Pay attention to your competitors, but pay more attention to what you’re doing.
When you look at your competitors, remember that everything looks perfect at a distance… even ominous. Even the planet Earth, if you get far enough into space, looks like a peaceful place.
But its our company, department, team… we need to watch more.
Our new version of iRedline will be showcased in the Esquire Innovations’ demo room and booth, #635 at the 2009 International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) conference, held August 24-27 in Washington D.C.
The new version allows users to compare PDF to PDF documents, or PDF to Word documents. The result can be formatted in a PDF or Word format.
iRedline was designed to enhance document comparison in Word by providing additional tools and flexibility to the native Compare and Track Changes tools. I feel the product’s popularity is due to iRedline’s ability to consolidate and provide shortcuts to frequently used and hard to find features, fix broken features, as well as add features that are missing in Word and that are crucial for attorneys and law firms.
In addition to the new document comparison features, the new version of iRedline also now preserves the Track Changes Options fidelity per document, rather than limiting it to the user’s machine, as Word does by default, which is an irritating thing Word does. Preserving the Track Changes Options follows our philosophy of Enhanced Native Architecture (ENA). ENA builds upon the user interface and features of the existing parent software application whenever possible. ENA keeps custom applications consistent with parent software native functionality. Result documents are simply Word documents with Track Changes, but those changes now retain the original scheme of the result document on any computer through which the document is being viewed, vs the changes formatted to the viewer’s Track Changes settings.
As more firms are upgrading to Office 2007 they are finding Word’s document comparison feature is more powerful and accurate than previous versions. Firms are starting to use the native Word Document Compare as an alternative to purchasing expensive 3rd party software that takes document comparison outside of Word and outside the user’s control. But as we all know native Word is missing some essential parts for law firms. iRedline fills these gaps by providing DMS integration and greater control over result documents.
Another enhancement available in the new iRedline version is advanced DMS integration (right-click from the DMS, and attachments and related documents) for OpenText and Interwoven and We aren’t stopping there. In the near future iRedline will be integrated with Worldox, Prolaw and NetDocuments.
Currently we are holding webinar training for the new version for users of iRedline. The response from the trainings has been positive, with one law firm IT manager writing, “I know the attorneys/staff will appreciate the new features.
iRedline was first introduced in 2003 and has become a product of choice by law firms. Users of the product, particularly those already familiar with Word’s Compare and Track Changes options, report that iRedline is extremely simple, and that the enhancements to Word saves time and increases productivity.
In addition to the new features, some of the features iRedline adds to native Word include:
The new Review Tab in Word 2007’s Ribbon is a big improvement over previous versions of Microsoft Word’s toolbars. The buttons make more sense and features that were buried in the old Word toolbar are more accessible.
Word 2007 Irritant
What happened to the Text Highlight button? It’s now on the Home tab, but it needs to be on the Review tab, because it’s part of the review process. I can “almost” see the Proofing group, but why place it in front of the Tracking Options. These are ancillary tools and should’ve been placed to right of the tracking options.
Since the inception of Microsoft Word for Windows (15+ years!), Track Changes has been analogous to scratching a chalkboard with your fingernails (now that’s an old analogy) or using a felt pin as a whiteboard marker. Most trainers (back in the day) and even some industry pundits (who taught and wrote about best practices for Word) told users not to use them. I never understood that, because from the very first I saw Track Changes as an incredible collaborative benefit to the legal market… then as now… “I was just a loose noisy cannon”.
Around 1999 we (Esquire Innovations, Inc.) began working on iRedline, which I envisioned as a Microsoft Word Comparison tool that would take Microsoft’s built-in features, such as Tracked Changes to completely new level. Moreover, it has taken a very long time for the market to “get it”, and now iRedline is being treated as a new comer to comparison market, because it enhances Tracked Changes so significantly, and now everyone (well almost everyone) loves Word’s Tracked Changes.
I believe this “track change” negativity stemmed from two misunderstood ideas. First, tracked changes were “bad”, because it contained metadata. This concerned was easily taken care back in Microsoft Word 97 (SR2 ’99) with the “Remove Personal Information setting” and metadata management products that came out around 1999, such as Esquire’s iScrub and Paine Consulting’s Metadata Assistant.
Second, Track Changes are inaccurate and easily corrupted the document. If tracked changes were turned on during the editing process, Tracked Changes were EXTREMELY accurate. As far as corrupting a document, I believe that rumor was started by vendors who wanted to sell “fix the document” products, when the problem was really too much direct formatting, 1000-year-old documents converted to Microsoft Word and not using styles as a best practice.
Stay tuned in… over the next several weeks I will showing you how to use Tracked Changes and how iRedline enhances the whole process.
