Tips for using smart paste in NI Bills

Introduction

There are 3 main options to copy content into Lawmaker

Import from Word: best option for copying whole bills; also useful if copying whole sections or schedules that contain a lot of inserted text to other document types which aren’t Acts of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Import from Legislation.gov.uk: useful for copying whole sections or schedules that already exist in legislation.gov.uk that you might be amending or copying in your NI Bill.
Copy & paste (Smart paste): useful for smaller chunks of provisions e.g. one or two sections. You can use it to copy whole bills into the Editor but it works best on simple sections/schedules with minimal amendments to other document types.

Tips for using smart paste

(Also read Smart paste for an overview of smart paste)

Tip 1: The start of your copied provisions needs to be the highest level provision in the chunk you are copying

Due to the way that smart paste works, if your start provision isn’t the highest level provision in the chunk that you are copying, smart paste will not be able to create these higher level provisions. At best, smart paste will end at the point the higher level provision appears; at worst, it might be misidentified and inserted as a different provision requiring manual intervention to correct.

This is an example of copied text not starting at the highest level provision which will result in a failed paste.

Example:

(1) This is a subsection
(2) This is a second subsection
This is a new section
1.—(1) This is a new subsection in a new section

Tip 2: Paste into Word or Notepad to strip out hidden line breaks

PDFs are especially bad for this: copying provisions directly from a PDF and pasting it into Lawmaker is unlikely to be successful and this is mainly due to the hidden formatting (namely line breaks) in it which can throw smart paste. It is also likely to include line numbering if you’ve copied a line numbered PDF which can also throw smart paste.

The recommendation is to open Word or Notepad and paste the content into it. Delete any line breaks in the chunk that you’ve copied. Select this corrected text and paste into Lawmaker

Tip 3: Remove tables, images and equations from the copied document

Smart paste hasn’t been designed to import tables, images or equations. The recommendation is to delete these from the chunk that you want to copy and paste into Lawmaker and manually insert them directly via the Editor. You can still copy text to recreate these objects.

Tip 4: Quote marks can sometimes confuse smart paste

Quote marks are a key part of the parsing logic for smart paste used to identify what provision should be inserted. If quote marks are missing, or the wrong way around or there are a lot, this can often confuse smart paste and create strange results. If smart paste is struggling, consider working around portions of text that have a lot of complicated quote marks in them (e.g. multiple defined terms in one definition).

Tip 5: Cross headings can sometimes confuse smart paste

Cross headings, particularly in quoted structures can confuse smart paste. It might be easier to delete them if they are causing issues and re-insert them after you’ve copied the chunk of text (see Wrapping and unwrapping provisions )

Tip 6: Move or delete the reference note in schedules

If you are copying a whole schedule, it’s worth pasting the copied content into Word or Notepad and manually moving the reference note so that it appears on the same line after the schedule number e.g.

Schedule 1 Section 1
Offences where offender not suitable for automatic release

Alternatively, delete it from the Word/Notepad and manually add it to the Lawmaker document after you have successfully pasted the schedule. Place your cursor in the schedule number, click Enter to view the insert menu and select ‘Reference note’. Type in the provision that calls the schedule.

Tip 6: Paste quoted structures that are amending NI Orders in Council or Secondary Legislation separately

Smart paste can recognise quoted structures, including nested quoted structures. But, it will assume the contents are amending Acts of the Northern Ireland Assembly e.g. If the quoted structure contains section-like provisions (e.g. Articles) or subsection-like provisions (e.g. paragraphs) then these will be assumed to be the equivalent provision in an Act of the Northern IReland Assembly.

If you know you are amending an NI Order in Council or secondary legislation, you should omit the quoted structure from the copied text to paste and manually paste them as a separate action. First you will need to insert the quoted structure manually (Selecting the appropriate document type and starting element) and then pasting the content of the quoted structure.

Warning: if you paste the whole Article into a quoted structure, it will be pasted after the quoted structure so you need to insert the Article into the quoted structure manually and then copy the paragraphs as a block, rather than copying the whole Article.

Troubleshooting incorrectly pasted provisions

If you are more confident with Lawmaker, you might prefer to work your way down through a smart pasted block of text and correct any incorrect provisions as you go. There are various tools in Lawmaker that will make this easier. The following table lists some of the more common smart paste issues with some tips on how to resolve them.

