Document Solutions

The solution: Our objective was to find the most reliable and cost-effective method of creating a professional document that matched the required specification and also incorporated built-in checks to ensure that the spreadsheet data had been reproduced faithfully. Armed with the style guide, some sample spreadsheets and an outline of the required report, one of our designers developed a provisional Word template. With many large tables to include it was important to focus on the table formatting to ensure the document would be easy to read but not too long. Meanwhile our in-house technical team built a workflow to populate the Word template from Excel spreadsheets. The code also validated each spreadsheet to ensure that the expected columns were present and in the correct order. The provisional template was soon approved. When the spreadsheets became available we validated and processed them to create the 200 separate Word files within a couple of days. Our customer was given access to each report on Dropbox, as soon as it became available.

The outcome: The reports were delivered on time. Six weeks later our customer was asked to extend the research and we received an additional 50 Excel spreadsheets which were processed and returned within a day. This project had a highly customized brief with a tight deadline but, by combining our design and formatting skills with our ability to construct cost-effective workflows, we were able to offer a solution that delivered on-time and within our customer's budget.

The solution: Many of the documents had been authored by several people and the consistency of formatting was quite poor. Our team used a series of analysis tools to classify all of them by type (viz. forms, procedures, letters, regulations) and then created one new branded template for each distinct type. Next we used these templates to format a representative sample of documents for the customer's approval and proposed that all the material be likewise completely reformatted to provide clarity and consistency throughout. Following their acceptance, we agreed a priority order for executing the work and returning the documents.

The outcome: The phased delivery of the entire suite of documents was completed within three weeks. All the documents were consistently formatted according to type and we also provided a set of user instructions on how to maintain template consistency during future edits and alterations.

The solution: During a number of conference calls we developed a complete understanding of the project including the data, the proposed changes, the print specifications of the output and the challenging timescale facing the customer. Our team experimented with conversion procedures to achieve the best results for turning these particular PDFs into an editable format. Next they developed some code to tag every item in the catalog with an identity that could be matched to the corresponding pricing data held in an Excel spreadsheet. The entire catalog was processed in batches of 200 pages and presented to the customer for review. Finally the batches were combined, sent to the printer and published.

The outcome: The revised catalog was available on time and with the correct pricing information. Some months later the customer embarked on a different project with another catalog and once again commissioned us to apply the same techniques so they could have confidence in the accurate and repeatable matching of items and prices in their new catalog.