The new year brings exciting news for HotDocs’ users. HotDocs released version 11 of its development and end-user tools for document automation. Version 11 includes enhancements to usability, development, and document assembly.

HotDocs 11 is the first version to support Microsoft Word’s DOCX format. DOCX has been Word’s native document format since 2007. Now HotDocs works natively with that format, so you can create and edit DOCX templates. This change-over offers stability and compatibility enhancements over the still-supported RTF-based templates. The HotDocs ribbon add-on for Word includes easier template creation and markup tools. One highlight is an enhanced outliner tool that shows the template’s logical overview and where your components appear in the document. Additionally, HotDocs 11 works with the soon-to-be-released Word 2013, and with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Word.

For those not using Word, WordPerfect X6 and “plain text” templates support is included in this release. Plain text templates are an excellent tool to integrate HotDocs with existing workflows outside of Word or WordPerfect. Similarly, HotDocs 11 adds a revised output plugin system. Developers can create new plugins that appear at the “end of interview” screen. Output plugins could be coded to assemble a document and hand it off to a variety of programs, like Open Office, Google Docs, or Google Drive.

On the development front, HotDocs 11 introduces several new expression models that coders can integrate into templates. Version 11 adds new financial, mathematical, and text functions. Scripts and equations now support local variables and parameter-passing. With local variables, a coder can create a variable just for use in and visible only to the component it resides in. Parameter-passing allows a developer to have your own computations pass values, meaning that you can code a computation once and reuse it without recoding.

HotDocs 11 represents the biggest update to the HotDocs program in many years. Current users of HotDocs 10, who bought their copy on or after October 1, 2012, are eligible for a free upgrade to HotDocs 11. This offer is valid until January 31, 2013. Other users who wish to purchase HotDocs 11, either as an upgrade or new installation, can do so at 15% off the retail price if they act before January 31, 2013. With this limited-time offer, HotDocs 11 Developer costs only $680, and HotDocs 11 User costs only $281. Upgrades from HotDocs 10 are $298 and $119 respectively.

HotDocs 11 is a great new release that further aids attorneys in automating the documents they produce every day. If you have any questions about HotDocs 11 or would like to upgrade, please contact us.