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Depo by TrialPrep |
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The Software
that Saves Attorney’s Time! |
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User Guide |
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LAURENCE H. STEFFAN |
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Attorney at Law |
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE
OF CONTENTS
HERE IS WHAT DEPO DOES FOR YOU AND
MORE
IMPORTING A
DEPOSITION - IMPORT WITH MENU
IMPORTING A
DEPOSITION - IMPORT WITH TREE
IMPORTING A
DEPOSITION - IMPORT WITH DRAG AND DROP 20
WORKING ON
SAME DEPOSITION ON MULTIPLE COMPUTERS
EXPORTING TO
WORD OR WORDPERFECT
HERE IS WHAT DEPO DOES FOR YOU
AND MORE
1.
Create your trial questions (direct or cross) directly
from a deposition, preliminary hearing, trial transcript or any other
transcript reported by a court reporter.
2.
Just click on the question, it and the witness’
answer are exported to Microsoft Word or WordPerfect with the page and line
number where the question begins and ends and the page and line number where
the answer begins and ends.
3.
Automatically group your
questions by subject matter of your choice, no matter where the question is
found in the transcript.
4.
Depo is a great time and labor
saver for transcript condensation.
All the paralegal has to do is select the Questions and Answers of
interest, export them to Word or WordPerfect and print. No typing.
Throughout this help file I refer to
depositions or deposition transcripts. I do that for ease of discussion.
Whatever is being discussed is applicable to any transcript reported by a court
reporter.
The Table of Contents is hyperlinked to that
particular subject in this Help file.
Just hold down the Ctrl button and click with your mouse the subject of
interest and you are taken there instantly. You can return to the Table of Contents
by clicking on the hyperlink at the end of the section.
The
purpose of Depo is to assist the attorney (user) in preparing his/her
direct or cross-examination of a witness with a minimum of typing or dictation.
Once the program is loaded, the attorney selects the questions he/she intends
on asking the witness at trial and exports those questions to Microsoft Word or
WordPerfect. When the export function is completed, the user will see the page
and line number where the question begins and ends and the answer the witness
gave along with the page and line number where the answer begins and ends in
the transcript.
With this
information, if the witness no longer remembers the answer, gives a different
answer or changes the answer, the attorney has the original response right in
front of him/her (comparing the answer at trial to the answer given previously)
and can instantly turn to the page and line number in the transcript to impeach
the witness or refresh his/her memory with the prior testimony.
The
formatting of your trial questions in Depo is quite
robust. You can choose just about any font and font size you want and they can
be different for the questions and answers. You can set any margins you want
and they too can be different for the questions and answers. You can have just
about as much or little spacing (white space) between the question and its
answer and the answer and the next question as you prefer.
You can
edit the question and/or answer to remove excess verbiage or commentary and you
can add questions that come to mind that were not asked at the deposition.
Once you
use Depo the first time, you will realize that you cannot
prepare your trial questions as easily and as quickly in any other manner as
you can with Depo.
FUNCTIONS/FEATURE
1. Capture
the question and its answer as reported by the court reporter along with the
page and line number where the question begins and ends and the page and line
number of where the answer begins and ends and later export the result into a
Microsoft Word or WordPerfect document.
2. Edit the
question and/or answer to remove excess verbiage or commentary.
3. Depo ignores
all text not specifically selected by the user.
4. The attorney who does
his/her own typing will find the program very user friendly.
5. The attorney can go
through the paper transcript making notes and notations for staff to create the
actual questions/answers document from Depo.
6. Forgot to ask a question
at the deposition or other court hearing? Create it on the fly (as you work or
as it comes to mind).
7. Choose the font and font
style you like best for the question and answer. They can be different if you
like.
8. Chose the amount of
space you like between questions so that you can take notes while the witness
is testifying or even write new questions that come to mind as the witness
testifies.
9. Depo automatically
bookmarks your place when you exit the transcript. Upon reopening the
transcript, Depo will ask you if you want to return to where you left
off, if you do not finish the project in one sitting.
10. Depo automatically
remembers all work performed. So if you return later to continue your work, the
earlier work and all new work is saved into one file upon exporting to Word or
WordPerfect.
