Overview of Import from Word

As of v19, it is possible to import a Word version of an NI bill into Lawmaker which will be converted into a Lawmaker NI bill document. The main purpose for this is to allow NI users to migrate bills from their legacy system into Lawmaker, but it can also be used as a workaround for drafting documents when offline.

In future releases we hope to extend this feature to other document types, including secondary legislation.

How Import from Word works

When you import content from Word, Lawmaker will attempt to work out what all the provisions are and the structure. If it is unable to recognise a provision, the content will be retained, but it will be inserted as a generic text element which will require you to fix after import. The the rest of the section explains what happens to the different components in a bill when it is imported from Word.

Cross references

References in your word document will not be recreated in the imported Lawmaker document. You will need to recreate all your cross references in Lawmaker (see References )

Jrefs

If you have added Jrefs to your document as text, these will be imported as text but will not be marked up as a Jref. You will need to manually create each Jref in your document if required.

Long title and words of enactment

The long title will be imported into Lawmaker along with the words of enactment.

Tables

The content of a table will be imported into Lawmaker, as long as it appears in a valid location in the document e.g. within a subsection. The number of columns and rows (including merged cells where identified) but the styling will use default settings—

The border style will default to the ‘all borders’ style;
The width of the table will default to 100%
The column widths will be set to a default width based on their contents
If the first row of a table is formatted (e.g. bold or italics) it will be treated as the header row. Otherwise, the content of the first row will be treated as normal table rows

These default settings can be manually changed using the table properties (see Inserting and managing tables ).

Definitions

Provisions that look like definitions will be automatically marked up as definitions in the imported Lawmaker document.

Quoted structures and quoted text

Any text that is wrapped within double-quote marks and isn’t a definition will be automatically marked-up as either quoted text (text within a sentence), quoted structures (whole provisions) or both depending on its structure.

Document type

By default, the assigned document type in a quoted structure will be the enacted version of the document you are drafting i.e. the document type of a quoted structure in a NI Bill will be an Act of the Northern Ireland Assembly. If you have provided a quoted structure code before the opening quotes of your inserted text, this default document type will be overridden with your coded document type.

Provision type

Some provisions look the same as other provisions but depending on context, are called different names. An example would be a subsection which looks exactly the same as a schedule sub-paragraph. By default, Lawmaker will assume provisions within a quoted structure are section-related provisions where there are no other ways to identify them as being within a schedule. If you have provided a quoted structure schedule code before the opening quotes of your inserted text, the provision type will treated as schedule-like provisions.

Find out more about how to add quoted structure codes before inserted text here How to use Import from Word | How-to-code-your-inserted-text ).

Known limitations

v19 is a beta version that currently only works when importing NI Bills. The following list highlights the known limitations that will require manual intervention either in the Word document to remove or modify; or in the imported Lawmaker document to fix.

Quoted structures
- Tables: if the amending text is inserting rows into a table, these aren’t currently recognised by the import parsing logic. The table will be imported into your Lawmaker document but it won’t be marked up as being within a quoted structure.
  - Suggested workaround: You will need to manually insert the quoted structure and cut and paste the imported table into it.
- Nested quoted structures: these are mostly handled. However, if the nested quoted structure and its parent quoted structure both end at the same point, these might not get correctly marked up in the imported document.
  - Suggested workaround: Either:
    - remove the nested quoted structure from the Word document and manually insert it into the imported Lawmaker document; or
    - insert an extra provision between the end of the nested quoted structure and the end of the parent quoted structure and remember to delete it from the imported Lawmaker document.

The right approach for you will depend on the size of the nested quoted structure.

Steps and lists
- Less commonly used provisions such as steps and lists (e.g. bulleted lists) are not currently recognised by Lawmaker. These will be inserted as second sentences after the provision that appears before it/them. In the example screenshot below, the list items 1-4 and the extra ‘note’ were inserted as 2nd - 6th sentences after subsection (3). They were additionally flagged in the document check right-hand panel to draw your attention to them as something that may need manual intervention.
- Suggested workaround: if you see document check error saying “Text flagged as unrecognised during Import from Word operation” then you need to decide the appropriate way of handling them in the document.
  - You can decide to leave them as additional sentences on the preceding provision, in which case use the '+Remove flag from text quick fix link in the document check card which will remove the document check flag
  - You can optionally insert them as unnumbered paragraphs using the insert menu, or even insert them as list items. If you chose to manually insert them with a specific provision, the '+Delete unrecognised text quick fix link in the document check will help you remove the unwanted elements.
Images and Equations
- These are not handled by the import feature. An image editing icon will appear in the Lawmaker document, but the image will not have been imported.
- Suggested workaround: delete the image from the Word document that you are using to import from and manually insert the image into the imported Lawmaker document.
Definitions that contain more than one defined term
- These will not be correctly marked up as part of the import operation. Subsequent defined terms in a definition will be marked up as quoted text. The same applies to defined terms within provisions e.g. subsections that contain a definition.
- Suggested workaround: Ignore the quoted text mark up. It causes no harm in Lawmaker or downstream applications so can be left like this.
Inline styling/formatting
- Any styling mark-up to a word or string of words in the Word document will not be recreated in Lawmaker e.g. italicised word.
- Suggested workaround: if you know your document contains inline styling/formatting, manually apply the styling in the imported Lawmaker document.
Table numbers and headings
- These are not currently handled in Lawmaker.
- Suggested workaround: manually add them to your tables by right-clicking with your cursor in the table and selecting 'Table… > Update Table and selecting Table number and Table caption in the dialog box.
Subsection headings
- These are not recognised as part of the import operation.
- Suggested workaround: Delete them from the word document and manually insert them into the imported Lawmaker document.