Add Bates Numbering to Your Documents

Use Adobe Pro to “B

Most litigation attorneys (certainly those who do Depositions and Trials) routinely have documents such as medical records, etc., “Bates Stamped” or “Bates Numbered.” While SmartAdvocate itself does not apply Bates Numbering to documents, this can easily be done using Adobe Pro. Most users can apply Bates Numbering to any pdf document in SmartAdvocate in a matter of seconds. Here are the steps you can take to apply “bates Numbering” to your pdf document in SmartAdvocate.

1. Scan (using the SmartAdvocate Bar Code feature) or Attach your pdf document to the file in SmartAdvocate (e.g., medical records).
2. Your scanned document will appear in the “Documents” section of the case file in SmartAdvocate. (If you need to have a Word document “Bates Numbered,” you can easily convert it to the pdf format right from the documents section of the file in SmartAdvocate. Simply right click on the document and choose ‘Copy as PDF’).
3. Open the document as you normally would in SmartAdvocate (i.e., right click on the document and choose open from the drop down or click the ‘action’ icon and click open from the drop down).
4. Your document will open in Adobe Pro (this feature is only available in Adobe Pro, not the free version of Adobe Reader. Also, Adobe Pro must be installed on your local computer and be the default pdf editor)
5. If you have not already done so, it is suggested that you customize your Adobe Pro Tool Bar so that the Bates Stamp icon appears on the Tool Bar (you will only need to do this step once)
6. Click on the “Bates Stamp” icon and the “Add Files” window will appear.
7. Click on the “Add Files” tab and then choose “Currently Opened Document” to add that document to the list.
8. Click the “Output Options” and make any appropriate selections based on how you want the Bates Numbering to appear. In the example below, I have the setting to keep the original file name and append “- Bates Numbered” to the name. Add any options as you wish the name, etc. to appear.
9. Click the “Appearance Options” tab to make your selection(s) as to how you want the Bates Number to appear on your document.
10. After you have made your selections for your options, you will see a ‘preview’ of how the Bates Numbering will appear on your document.
11. You may want to save your settings so that you can select those settings from your drop-down in the future.
12. Your finished document is automatically saved in the Document section of the file in SmartAdvocate.