11.
Automatically groups various questions into groups or subject matter that you
create the names of, so your examination is fluid, no matter where you find the
question in the deposition.
12. Search
the deposition by looking for a certain word or to go to a certain page of the
deposition.
13. Append
multiple depositions (or other transcripts) if the witness’ testimony
spans more than one volume.
14. By using the Backup and Restore
functions, you can start your work on one computer, take it to another computer
and return to the first computer.
For instance, start at the office, work at home and finish the project
on the office computer.
Install the program on your computer. This
can be done by downloading a copy of the program from my web page
(TrialPrep.biz) or from the CD you were given. Follow the following procedure:
FROM
A CD
Insert the
CD into your CD drive. The program
will install automatically.
FROM
THE WEB SITE
When you click on
“Download” a dialogue box will appear giving you the option to
install or save the file. If you click on “Install”, the program
will be installed for you.
If you save it, do the following:
1.
Copy the
program to a directory where you know where it will be.
2. Unzip (expand) the program by using PKZip or WinZip or any other
utility that expands Zip files. Do
this by double clicking on the program if using WinZip. Follow the directions
for expanding Zip files that comes with the program you are using if you do not
use WinZip.
3.
Direct the
Zip program to extract the files into your chosen directory.
4. Using Microsoft Explore (right click on Start), go to your chosen
directory and double click on “Setup.exe.”
5. Depo will automatically install on your hard drive and ask you if
you want to create an icon on your desktop. We recommend you do so.
6.
You are now
ready to launch (start) the program.
7. The demo version of Depo is fully functional. However you will only be
able to load one transcript until you pay for the program and get your access
code. You will not be able to delete the deposition and load another in the
demo version.
SCREEN PRESENTATION
The Depo main
screen is divided in several zones: Menu, Toolbar, Tree Panel, and Deposition
Panel.
Use the Menu to access
all functions organized by menu and submenu
The
Toolbar provides quick access to currently available functions.
Use the Tree Panel to organize and manage your deposition.
Use the Deposition Panel to work on depositions.
TOOLBAR
These are the functions the various icons perform.
The tree panel defines 3 levels to organize
depositions:
1. The Type of Case folders which contains:
a. The Case
folders which contains:
i. The
Deposition(s)
The
folders, called Type of Case folders, are the Types of Cases
the attorney litigates. The purpose of the folders is so that similar cases are
together and the Groups created for those cases are
together. Groups will be explained in detail later. This way when many
Groups have been created over time, irrelevant Groups will not clutter the
user’s screen. For instance, offer and acceptance may be used in a
contracts case, but never in a personal injury case.
You also see the Case Name folder;
in this case it is Demo Case which, in the example is a contracts (Type of
Case) case.
Under the Demo Case folder is two
Depositions (Smith and Amicus).10
TREE PANEL
If you
right click on a folder, a dialogue box will appear informing you of the
various functions available to you.
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Type
of case
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By
right clicking on a Type of Case folder you have the option of
adding a new Type of Case, renaming the Type of
Case folder that you clicked on (in the example it was a contract
folder), you can delete the Type of Case folder
that was clicked on, Groups from the highlighted folder can be copied to
another folder or you can add a New Case to the
highlighted folder. |
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Case
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If
you right-click on a Case folder, i.e., Jones v. Smith,
your options are to cut the Case folder,
rename it, delete it, or import a new deposition into the Case folder. |
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Deposition
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If
you right-click on a Deposition, you can append another Deposition
to it, open the Deposition,
rename, cut, archive, or delete the Deposition. |
1
Obtain a
copy of the deposition transcript in any number of formats, including ASCII,
Summation, E-Transcript Binder, DiscoveryZX, Amicus, etc. on a floppy disk, CD,
or e-mail from the court reporter either by asking for it when ordering your
copy of the deposition or call the court reporter later for a copy.
If the deposition you
receive in E-Transcript Binder has a .ptx file
extension, you must first convert the deposition file to ASCII format. This is a very easy process because you
can do so within your E-Transcript Binder program. Load the deposition into your E-Transcript program or your E-Transcript
Viewer program. Click on File, Open
and locate your deposition. Highlight the deposition and click on Open. Then
click on File, Save As and select ASCII.
