The Main Export Window: Create a Custom PDF of Selected Papers in Patent Workbench®

The Patent Workbench^® Reader allows patent attorneys to view, organize, annotate, compare, and search patent file history papers, references, and notes, but what if these papers need to be exported to send to a colleague?  Powerful export capabilities are an integral part of the Patent Workbench^® Reader, and patent attorneys can export all file history information, papers, references, and notes through multiple paths and in a variety of formats. Read on to learn about one important export feature that all patent attorneys will want to use: exporting selected papers from the file history in .pdf format through the “Main Export” window.

In a previous blog post, we discussed the export options under the “Papers by Date” and “Papers by Type” tabs in the  the File History Module.  Users can also choose to export specific papers from the file history through a different method: the “Main Export” window.

At the top right of the Patent Workbench^® Reader screen, you can choose the the “Main Export” option from a small menu of icons.  The Main Export tools allow you to export information and papers from the Patent Workbench^® file into a variety of commonly used formats.  Today we will focus on exporting file history papers in .pdf format, but depending on the type of information being exported, the user may be prompted to export in .doc (Microsoft Word), .xls (Microsoft Excel), or .pdf format.

Access the "Main Export" option.

After you select “Main Export” the export window is displayed with several tabbed options.  You can select the “File History” option to either export the File History Information (described in the blog post on File History Viewing Features) or to export PDF copies of any or all papers in the file history.

Use the check  boxes to select the file history papers (organized by date) to be  include in the exported .pdf file.  For example, illustrated in the screenshot below, the user has selected to export only papers from 2004.  You can choose to include annotations in the exported file (including highlighting and the position of notes within the text) by choosing the option “Annotated File History PDF.”  Selecting the option “Original File History PDF” will export a clean version of the papers, without any annotations.

View "PDF Copies" under the "File History" tab to select the papers to be exported in .pdf format.

All selected papers will be exported into a single PDF file.  It should be noted that under the “PDF Copies” tab, the .pdf option is the only available export format option.  If you exported the annotated file history, all saved highlighting will be displayed in the PDF file, and the placement of notes will be indicated by comment icons in the PDF file. The comment icons will only indicate the placement of notes within the file history.  The user can export the text of notes separately through the Notebook export option, which will be discussed in a future blog post.

Select "Annotated File History PDF" to maintain highlighting and position of notes within the exported papers.

The Benefits of this Export Function:

• Quickly and easily share information with your colleagues or clients.
• Choose only the papers which you currently need to share.
• Preserve annotations, including highlighting and note position, in the exported PDF file, or export the original versions of the papers, if you need a clean copy.

Would you like to test these features of Patent Workbench^®? Request a free sample file and try Patent Workbench^® today!