plaintiff by Mr. Smith”). You may need to read the text of the transcript to see if there are written submissions. If there are not written submissions but an affidavit, application, or other document was clearly being discussed, link that!

If in the rare instance there's a reference to a document from the common book, the common book isn't being synced with OOD just because it's so massive and rarely used. Instead, just download the document from the Sync.com web interface.

Lastly, go through the entire transcript, page by page, to ensure you haven't missed anything. Catalyst search can be weird sometimes, and there are occasionally times when searching an item does not bring it up in search results. This error is particularly prevalent when searching for the word “exhibit,” for some reason.

At a minimum, link the following:

• Bolded EXHIBIT notations.
• Bolded transcript headings.
• Square bracket references [ ]
• Hidden text notes (though these should accompany a [ ] notation, but it’s possible that at some point it won’t, so it's always good to F8 for hidden text)

Another way to figure out what needs to be linked is to go through the Trial Exhibits and Documents folder in Sync (if you don't have access, ask Christy or Max for access) and open the appropriate folder for the trial you are working on and check the upload dates of new files. It is most often the newest files that you will be linking.

Once you've finished linking the transcript, print it to PDF using the built-in Stenograph printer driver, and ensure “include Attachments in PDF” is checked in the PDF Options area of the print dialogue.

Browse to the folder you created earlier and save the PDF there.

Some court days involve dozens or even hundreds of references which must be linked. Catalyst has an unfortunate design flaw in that it simply cannot handle more than a couple dozen attachments before it begins to burst at the seams. As far as we can tell, this is an issue with the amount of memory Catalyst is able to use – its ancient code is not able to use all the resources available to it on modern computers.

You will notice that Catalyst tends to freeze (usually temporarily, sometimes permanently, in which case you must force quit Catalyst) when linking attachments. The more attachments you link, the longer and more often Catalyst freezes, until eventually it stops working entirely. In this case you must use a different program to create the bundle.

Go through the transcript as though you were adding the attachments in Catalyst. Instead of setting attachment points, however, simply underline text to be linked.

Once you have done this, print the PDF as usual.

Open the PDF and go through the transcript, page by page, linking each instance of underlined text.

Click the Tools tab, then click the purple “Edit PDF” icon.

This opens the Edit PDF toolbar, which includes the Link tool.

On the right side of the screen, select the Attachments tab.

Click the “Add a new attachment” button. Navigate to the files you'd like to link and add them. They will not appear in order in the attachments tab if they are not already in order or if you do not add them in order alphabetically or numerically. To facilitate this, copy the files from Sync to your desktop, rename them so they will be in order (e.g. Exhibit 09, Exhibit 10) or just attach them one by one to the PDF file. If you make an error you can easily erase an attachment, but then when you add the next one, it may not be in order. Be careful and make copies of your files if you are worried about making an error so you don't have to re-attach every file again.

Once you have the attachments added to the PDF, click the “Link” tool in the Edit PDF toolbar and select the first option: “Add/Edit Web or Document Link.”

In the window which appears, ensure the following settings are selected:

Click Next, and a “Set link” window will appear. Double-click the PDF attachment you want to open. Navigate to the first page of the attachment, then click “Set link.”

Continue this process throughout the entire PDF.

Whenever there is a link in the document you will need to manually set it to open in a new window. If you do not, every link that is clicked will open in the same window and you won't be able to get back to the document you were working on without reopening it.

To set a link to open in a new window, right-click the link and select Edit Link.

Select Actions and Edit in the dialog box that appears. Select Open in a new window from the drop-down box. Do this for every link in the document.

You may find yourself most of the way through the transcript when you realize you need to add an underline.

Simply underline the text by clicking the “Selection” tool (black arrow) on the main toolbar, highlighting the text you want underlined and then clicking the underlined T button in the black pop-up toolbar. If this doesn't work for you you can use drawing tools to draw a line. Select “Tools,” and then “Comment.” Click “Drawing Tools,” then select the “Line” tool. Draw a horizontal line (hold Shift to make the line perfectly flat), then select it, click “Line Thickness” in the Comment toolbar, and click the gear icon to enter advanced settings. Set the line width to 0.25.

First, add every attachment to the file. Open the attachments panel (paperclip icon) to the left of the screen. Click the PLUS icon to add new attachments. Select all your attachments and add them here. Change the names if they are not appropriately descriptive and ensure they are ordered alphabetically. If they are not in order, copy them to your desktop from Sync, rename them and then attach them.

Select the Bookmarks panel on the left. Add a bookmark with the PLUS button. Name the bookmark appropriately.

Navigate to the appropriate section of the transcript and click the GEAR button on the Bookmarks panel. Select SET DESTINATION.

At the top of the screen, select EDIT, then LINK (chain icon). Draw a rectangle around the text you want to link. Ensure Link Type is set to Invisible rectangle (NOT visible). Under Link Action, select “Go to a page view.” Click next.

From the ATTACHMENTS tab on the right, open the attachment you want to link to and navigate to the top of the first page *while the “Create Go To View* window is open*. Click “Set Link.”

