View an Assembled Document in Markup View

If you are not a template developer, please click here for a brief explanation of template development terms. Understanding these terms will help you understand how the assembled document is marked up.

As you assemble Microsoft Word documents, there may be times when you want to assemble only a partial document and then submit it to an attorney or peer for revisions or corrections. To make the document easier for a non-HotDocs user to review, you can change the formatting of the document to Markup View and then provide the reviewer a copy of it.

When displaying markup, HotDocs replaces unanswered fields and instructions in the document with markup, which includes markers (such as brackets) and variable names. How the resulting markup fields look depend on the type of fields they are:

• Answer fields: By default, answer fields are marked using brackets. If the template developer has assigned a comment to the variable, the comment text may be used as the field name. If no comment is used, HotDocs will use either the title or the name the template developer assigned to the variable.
• Conditional and repeated text blocks: By default, conditional and repeated text blocks are marked using brackets. If a comment is assigned to these text blocks, the comment can be merged in the field label. If no comment is assigned, HotDocs will simply merge the field markers around the text block. The text block can be marked using an annotated footnote or endnote, depending on your preferences.
• Insertion fields: HotDocs will merge the file name of the template being inserted.

Once you assemble the document using as many answers as needed, you can switch to Markup View and save a copy of the document. You can then provide a copy of it to the reviewer.

To view a document in Markup View

1. Define the Markup View options you want to use in the document.
2. Assemble the Word document for which you want to generate markup.
3. Answer only the questions whose answers you want to appear in the assembled document. Leave all other questions unanswered. (These unanswered questions are the fields that will be marked using the scheme you define in step 1.)
4. Click on the Document Preview tab to switch to the preview pane.
5. Choose Markup View (View menu). The document changes to show the marked up document.
6. If you send the document to the word processor it will appear in markup view.

By default, merge fields in the document appear in color—red for unanswered questions and blue for answered questions. Sometimes, however, if an answer field is within a text block that is conditional or repeated, it appears (and remains) blue until the condition is met or the REPEAT instruction is answered. Editable text likewise appears using the colors you've defined at HotDocs Options.

Additionally, merge fields in the document are italicized by default. If you've used international characters in your answers, the italicized version of the font used in the document may not display the foreign characters correctly. If this is the case, clear the Italic attribute for Markup View.

If the template developer has used merge fields in question prompts, those merge fields can be displayed as markup fields. Click the View menu, and then click Markup View while in the interview tab. Additionally, you can switch to Markup View while assembling form documents.

To view a non-marked up version of the assembled document again, clear Markup View (View menu).