CETTEC Insights

If you work in litigation, you’ve probably spent more hours than you’d like to admit wrestling with a Table of Contents (TOC) and Table of Authorities (TOA) in Word. Recently, I saw a great LinkedIn post from Julie Enez  at Beyond Paralegals  about creating TOCs and TOAs and properly marking citations. That’s the part everyone talks about. From the printer’s side, we see the next part: The TOC and TOA look perfect in Word… and then things go sideways at the PDF and print stag

More and more source material lives on the web: online reasons for judgment, government policies, guidelines, and regulatory pages. But when that content needs to end up in a printed  court record or book, simply “print to PDF” from your browser can give you: Tiny, hard-to-read text Cropped margins Missing sections or broken page breaks On top of that, the BC Court of Appeal expects PDFs to meet certain technical standards: searchable text, consistent page numbering, and the

The Court of Appeal’s updated Filing Directive changes how you file, but one thing hasn’t changed: for most civil appeals you now have to think in two formats at the same time – electronic and paper. From the print side, we’re already seeing where this creates stress: tight timelines for stamped paper copies, large PDFs bumping into size limits, and big appeal records that need to be managed well before the hearing is set. This Tuesday Tip looks at the new directive from a pr

You finally get your court books or factums back from print, and you see it right away: soft text, fuzzy Bates numbers, a key photo that looks like it went through a fax machine twice. On screen, the PDF looked fine. The usual culprit is simple: someone hit “Reduce File Size” or “Save as compressed PDF” and then used that version as the print master . This Tuesday Tip is generic and straightforward enough for almost any court system: Compressed PDFs are for emailing and e-fil

The Court of Appeal for BC is very specific about how civil factums and replies must look. The templates and completion instructions spell out the font, spacing, margins, structure, and covers. The trouble usually starts later—when the file goes to print and the details get lost. Here are practical, print-focused tips to turn those rules into a clean, court-ready factum. 1. Build from the official factum template Start with the Court’s civil factum/reply template, not an old

When you are preparing for an appeal, the Court of Appeal for BC is very clear about how your Book of Authorities must look under Civil Rule 27. The challenge is not the rules themselves – it is translating those requirements into a clean, print-ready PDF and an instruction set your print partner can follow without guesswork. This post focuses only on the Book of Authorities and turns the Court’s expectations into practical, production-ready steps. 1. Start with the Court’s c

The Court of Appeal for BC tells you exactly how your paper appeal book must look under Civil Rule 26 – but those details often never make it into the print order. Using the “Paper Filing Completion Instructions: Appeal Book – Civil Rule 26” as an example, here’s how to translate the rule into clear, practical directions for your printer. 1. Page numbering and table of contents The court expects: Pages numbered sequentially at the top centre A table of contents that matches t