Note the file name and click on Save. Be sure you know what folder the
file is saved in or move it to a folder of your choice. Open Depo, go to the folder the file is
in and import.
Launch
the program by double clicking on the Depo
Icon 
. At the
top of the screen you will see a number of icons and above them you will see a
list of functions that if clicked on once creates a Drop Down box. If
you rest your cursor on the Icon, a box will appear telling you
what that icon will do.
Once the
program starts, insert the deposition into the proper drive on your computer
(typically the A drive if it is on a floppy). You will have to know what the
drive letter is for your CD player for CD versions or the folder you saved the
transcript in if you obtained it by e-mail. Depo offers
three ways to load (import) a deposition. All methods obtain the same result.
Just select the one you are the most comfortable with.
1. Import with menu.
2. Import with tree.
3. Import with drag and drop.
IMPORTING A DEPOSITION - IMPORT
WITH MENU
Click on the Import Icon 
or click on File and then Import.
Either function will take you to the Select
Deposition to Import box (see Figure 1). You will be taken to the location you
last imported a deposition from if this is not your first import. Otherwise, click on the Drop Down arrow
in the Look In box to search your hard drive for the file (or floppy or CD
drive as the case may be). Click on the File Name you want to work with
and it will then be seen in the small window (near the bottom of the box) that
is just to the right of File Name. Be sure your deposition file is in
there otherwise it will not import into the program. The reason you have to go
through this step is that I have experienced when several depositions are taken
on the same day or by the same court reporter on successive days, all of them
may be on the same floppy or CD. So you have to select the deposition you
want to work with.
Figure
1
Click on Open and you will be taken to the Destination
box. If you have already loaded the deposition and saved it, you can go
back to it by either clicking on File and then Open or click on the Open
Deposition Icon 
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The Destination
box (see Figure 2) defines the location where the
deposition will be stored. This location is composed of:
1. The Type of Case. By using the radio button you can either select
an existing Type of Case or create a new Type of Case. The purpose of assigning
your deposition transcript to a Type of Case is because when you create
your Groups from time to time, they will be saved by the program so that
you don’t have to recreate the same group name the next time you work on
a similar case. However, the Group Names are saved with the Type of
Case so that you don’t clutter the Group box with superfluous
groups. For instance, you would never use groups such as Offer, Acceptance, Breach,
etc. in a personal injury case, but they may be relevant in a contracts case.
2. The Case Name. The
purpose is to group all Depositions related to the same Case in the same location. Here again,
with the radio button you have the choice between selecting an existing Case or
creating a new one.
Figure
2
LOADING A DEPOSITION
Once you
choose your Type of Case and Case, that is
to say your Deposition destination, then you are ready for the next step,
click on the “Import” button.
Note: if your destination is not
complete or available, Depo will not let you click on the “Import”
button, if this is the case, the Import button appears grayed.
Click on import and you will be taken to the Import
Setting box (see Figure 3).
Figure
3
LOADING A DEPOSITION
THIS
STAGE IS CRITICAL. You must follow
this step correctly to insure that the page and line numbers assigned by Depo are the same as the printed transcript. If you
fail to do this, when you go to the transcript, you may not find your question
and answer where expected. Most court reporters set the lines at 25 per page. I
have had some set at 28 lines, so this information is important. If you
received your transcript by e-mail and don’t have a paper transcript you
can determine the number of lines per page by opening the transcript using Notepad.
Notepad is a program that comes with Microsoft Office and usually is found in
the Accessories folder. You would also use Notepad to determine which page the
first question is on. I recommend Notepad because it is an ACSII editor and
does not embed formatting codes that some other programs do, which may cause
pagination issues.
Because Depo starts
with the first page of testimony and ignores the introductory pages of the
transcript, you will have to determine what
page number is the first page of testimony. Put that value in the Starting
Page box, even if the first question starts on the last line of the
page. Then click on Import. Depo tries to
do this for you, BUT YOU MUST verify that it is correct.
