Overview
If this page just popped up, this is because DokuMate for Office v2.12.2 contains new and enhanced features and some changed behavior that you need to understand. So, please read on now or later. You can also open this page again at any point in time, e.g., by clicking the Release Notes button in the DokuMate Ribbon tab.
So, what do you need to know? Most importantly (but there’s even more), DokuMate for Word is now fully SharePoint-enabled. For example, you can transform or apply templates to Word documents stored on SharePoint. For technical reasons, those features could previously only be used for documents stored in the file system, i.e., on your hard drive or a file server.
To enable transformations of documents stored on SharePoint while keeping track of how your documents changed over time, DokuMate uses SharePoint versions rather than asking you to specify a new file name for the transformed document, at least in most cases. The exception is when the transformation changes the document form, e.g., between the
- narrative and
- tabular or ReportCard
forms. In those cases, DokuMate will ask you for a new file name.
Now, this is different from what happened when you transformed documents stored locally. And we felt the new SharePoint experience is actually better than what we’ve always had for local files. Thus, rather than having two different experiences, we’ve changed the local experience as well to offer one consistent experience. This means that DokuMate will only ask you for a new file name if the transformation changes the document form. Instead of asking you for a file name, wherever a backup copy should be created, DokuMate does that for you in the background.
Based on the need to store and deal with backup copies, we created a new Local Short-Term Backup feature. This is meant for short-term backups (or recent versions), which are stored in your local Temp folder (“%localappdata%\Temp\DokuMate Backups” to be precise). That folder will be cleaned up using the typical Windows file system cleanup features. You can access or work with the latest backup copy of your active document by clicking File / DokuMate (right under Info at the top left), which opens the new DokuMate Backstage tab. There, you can create a backup, open the latest backup, restore the latest backup (e.g., to continue working on that one), or compare the active document with the latest backup (e.g., to see the effect of the last transformation in track changes mode).
New Functionality
DokuMate for Word
- Local Short-Term Backups. As described in the overview, this new feature is used by DokuMate for Word to create local short-term backups of documents stored in the file system when it transforms such documents. Further, you can also create backups as you like, e.g., before making changes that you might want to roll back. You can also open the latest backup, restore the latest backup, and compare the active document with its latest backup. All of those features are accessible on the new DokuMate Backstage tab, which you open by clicking on File / DokuMate. The comparison feature is also accessible via the Comparison Documents menu in the DokuMate Ribbon tab.
- Compare Sets of Documents. This new DokuMate for Word feature creates comparison documents with tracked changes (legal blackline) from one or more sets of revised documents (stored in one root folder) and exactly one corresponding set of original documents (stored in a separate root folder). Across those sets, documents are matched by DocId. Within each set, the DocId values must be unique. DocId values are either entered on the documents’ title pages or using the Document Tracker (see DokuMate for Excel). This feature is accessible via the Comparison Documents menu in the DokuMate Ribbon tab.
DokuMate for Excel
- Capitalized Terms. This new feature finds unformatted capitalized terms in Word documents. For example, it can be used to find any other capitalized terms (e.g., Unit of Measure) after having formatted references, term definitions, and defined term usages. The list produced by DokuMate will likely bring up terms that are proper names (e.g., countries, cities, organizations) or terms that lack a definition. To reduce that list, you can apply the Proper Name character style to proper names and those marked occurrences will no longer appear on that list.
Changed or Enhanced Functionality
DokuMate for Word
- Transform Group. As noted in the overview, DokuMate is now fully SharePoint-enabled. The necessary changes are almost completely related to functionality accessible in the Transform group of the DokuMate Ribbon tab. Depending on where the active document to be transformed is stored (i.e., on SharePoint or in the file system), DokuMate will now either create SharePoint versions (for SharePoint documents) or local backups (for documents stored in the file system).
DokuMate for Excel
- References. The formatting of references such as Schedule A (Definitions) or Exhibit 1 (Service Catalog) is now restricted to Word documents, where, using those examples, references are formatted by applying the Reference TypeAndNumber character style to Schedule A and Exhibit 1 and the Reference Title character style to Definitions and Service Catalog.
- Defined Terms. This menu has been restructured slightly to deal with the differences in the text formatting capabilities of Word (powerful) vs. those of Excel and PowerPoint (very basic) on the other hand. For both term definitions and defined term usages, there is a function that will find term definitions or defined term usages regardless of their formatting in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Next, there are functions that will do the following in Word documents only:
- find unformatted term definitions or defined term usages;
- format term definitions (using the Defined Term Definition character style) or usages (using the Defined Term character style); and
- find formatted definitions or usages.