NOTE: Ensure that you are navigating to the attachment in the PDF, not the original file. In other words, for File X, you should be adding File X from your desktop as an attachment to File Y, then linking to the File X attachment inside File Y and *not* the copy of File X on your desktop.

Once you have created the bundle in Nuance you'll want to open it in Adobe Acrobat to set all the links to make sure they open up in new windows and to set the page view from the File > Properties menu to open with the Bookmarks panel visible.

When you generate a transcript in Catalyst, there is a glitch that puts the link roughly a single line above where it should be. This means you must manually move the links.¹⁾

Open your PDF in Nuance PDF Converter Professional. Click the “Select Object” tool (it looks like a mouse pointer).

Go through the list of bookmarks (links) on the left side of the screen. While “Select Object” is activated, the link boxes will be visible.

You can resize and drag the link boxes, but generally all you need to do is click a bookmark, click on the link box and hold Shift while pressing the down arrow twice to move it into place.

If there are multiple links on one line, you will need to move and resize the links manually. You should also do this if links are on consecutive lines to avoid having clients misclick.

Links are applied on top of each other, so if there is a link to exhibit 2 and exhibit 3 on a single line, the link box for exhibit 3 will be on top. Move it to the side and resize it, then do the same for the box underneath it.

You should be creating transcript bundles from QC'd PDFs that have been watermarked. If that is ever not the case, here are the instructions to add watermarks to the transcript bundle.

Transcript bundles must have watermarks. Create a text watermark in Nuance with the following properties:

• Type: Text
• Text: [ ] v. [ ] (January 1, 2018) - Transcript Bundle
  • Change the style of cause and date to the correct ones
• Font: Courier, size 10, black
• Position:
  • Anchor: left-bottom
  • X-margin: 1.50 inches
  • Y-margin: 0.75 inches

Apply this, followed by the standard watermark with our company name and phone number directly below it (Y-margin: 0.62 inches).

Once the bundle has been created, add the words “Transcript Bundle” to the end of the Catalyst file name, like this:

C06MAR17CP (S090663) Transcript Bundle

There are several options for delivering these files to counsel:

• If a shared Sync folder is being utilized with the parties, place the transcript bundles there.
• If there is no shared Sync folder then zip each individual day, name it (Day01_S090663_Bundle.zip, for example) and upload it to ReportexAgencies.com/files/. Send the reporter the links for downloading the bundles so that he or she can forward them on to counsel.

THE FOLLOWING TEXT WAS PULLED FROM THE LEGAL WIKI REPORTER'S INSTRUCTIONS

Before opening the QC'ed file in Catalyst, ensure you have the files to be linked handy. Note that your Catalyst file will use a local file structure, so you must ensure the files are kept where they will be once the final PDF bundle is created ²⁾.

If files are being provided by clients (e.g. in an e-trial), a Sync shared folder should be set up for them and the files should be linked from there. If the files are being provided after the fact, the files should be stored in OOD in the T (Transcripts) folder on the S: drive in the folder where the transcript in question will be permanently stored.

Open the proofed, QC'ed file in Catalyst. Ensure that no changes need to be made to the file, as you will need to either re-link everything or have to QC work from your bundle file if any changes have to be made.

Search for an open bracket to find any non-header links. If these are exhibits, ensure that they are not entered elsewhere under the EXHIBIT header. Once you have completed all non-header links, move to header links. Header links include:

• Exhibits
• Submissions
• Documents for ID

CHRISTY PLEASE ADD IF NECESSARY

When actually linking a file, you should first underline the appropriate text and then create an Attachment Point in Catalyst. Note that to make the text clickable when printed as a PDF, you must work around Stenograph's latest software update. The entire process is as follows:

• Highlight the text you want to link
• Press F4 (insert), then Shift + U (underline)
• Press Shift + F4 (insert dialogue), then select “Attachment Point”
  • You may want to remap Ctrl + Shift + A to “Insert Attachment Point” in your custom keyboard
• Double-click the attachment point to select your attachment
• Browse to where the attachment in question is stored and select “OK”
• You will then see a popup reading “The selected text does not contain an autolink alias; do you want to autolink anyway?”
  • Select “Yes”
• Deselect every checked box aside from that next to the text you want to link (double-check the page and line number to be certain)

Once you have completed linking text, select File → Print and print to PDF using the Stenograph PDF Printer driver. Ensure “Include Attachments” is checked. Save the PDF somewhere in your system where you can find it later, appending “BUNDLE” to the PDF filename.

Double-check the PDF bundle at this point. You should open it in Adobe Reader and note the following:

• There are no obvious duplicates
• Links can be double-clicked to open
• The PDF does not have any incorrect print settings applied (e.g. a watermark, timestamps, etc)

Send the completed PDF to QC, who will apply the standard discovery watermark.

QC should then send the finished transcript to the production director, who will create a folder for the transcript bundles in Sync under “Trial Exhibits and Documents,” place the transcript bundles in it, create Sync links, and email them to the client, BCC'ing the reporter.