I admit I’m typically a bit impatient and, in assembling forms in mndocs, just skip to what I call the magic “Finish” button, which sends all my data to my word processor. When I do that, I skip over the “End of Interview” screen, which actually has great optional features, particularly for folks who do not have Microsoft Word. Here’s an effort to make up for my haste.

What It Offers

The Default “End of Interview” Screen

By default, the “End of Interview” screen does a couple of things. It reminds you how many questions are unanswered and also gives you a few form or document assembly options. The default options allow you to send the assembled document to Microsoft Word (or WordPerfect), paste it into an open Microsoft Word document, or add some more options. Typically, you’ll send your data to your word processor, where you may do final editing. But, you also have the choice not to “close” the assembly window. What’s this mean? It means that can keep your HotDocs session going, usually so you can change or review your answers, even after your finished document is sitting there on your screen. That’s handy for making corrections without having to reinitiate the entire interview process.

Going Beyond the Defaults

The “End of Interview” Screen with All Options Available

As you can see from the “End of Interview” screen, there is an option to “Choose which buttons are displayed on this dialog.” That’s the real nuts and bolts of this screen, as there are a bunch of handy options to choose from:

• Send the assembled form document to Adobe Acrobat. This actually appearsas a default for form documents– those that produce a PDF. It’s the same as sending a document to your word processor, except the end result is a PDF. No earth-shaking cool stuff here.
• Copy the assembled document to the Clipboard. Not sure why you would want to do this, but, hey, it lets you copy the content of your document to your clipboard, where you can access it later to paste it into something else.
• Save the assembled document in a file. This one is pretty handy, especially for WordPerfect users who have issues with the formatting of forms (we talked about this here). By saving the assembled document to a file, usually a Rich Text Format (.rtf), you can then view that document in WordPad or Microsoft WordViewer, without having a copy of Microsoft Word on your computer. With the about-to-be released Microsoft Office “Web Apps,” it may even allow you to upload the .rtf file to web apps and edit it online as if it were (and really is) a Microsoft Word file. Pretty nifty.
• Save the assembled document as a PDF. This is a pretty nifty feature if you don’t need to edit a document and just want it available as a PDF. With the built-in PDF driver in HotDocs, you can simply produce some of your forms in PDF for viewing by clients and others.
• Close this window without saving the assembled document. We just got a question from a user about how simply to input data without producing a form. This is how. Choose this option and you’ll be prompted to save your answer file but otherwise no form will be produced. This is handy if you just want to complete the information you need for your form but are not quite ready to edit or produce it.

As you can see, HotDocs has plenty of options for those who are not always in a rush like me. Let us know if you have questions about how these work and I may also produce a quick video demonstrating how they operate.