One last
thing on loading the deposition, until the Deposition has been
saved the first time, you will have to leave the floppy (or CD) in the drive
until you have saved the transcript. Once the testimony comes up on the screen
you can do your work, but if you remove the floppy before saving the
deposition, the program will ask you to put the floppy back in the drive when
you quit the program. My programmers tell me this is a Windows thing.
IMPORTING A DEPOSITION - IMPORT
WITH TREE
Right click on the Case folder
you wish to import the deposition into, in this example “Jones v.
Smith”. The
context Menu appears. Click on “Import New
Deposition...”
Figure
4
Select
the Deposition you wish to import, in this case “Jones”,
click on the “Open” button and continue as
described above.
LOADING A DEPOSITION
IMPORTING A DEPOSITION - IMPORT
WITH DRAG AND DROP
Drag and Drop the deposition directly to the Case.
17
Figure
5
OPENING SCREEN
Figure
6
Now you see the first page of testimony. The screen was expanded by clicking on
the first icon on the left 
. Click on it again and the screen narrows
and the file tree is visible. If you will look to the right of the screen, you
will see a series of numbers going vertical down the right side preceded by
either a capital Q or a capital A. In figure 6, they are Q 5:10-11 and
A 5:12-12. In this example, Q 5: is the page number and the 10
is the line number on page 5 where the question begins and 11 is the
line number where the question ends.
A similar procedure is used for the answer. If the page and
line numbers do not match the deposition transcript, click on Edit in the upper
left of your screen and a drop-down box will come down allowing you to click on
the Renumber Pages function. You
can make the correction here at any time.
Down the left side of the page you see a series of
numbers above a square that is gray in color. Clicking on that gray box is the
process you use to select the questions that you want to ultimately export to
either Word or WordPerfect. Do not be concerned about the numbers. They were
added by the program for purposes we will discuss later. They will not be
visible when your work has been exported.
Here is what you see when the first page of testimony
appears:
1.
I already explained the vertical series of numbers on
the right as the page and line number where the questions and answers begin and
end.
2. On the
left side of the screen there are a series of numbers running vertical. These
are the numbers the program assigns to each question it finds in the deposition.
The use of these numbers will become more apparent later. They are not seen
when the questions are exported as their purpose is for working with program
features only.
3. Under the
number you see a square. If you want to select a particular question and you
like the way it and its answer reads, click on the square and it will turn red.
That question and answer are now ready for export to Word or WordPerfect. If
you want to edit either the question, the answer, or both, right click anywhere
on the question or answer and the entire question and answer will be
highlighted in blue. You may then click anywhere inside the highlighting and
perform any editing you choose. When you are done, you may proceed to the next
question of interest.
Do not be
concerned if you change your mind about the editing. You will be prompted when
you exit the question if you want to save your changes or not (see
Figure 13).
5. At the
bottom of the screen you see Find, Page and Group boxes (see
Figure 7).
Figure
7
5. The Find box is
for searching for text in the deposition. The Page box is
for jumping from one page to another without having to either page down or
scroll down through the deposition. This is a very useful function for
attorneys who use the paper deposition to select questions and mark it up for
staff to use Depo. For instance, if the attorney selects a question on
page 23 and finds that the next question of interest is on page 40, staff can
jump to page 40 without having to page down or scroll down.
6. On the
left side of the screen are the folders named by the Type of
Cases (Contract in the
example) that the attorney has worked on or is working on. Inside of those
folders are the Case Folders (the
names of the cases; Jones v. Smith, in the example). And inside those folders
are the depositions (see Figure 8).
Figure
8
The first
icon in the upper left of the screen can be used to hide the folders you see
in figure 8 for those who prefer to have the deposition transcript occupy the
entire screen.
7. The next
four icons going from left to right are the Import new Deposition, Append
Deposition, Open Deposition, and Close
Deposition. They are followed by Add a Question, Edit/Add a New
Group and Change a Group Name. The last four are Page Setup, Export to
WordPerfect, Export to Word and the question mark is the Help icon. Refer to the Toolbar section (Page 11) to see the icons.