Smart paste issue	Recommended steps to resolve
Quoted structure should be to another document type	Open the Attributes right-hand panel Place cursor at the start of the pasted quoted structure. Use left arrow to move your cursor into the quoted structure element (check the breadcrumb). Update the ukl:docName to the correct document type: Northern Ireland Order in Council = nisi UK Act = ukpga Northern Ireland Statutory Rule = nisr Scottish Act = asp Act of the Northern Ireland Assembly = nia EU Decision = eudn EU Directive = eudr
The quoted structure contains incorrect provisions based on the context E.g. instead of schedule sub-paragraphs, there are subsections E.g. instead of Articles, there are sections	Step 1: ensure the document type is correct (see point above re. ukl:docName) Change the document type of the quoted structure Open the Attributes right-hand panel Place cursor at the start of the pasted quoted structure. Use left arrow to move your cursor into the quoted structure element (check the breadcrumb). Update the ukl:docName to the correct document type: Northern Ireland Order in Council = nisi UK Act = ukpga Northern Ireland Statutory Rule = nisr Scottish Act = asp Act of the Northern Ireland Assembly = nia EU Decision = eudn EU Directive = eudr Step 2: correct the provisions Convert subsection into equivalent provisions Place cursor at the start of the quoted structure Move cursor into the quoted structure element using the left arrow (check the breadcrumb) When in the quoted structure, click Enter to see the insert menu (which will present options valid according to the specified document type) Select the correct provision (e.g. schedule sub-paragraph or Paragraph (1)) Use multi-select in the structure view to highlight all the subsections and cut them using keyboard short cut Ctrl+X Place your cursor in the newly inserted (correct) provision and use keyboard shortcut Ctrl+V to paste the copied subsections which will be pasted as the appropriate element type Convert section into article (or any other NISR/SI/SSI provision) Place cursor at the start of the quoted structure Move cursor into the quoted structure element using the left arrow (check the breadcrumb) When in the quoted structure, click Enter to see the insert menu and select Article (or correct NISR/SSI/SI provision) Copy and paste the section heading into the Article heading If the section contained subsections, insert a paragraph into your Article Use multi-select in the structure view to highlight all the subsections and cut them using keyboard short cut Ctrl+X Place your cursor in the newly inserted paragraph and use keyboard shortcut Ctrl+V to paste the copied subsections which will be pasted as paragraphs Note: you will need to work section-by-section to convert the content into Articles. Handling cross headings in NI Orders in Council These are called ‘Italic headings’ in the insert menu If your quoted structure is amending an NI Order in Council and starts with a cross heading, place cursor at the start of the quoted structure Move cursor into the quoted structure element using the left arrow (check the breadcrumb) When in the quoted structure, click Enter to see the insert menu (which will present options valid according to the specified document type) Select ‘Italic heading’ Copy the content of the cross heading into the empty heading placeholder Continue converting sections into articles as described above.
The text is pasted as a block of text into an existing provision rather than pasting as individual provisions.	Depending on the size of the content, it might be easier to split up the chunk of text into the appropriate provisions: Instructions Place your cursor at the end of the first provision in the block of text and use keyboard shortcut Alt+S to split the provision into 2 sibling provisions Tidy up any remaining spaces and repeat until you’ve broken the text into a series of sibling provisions If the provisions are further broken down into child elements, use demote (Tools > Demote provision) to convert a sibling provision into a child provision e.g. a paragraph
The highest provision in the inserted text is made up of paragraphs, definitions, sub-paragraphs or sub-sub-paragraphs.	Paragraphs, sub-paragraphs, sub-sub-paragraphs and definitions are the same elements for SIs, Northern Ireland Orders in Councils and Bills. This means that if your quoted structure is made up of these lower level provisions, but it is the wrong document type: you only need to update the document type (see the first row in this table) - the provisions will not need converting.

Depending on your confidence levels and experience with Lawmaker, it might be easier to copy smaller chunks into Lawmaker. If you preferred, you could copy the whole portion and paste it into Lawmaker to see if smart paste can handle it. If there are obvious issues, it might be better to note where smart paste went wrong; undo the paste (Ctrl+Z) and copy up to the breaking point. Thereafter, breakdown the copy & paste into smaller chunks.