AnswerCollection.FileFormat Property

[Read/Write] This property sets or returns the answer file format value. The value comes from the ansFileformat enumeration.

After users enter all of the variable information in the interview, the answers are converted to XML format and sent to the server. The server can then store the answers in this folder as binary (.ANS) or XML (.ANX) answer files.

XML answer files may be validated through the XML document type definition (DTD) published by HotDocs. You can access the pre-2009 DTD at http://support.hotdocs.com/dtd/hotdocs6_ans.dtd . HotDocs 2009 and higher XML answer files use a schema, which is installed in the HotDocs program files folder. Also, despite the W3C specification that XML files do not require an XML declaration tag at the beginning of the document, HotDocs does require that you include the following declaration: <?xml version=1.0 encoding=Windows-1252 standalone=yes ?>

As the site administrator, you can determine whether the answers are stored in the pre-2009 XML format, or in the new HotDocs 2009 and higher XML format once they have been posted to the server. HotDocs 2009-11 cannot save files in the old binary (.ANS) file format.

Syntax

HotDocs_Online.ansFileFormat FileFormat [ get, set ]