8. In the
event the witness’ deposition comprises of more than one volume, you can
append each volume to the previous. Remember, as with a single
volume deposition, each time you append a volume to another you must verify the
accuracy of the page number where the first question begins in the appended
volume.
EXPLANATION OF FEATURES
20
The next
step is to create Group Names. First a little discussion. As an
experienced trial attorney, you try to ask questions by subject matter or by
time-line. For instance, in a personal injury case, I ask all Injury questions
and then all Pain and then Medical Treatment and Medication
questions. You get the idea. Not necessarily in that order, but I
keep the subject together. Further, if you are like me, in a deposition it
doesn’t always come out so pristine. It is nothing for me to have the
pain and suffering questions scattered throughout the deposition.
With this
feature, no matter where the question is found in the deposition, when you
export your work, all questions assigned a group name will be collated together
in that group.
If,
before you start selecting the questions, you know some of the categories of
questions you will be asking, you can create them at this time. You can create
them at any time as they come to mind so don’t spend a lot of time trying
to create them all. And you can change them later too if the need arises, so
don’t get bogged down here. By the way, all groups created will remain
for all future depositions unless you delete them.
Ok, so click on the Groups icon 
or click on Edit at the top of the
screen. When the drop down box appears, click on Edit/Add New Group. The
Change Group (capital G with an
arrow through it) is used if you realize you would like a previously
assigned question(s) assigned to a different Group. More on that later. When
you click on Edit/Add New Group an Edit/Add New Group. dialogue
box appears (see
Figure 9).
Figure
9
In the
window to the right of Type of Case you select the type of case you
are working on (Personal Injury in the figure below). In the Add or
Rename Group Here box at the bottom of the window is where you type in the
names of the groups you wish to use. You will note that the group you created
for a contract case, will not be seen in any other Type of
Case dialog box (compare Figures 9 and 10).
Figure
10
The groups you create will arrange themselves in
alphabetical order so they will be easy to find if you have 20 or 30 of them.
Create as many groups as you can think of.
You do this by typing them one at a time in the Add or Rename Group Here box and then clicking on Add. When you are done, click on the Close
button. Remember, it makes no difference where in the deposition you find
the question you put into a Group, upon exporting your work, all of the
questions with the same Group Name will be grouped together. Also the
name of the Group will be on the first line of the grouping, centered on
the page when you export your work.
If you
want to remove a Group, click on it in the large
window. It will now appear in the lower smaller window. Click on Remove and it is
gone.
At this
time we are going to assume that you want to add a question to a group and you
do not need to edit either the question or the answer. We will explain editing
later.
(The
Same Procedure as Creating your Own Questions; p. 30)
As you go through the deposition, you will probably
think of questions that you want to ask the witness at trial that were not
asked at the deposition. You can type the questions as they come to mind and
assigned them to the Group that you wish them to be placed in. First
highlight the question/answer you want your added question to be BELOW. Then, either click on the Add
Question icon 
or click on Edit, and click on the
Add Question option in the Edit Drop-Down box. The Add
Question dialog box appears (see Figure 11).
ADDING
A QUESTION 
Figure
11
Click on the drop down arrow and select the Group you
want this question to be assigned to. (If you do not find a Group Name you
desire, go up to Edit and create the name you want as explained
earlier). Then click in the large window and type your question. Click on Save
and you will return to the deposition and you will see your new question
directly below the last question you highlighted.
You will
note that each time you click on (select for export) a question the assigned
group name will appear under the answer to the left of the screen. This way you
can track to what groups the questions have been assigned, in case you want to
change them, etc.
This
assignment will not be seen in the exported work as each question will be
grouped together in their assigned groups.
Each time
you click on a question, that question will be assigned to the previously
selected group. This way you don’t have to select the group name for each
question you select, saving many mouse clicks.
If, after assigning a question(s) to a group you
decide you want to put it in another existing Group, or if you create a new
Group after the question was assigned, the first thing you have to do is click
on the question you want to change or note the number the program assigned to
it. You will note that the program has highlighted the question. Go to the Edit
menu and click on Change Group or click on the change group icon 
.
The Change Group For Checked Questions box will appear (see Figure 12).
