ContractExpress

Contract Express template creation is conducted entirely within a Microsoft Word interface. As a Microsoft Word App, Contract Express Author integrates into the Microsoft Word ribbon, providing a familiar user experience for users. The add-in provides the ease and speed of automating complex legal documents without the complexity inherent in traditional document assembly tools. Further, generated documents automatically inherit their styling from the marked-up Word document without having to apply styles to each generated document. Authors create a contract template using bracket-based markups to specify conditional text and variable fields for use in their customized templates. Once published, other users can then manipulate the document using a pre-defined questionnaire to apply client-specific details and preferences. Accordingly, the need for programming skills is removed; a basic knowledge of document mark-up is all that is required. It is notable that the field control used is derived from the conventions of traditional legal document mark-up, for example, use of square brackets to indicate areas for document-specific information.