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TheFormTool is document assembly software (also known as document automation or forms creation). Because TheFormTool operates within Microsoft Word for Windows, it is user-friendly, powerful and easy to learn. TheFormTool’s ease of use and low initial and ongoing costs give it a significant lifecycle cost advantage compared to its competitors.1

TheFormTool uses an interview metaphor for gathering information. A form’s Author creates interview Questions and determines the effects of their Answers. TheFormTool enables a subject-area expert to easily create a Word document and instill in it the ability to mimic the Author’s decision-making skills.

TheFormTool allows document Authors to create intelligent forms via a simple, menu-driven interface rather than complex coding syntax, using point-and-click commands rather than typed program codes to deploy repetitions, insertions, binary and Boolean logic, and math and date computations, as well as embedded rules for grammar and syntax. TheFormTool does not require programming skills, professional installers or consultants for form creation, maintenance or modification. Form Users provide Answers to the Questions. TheFormTool then automatically completes the document as the Author would have done if he or she were to craft it manually.

A form created with TheFormTool is a MS Word document that can be edited, saved, shared and managed just as any other Word document or template. Data captured by TheFormTool PRO can be stored in an XML file and is available for later reuse.

Contents 1 2 3 4 History2 TheFormTool was developed in 2011 by Snapdone, Inc. of Vashon, Washington, and first publicly introduced at a regional meeting of NALS, the national association of legal professionals, in June of that year.3 A month later, Scott Campbell, TheFormTool’s developer, demonstrated it at the Washington State Bar Association’s 2011 Solo and Small Firm Conference.4

In September 2011, Snapdone and Your Dollar Matters, Inc. {Link} created a joint venture to further develop TheFormTool and market it to law firms in the United States. TheFormTool and TheFormTool PRO were first distributed generally in the United States in December 2011, and its first international delivery was in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia in January 2012. A significant percentage of commercial (non-law) customers use TheFormTool to create an array of forms: estimates, bids, RFPs, SOWs and bills of materials, among other uses.

Version	Edition	Publication date	New features 1.0	Free	7/2011	Limited distribution, public beta 1.0	PRO	7/2011	Limited distribution, public beta 1.0	Free	12/2011	General distribution begins 1.0	PRO	12/2011	General sales begin to lawyers in U. S. 1.0	PRO	1/2012	First sales to commercial and international customers 1.1-1.3	PRO	2/2012	Added complex conditions and conditional answers 2.0	Free	4/2012 2.0	PRO	4/2012	Added Math functions: Add, Subtract, Multiply and Divide; Absolute, Constant, Days, Field, Integer, List (Count, Number, Maximum, Minimum, Multiply, Sum) Logarithm, Maximum, Minimum, Months, Now, Payment, Raise to Power (Exponentiation), Remainder, Root, Round and Years, each of which can be nested almost endlessly to perform complex calculations. 2.1	PRO	5/2012	Added Derived Answers to allow answers to be chained or compared logically and mathematically with other text or math answers so that Users can generate entirely new Answers based on precedent Answers. Derived Answers can be hidden for “behind the scenes” computations. Conditions now include comparators for numbers (more than, less than), dates (earlier than, later than) and text (same as, starts with, contains, ends with, is alphabetically before/after). 2.2	PRO	8/2012	Extended Master Lists from 10 columns of data points per listed item to 63 and allowed Conditions to be determined by secondary columns. Improved Master Lists user-interface. Allowed multi-line entries, conditional rows in tables, conditional sections in the document, the form Author to determine whether empty Fields in the document are to be shown as blank lines, Find and Paste to insert Fields in a document, and searches in the Field/List/Condition screen. Provides color-coded Dividers and sections to organize lengthy Q&A Tables. Adds functions to Clear Answers in the Q&A Table when building or testing forms, to alphabetize choices in the Smart Answer screen. Adds a Start button for document Users. 2.3	PRO	10/2012	Increased speed up to 600% while opening Field and Smart Answer screens and Filling forms.

Products

An unrestricted lifetime license is included with the free version of TheFormTool. The free version allows a form Author to call for, and a User to supply, text, numbers, or dates that TheFormTool software can then use to automatically complete a form. Each individual use of an Answer within a form can be formatted separately, such as January 1, 2013 and 1/1/2013; John Smith and JOHN SMITH; One Thousand and no/100 and 1,000.00. Date offsets into the past and future can be computed from the date supplied as an Answer, taking into account workdays, holidays, weeks, months and years.

TheFormTool PRO provides additional features and functions that enable a document to exactly mimic an Author’s complex reasoning using conditional decisioning, derived answers, nested logic operators, two dozen math functions, pronoun, singular/plural and count fields, lists, master lists, and choices to construct a document customized for its circumstances. TheFormTool PRO supports shared data and templates and network operations.5

New Developments

In January 2013, TheFormTool PRO v2.4 was distributed to beta testers. TheFormTool PRO v2.4 is more than six times as fast as previous versions and can accept related data in a horizontal grid format that makes relationships obvious and easy to manage.6

In January 2013, Your Dollar Matters, Inc. spun off its sponsorship and marketing of TheFormTool to a subsidiary, TheFormTool, LLC.7

Awards TheFormTool awarded a “Spectacular” 5-star rating by CNET (2/2012)8 TheFormTool PRO awarded an “A” TechnoScore in TechnoLawyer’s SmallLaw (7/2012)9 TheFormTool PRO selected as a “Top 10 Product of 2012” by TechnoLawyer (#4) 12/201210

See also Document Assembly Document Automation

External links TheFormTool TheFormTool (Video Support) TheFormTool (Customer Reviews)

References 1 TheFormTool 2 TheFormTool 3 NALS 4 WSBA 5 TheFormTool 6 TheFormTool 7 betanews 8 CNET 9 TheFormTool 10 TechnoLawyer