Figure
12
Here you have
the option of changing only one question or a series of questions. If you want
to change only one question, click on the Current Question radio
button. Above that click on the drop down arrow and select the new group name
and then click on Change. (You can also do this in reverse order by selecting
the new group name first and then click on the Current
Question radio button).
You will
note the program defaults to the Question Number From ---- to
---- option when the box first appears. This is used only if you have more than
one question you want to change to the same group and they are all in sequence.
By this I mean, if you have two or more questions in a series you want to send
to the same group (maybe you forgot to change the group and realized it after
clicking on several questions), you can do that. (Remember, we are only talking
about questions that have been selected. Unselected questions are ignored by
the program). The question numbers that you see in the Change Group for Checked
Questions box, are the numbers that the program inserted that you see down the
left-hand side of the screen, that we mentioned only briefly earlier.
But
don’t despair; nothing happens for sure until you export. You can always
go back and make changes. You can even go back and make changes after you
export, but you will have to export again for the changes to appear on your
paper copies.
You can use the same procedure for reassigning several
questions to the same Group all at the same time. You do this by
inserting the first question number you wish to change in the Question
Number From Box. Then you insert the last question you wish assigned to the
Group in the To Box.
When you click on change every selected question
between the first and the last numbers in those boxes will be assigned to the
same Group. So you have to be sure that between the two numbers you entered
there are no questions you want assigned to a different Group. You do not need to worry about the
squares that are grey, since you did not select them, they will be ignored.
At this
point we are selecting questions we intend on asking the witness at trial. However
if the question asked at the deposition (or answer given for that matter) has
stuttering, superfluous, rambling or non-responsive text, or we just want to
reword it, we can do so to our heart’s content. Right click anywhere in
the question or answer and the question and answer will be highlighted. Now you
can do the editing in any way you would with any word processor. When you have
finished, click on the square under the number on the left-hand side and your
question and answer will be ready for export when you are finished.
Should
you edit a question or answer and then change your mind you have not done
anything permanent at this stage. When you leave the question the dialog box in
figure 13 will appear giving you the option to cancel any changes that you
made.
Figure
13
Should
you decide that you don’t want the edited question after all, click on
the red square and I will turn back to gray and will not be exported? The same
is true for any question you have selected, if you decide later that you
don’t want the question exported, you can click on the red square and it
will return to its gray color and the question will not be exported.
EDITING
29
CREATING QUESTIONS Return to
Table of Contents
(The Same Procedure as Adding a Question to a Group; p. 25)
Invariably, when reading a deposition, I
will think of a whole slew of questions that were not asked at the deposition.
So I added a feature that as you are using Depo and selecting your questions, you can
create your own on the fly. The sixth icon from the left 
is the Add Question icon, or click
on Edit and select Add Question.
The Add Question box appears (see
Figure 14) with two editing boxes. The top box is for you to select the
Group you want your question to go into and the other, obviously, is to type
the question. The program by default will place the question you create right
below the question that is highlighted.
Therefore, when you want to add a question,
highlight the question you want your user-created question to be UNDER. Follow the instructions above to create
the question. Be sure it is assigned to a Group. Finally, click on Save; or
Cancel if you changed your mind.
30
Figure
14
If you
type a word (or number) in the Find box at
the bottom of the screen, you can search for text in the deposition. All of the
hits will appear in a box with the page and line number where they are found in
the deposition as well as up to three words before and after the hit to help
you decide if you wish to view that portion of the text (see
Figure 15).
Figure
15
If you
want to jump to the full text, just click on the blue numbers and you will be taken
there. I included the search for text feature not so much as to help you in
selecting the questions you want, but to aid you in going through a very large
deposition to find certain testimony you believe was given and want to confirm.
I do not recommend selecting questions for Groups by using the search function.
You certainly can if you choose, I just think it makes the process more
difficult.
However,
the search by page number is designed to lessen your work load. I quite often will
go through the paper deposition transcript and mark the questions, (I always
have a copy made so I have a clean copy for trial), I want to be exported for
trial, I also will scratch out unwanted text in the answers and questions. Then
I give the paper deposition to my secretary and have her select and edit in Depo. More
often than not, I may thumb through several pages of testimony not finding a
suitable question. So, if my last question was on page 15, say, and the next
one is on 23, once she has captured the question on page 15 and she thumbs
through the transcript and sees the next question is on page 23, she can use
the Find page feature and jump right to it. She does not have to
scroll or Page down through a bunch of useless text.
