At a Glance: Assembly Tab (Component File Properties)

A

B

C

D

E

 

You can open the Component File Properties dialog box by first opening Component Manager and clicking the Component File Properties button on the toolbar. Click the Assembly tab at the top of the dialog box to access the options for document assembly.

In the text field A at the top of the page you can enter a product title that will appear in the assembly window title bar. If you leave this field empty, HotDocs will use the text HotDocs Developer 11.

Below that are a set of six check boxes B you can tick to set more assembly options:

  • Do not use answer files — Tick this box to keep users from saving their answers or using an existing answer file for this particular template. Once selected, this option causes the first information-gathering dialog to appear immediately after the template is selected for assembly and at the end of assembly users cannot save their answers.
  • Mark answers in assembled documents — Tick this check box to let users see their answers highlighted in the assembled Microsoft Word document. When you do this, HotDocs marks merge fields in the Document Preview tab — Users can then click the Highlight Answers button in the assembly window and answers will be highlighted with a special color.
  • Use variable names in summaries — Tick this box to have HotDocs use variable names instead of prompts when generating Question and Answer Summaries.
  • Enable Edit Answer at Document Preview tab — To let users edit answers while viewing the assembled document in the Document Preview tab (Microsoft Word users only) tick this check box. As users change answers, answers throughout the document (and interview) will be updated to reflect the change.
  • Move to the "TypeHere" bookmark — To position the cursor at a certain place in the document after it has been assembled check this box and create a word processor bookmark in the template. (See Position the Cursor in the Assembled Document.)
  • Update table of contents, references, fields, etc — Select this option to instruct HotDocs to update the document's table of contents and/or index after assembling the final word processor document. HotDocs updates these references based on any changes applied during document assembly.

The Update table of contents, references, fields, etc option on the Assembly tab requires a local installation of Microsoft word. This feature does not work with WordPerfect templates or templates on HotDocs Server.

From the drop-down list C you can select the placeholder you would like HotDocs to insert into the assembled document in place of any unanswered questions from the interview.

If you would like to specify a Word document template where you want to store your post-assembly macros click the Browse button next to the Post-assembly macro file (Word only) field D and locate the template that contains these macros. (See PLAY "MACRO" and Specify a Word Template for Storing Post-Assembly Macros for more information.)

Below this are two number fields E where you can set the Maximum WHILE iterations and the Maximum processing stack depth.

To prevent HotDocs from infinitely processing a WHILE expression, which will cause HotDocs to stop responding, type a number in the number field on the left. This number represents the number of times dialogs or variables in the template or script can be looped before HotDocs stops it from doing so.

To prevent HotDocs from infinitely recursing (or processing) a computation, which will also cause HotDocs to stop responding, type a number in the right hand number field. This number represents how many instructions you want HotDocs to allow in the processing stack. When HotDocs reaches this limit, the recursion will stop.

Recursion happens when a computation "calls" itself over and over until the desired result is achieved. For example, you can use a recursive computation to scan a text string, character by character, for a specific value. As HotDocs searches for this value, it adds information to the processing stack. If too much information gets added to this stack, HotDocs may stop responding.

There are further options available in the General, Interview, Hidden Data, HotDocs Server and Answer Upload tabs.