The
arrows to the right of the Find box are for find next or find
previous. If you are looking for medication, for
example, every time you hit the greater than button the program will jump to
the next place medication is in the deposition. The word you are searching for
will also be highlighted in the text. You can page through the deposition by
clicking on the plus or minus signs to the right of the Go button.
The
program defaults to the Find Whole Word mode. If you are uncertain of the
grammatical form of the word you are looking for you can search for partial
words such as BEGINing by clicking on the Edit drop down box and
uncheck the Find Whole Word Only option.
When you
close a deposition the program automatically bookmarks the last question you
worked on. When you next open the deposition, you are given an option to either
open on the first question or open the last question that you worked on. This
way, when you return to your work, you don’t have to page down or scroll
to where you left off (see Figure 16).
We also
added the bookmark feature in case the user wants to mark certain locations in
the transcript to return to later.
The bookmark icons look like ribbons you might win at the county Fair,
to me. 
Figure
16
33
MU
Lets assume
we are finished for this session. You can export your work, or not, as you
choose. A nice feature of Depo is that all work performed is
saved within the program. That way you can export as you go along (assuming
more than one session to complete the project), I do this to check my work. Or
you can wait to export until after you have selected all of the questions you
will be using. Depo saves all work as it is created. Consequently, when you return, your new
work will be added to the previous. So don’t hesitate to break up your
sessions.
34
WORKING ON
SAME DEPOSITION ON MULTIPLE COMPUTERS
Another feature is that you can start your work at the
office, take your work home with you and finish it on your desktop at home (or
your laptop), or if not finished, take your added work back to the office and
finish it there. The way you do this is you click on Tools and then on Backup.
The Backup Database box appears (see Figure 17) and with that you select
where you want to backup your work, either to a floppy drive, memory stick or a
CD. You do this by clicking on the Drop-down arrow to the right of Save In: and
browse to where you want the back up copied to.
Figure
17
When you
get to your other computer you will again click on Tools and then click on
Restore (see Figure 18).
Figure
18
After clicking on OK as seen in figure 18 you will be
taken to the Restore Database box (see
Figure 19). Again, click on the Drop-down arrow to the right of Save In: to
find the file you want to restore. Highlight the file, click on Open and you
are ready to continue your work.
Figure
19
As
you know, it is not uncommon for a deposition to span more than one day,
particularly when experts are being deposed. Therefore we have included a
feature that allows the user to append multiple volumes. The second icon wi
from the left 
is the Append icon. Clicking on
the Append icon opens the Select
Deposition to Append dialog box (see
Figure 20).
Click once on the volume you want to append. It will appear in the File Name box near
the bottom and then click on Open.
Figure
20
You will
be taken to the Append to Existing
Deposition box (see Figure 21).
Figure
21
Either
confirm the Type of Case and Case or select the correct ones. Then, in the
large window, click once on the deposition you want to append the volume
to. Click on Select and you will be
taken to the Import Setting box.
Figure
22
Make sure the starting page number is the page where
the first question is asked in the volume being appended and the number of
lines per page is correct. Make any needed corrections.
After making those confirmations, click on Import and
you’ll be taken back to the deposition screen. Note that even though we
appended one or more volumes to the first volume, the program took us back to
the beginning of volume 1. So do not be concerned that you see the starting
page for volume 1.
After having appended the volume(s) to volume 1, see
the File Tree to the left of the screen under the Case File you
are importing your depositions into. The program lists all volumes after a
single deposition icon. This is confirmation that the program recognized the
append operation.
EXP
Figure
23
ORTATION
Next we
are going to setup how the questions and answers will look once you export your
work. The process I am going to step you through is the way I like my trial questions
to look when I am in trial. I tried to make the program robust enough to where
you can set your Trial Book to the way you like it to look.
Click on
the fourth icon from the right 
.
If you rest your cursor on it, the Page Setup information
box should appear. Once you click on the icon, the Page Setup
box appears (see Figure 24).
Figure
24
PAGE SETUP
21 At the
top is the question setup box (Figure 24,
above). In this box you can select any font and any font size you prefer.
You can also set the left margin and the right margin. If you like you can have
the questions to be in full caps. To the right of the Font box is an
icon 
.
Click on the icon to select the font and font size you like. I like my
questions to be 16 point Times New Roman and the answers to be 12
point Times New Roman. The Q/A Blanks
is where you determine how much space (blank lines) you want
between the end of the question and the beginning of the answer. I usually
leave it at 1.
You have
the same options for the answer. The A/Q Blanks is where
you determine how much space (blank lines) you want between the end of the
previous answer and the beginning of the next question. I like a lot of space
between the end of the answer and the next question so I set A/Q Blanks
at 7.
I like my
questions in full caps and the answers in regular type. So I make sure there is
a Check Mark in the Question Caps box and
no check mark in the Answer Caps box. I like my questions to go
all the way across the page and I put my questions in a three ring binder for
trial. Therefore I set my question left margin at one inch (0.10 which is
correct, not 1.0) and my right margin less than one half inch (0.03). I like my
answers to be on the right half of the page only. That way I have a lot of
white space for quickly scribbled notes or questions I create while the witness
is testifying. So I set the left margin at (0.50) and the right at (0.05).
Next, click on the Groups Options tab and you will see the
following:
PAGE SETUP 
Figure
25
22 The program assigns all questions to the Group we call
None. When you select a question for export, it will remain in the
“None” Group unless you assign it to a different Group. I usually
elect to have the None Group at the top of the document. The None
Group is for those questions that will be asked first; usually background
information that is not gone into in any real detail.
Finally, the first time I set up the page I click on Default
Settings. The settings you set here will be the same for every deposition
you do in the future until you make changes. If for some reason you want a
different format for a future deposition (or for condensing a deposition), you
can do so and save those settings. So long as you do not save them as Default
Settings you can return to your default settings by pressing that option.
You can order the sequence in which the Groups will
be printed when you export your work. You do this by clicking on the Order
Groups button you see in figure 25 and the following box appears:
Figure
26
Just click on (highlight) the Group you wish to
rearrange and move up or down by clicking on the buttons in the lower right
corner.
EXPORTING TO WORD OR WORDPERFECT
To
export, click on the icon for the word processor 
you prefer or click on Export on the
menu bar at the top and select either Word or WordPerfect. The file will be
sent to your wordprocessor automatically. If the wordprocessor is not active
(open and running) on your computer at the time you export, Depo will
launch wordprocessor for you. After the export is done, you will want to click
on the Save As feature so that you can select the folder the file
will be saved to and create the name you want the file to have. Of course you
print the questions out by using the print function in your wordprocessor. You
will note upon exporting that the Page Setup function
comes up again. I had this added just in case you forgot to setup your fonts
and margins before executing the Export command.
If you
export more than once, by that I mean you create your questions in more than
one session, you have two choices. You can over-write the previous file with the
new one if you give the newer file the same name as the previous. Remember,
with each session Depo adds on the new work to the old,
so you do not have to append files to create one file. But, if for some reason
you want to save the sessions as separate files, just give each succeeding file
a different name, like Jones Depo1, Jones Depo2, etc.
Also,
once you are in your wordprocessor, you have all of the editing capabilities of
it. You can cut and paste, change margins, number the pages, etc. I quite often
will rearrange the order of the questions within the group, by using the cut
and paste method.
What do I
do when I am finished with the deposition? You have two choices. If you feel
there is a chance you may need to do further work in the future, i.e., appeal
or re-trial, you can archive the deposition. This can be done by right clicking
on the deposition icon 
and selecting Archive. If you
feel you won’t need the deposition in the future and want to delete it
and save disk space, you can delete the deposition by right clicking on it and selecting
the Delete function. Of course, if you saved the
floppy, you can always re-load the deposition, you just won’t have your
previous work in Depo any more. If you saved your
exported file, you would have it there.
OTHER
FEATURES