Word documents

A contract, a brief, or a report often needs a person and an agent together. The agent drafts or revises the text; you read it on the page, change what you want, and decide which of its changes to keep. hob opens a Word document (.docx) in a render pane beside the conversation, so you both work on the same file and nothing is copied into chat.

Open a document

Open a .docx file from Go to File, the Files tree, or a file link in the conversation. The document opens in page view, with each page at its own size and margins, and fits the page width to the pane. Fit width stays on when you resize the pane; choose a percent in the zoom menu when you want a fixed size. Continuous view shows the document as one long page instead. Each file keeps its own view, zoom, and appearance.

hob lays out the pages with its own fonts, which have the same measurements as the common Word fonts (Times New Roman, Arial, Courier New, Calibri, Cambria, and others). When a document uses a font hob does not have, a notice names it, because page and line positions can then differ from Word.

A large document opens at the start and loads the rest while you read. Headings, tables, lists, footnotes, pictures, headers, and footers are shown as in Word. Parts hob cannot show in full are shown in a reduced form, with a notice.

An older Word 97–2003 file (.doc) does not open in hob: hob opens the newer .docx format. Open the file in Word and save it as .docx, then open that file in hob.

Legal print layout

Legal documents depend on where each line stands on the page. hob's page view follows the document's own page setup:

• Pleading paper: the numbered lines and margin rules drawn in the header, with the text standing on its lines.
• Line numbers: Word line numbering, restarted on each page or section, or continuous, as the document sets it. Deposition transcripts show their numbers in the margin.
• Headers and footers: different first pages, even and odd pages, page numbers in their own format (i, ii, then 1), and footnotes at the foot of the page that refers to them.
• Gutters and mirror margins: the binding margin on the correct side of each page.
• Bates numbers in a header or footer, whether typed or from a field.

Fields show the result saved in the file, as Word shows them before it updates fields.

Locations in a document can be given as page and line citations: 4:12 is page 4, line 12, and 4:12–18 covers lines 12 to 18. The lines are the printed line numbers, or the pleading grid's numbers on pleading paper. Your markup notes use these citations, and so can an agent when it points you to a passage.

Edit the text

Click into the page and type. You can delete, press Enter, join paragraphs, and type in table cells, with undo and redo. The formatting toolbar sets paragraph styles, bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, font, size, colour, highlight, alignment, bullets and numbering, indents, and links. Paste brings formatting from Word or a web page; pictures are not pasted yet. Use Cmd/Ctrl+F to find text and Cmd/Ctrl+H to find and replace.

The document saves on its own about half a second after you stop typing. Your edits are written into the file itself; everything you did not change stays as it was.

Some text cannot be edited yet: a field's result, a paragraph that has tracked changes, or a part shown in a reduced form. hob marks it with a dashed outline and says why when you point at it. Accept or reject the tracked changes in a paragraph to edit it.

Track your edits for Word readers

Tracked changes that are already in the file, from Word or anyone else, are listed in the review under their Word authors. Accepting or rejecting one resolves it in the file, as Word does.

hob keeps your own edits as its own changes, as it does for agents' edits: the file gets plain edits, and the review lists them as your changes. To send hob's changes, yours and the agents', to a Word reader as tracked changes, choose Save with tracked changes… in the review panel or in More. hob first says how many changes it can write, and how many it must leave out (some changes in tables, or with objects or fields), and the names it writes. Save them into a copy beside the file, or into the file itself.

In a Word file, your changes carry your name and agents' changes carry hob; a change you and an agent both made carries both. hob never writes an agent's name into a file. Your name comes from Settings → Files & search → File behavior → Your name in documents, with your initials beside it. Leave it empty to use your computer account's name. hob also uses it to find your own tracked changes in a file.

If you need your edits in the file as Word tracked changes while you type, turn on Save my edits as Word tracked changes in Settings. They are then written under your name, in every document. The file's own Track Changes setting does not change what hob writes.

Comments

Comments in the toolbar opens the document's comment threads. Reply to a comment, or resolve and reopen a thread; Word reads your reply in the same thread, under your name. When an agent left notes on the document, you can save them as Word comments on the words they stand on, under hob.

If hob closes, or the file changes on disk

Every edit is recorded before hob accepts it. If hob closes before an edit is saved, the document shows a card when you open it again: Restore my edits to go on, or Discard. hob does not change the document until you choose.

If another program changes the file while you have unsaved edits, saving pauses and your edits stay in the pane. Choose one:

• Reload takes the version on disk and discards your unsaved edits.
• Save my version as a copy keeps both: your version is saved beside the file, for example Lease (my version).docx.
• Overwrite saves your version over the other one.

hob does not merge the two versions.

Review an agent's changes

Review in the toolbar opens the review panel at any time, also when there are no changes, to look at your own changes. When an agent changes a document, its changes show in the text at once, also while you type: added words are underlined and removed words are struck through, in Word's style. A chip in the toolbar counts them, with your own edits apart, for example 3 changes · 2 yours (point at it for who made them). The chip turns the changes in the text on and off; it does not open or close the review panel.

Work through the changes one at a time:

1. Point at a change, move the cursor into it, or press Alt+] for the next change (Alt+[ for the previous one). A card opens beside the change, also for Word tracked changes, your own included.
2. The card says whose change it is (Your change, Agent change, or a Word author's name) and when, and the agent's reason when it gave one.
3. Choose Accept (Alt+Shift+Enter) or Reject (Alt+Shift+R). The card for the next change opens, and you stay in the text.

Accept keeps the change and marks it reviewed. Reject puts the earlier text back into the file. When the file changed again since you looked, the card says the change needs review, and nothing is decided until you look again.

In a table, each changed paragraph of a cell is its own change, and Reject puts it back in its cell. When an agent changes the table itself (adds or removes rows or columns, merges cells, or changes widths), the whole table is one change: the table is outlined, the card says what changed, and Show the earlier table shows the table as it was. Reject puts the earlier table back. If you also edited text inside that table, the card says so.

Accept and Reject always act in one click. When the right result needs more than the change itself, the same click includes it, and the card says so first: Reject restores the earlier paragraph and also removes the tracked changes made since in it, and a table change also decides the text between its tables. Undo brings everything back. When hob cannot write a change safely, the card says so once and its button stays off; edit that part by hand.

While the changes show in the text, the buttons beside the chip are Previous change and Next change (Alt+[ and Alt+]), which open the card at the next change shown in the text, then Accept all and Reject all, which decide every change at once, your own too, and Show list. In a narrow pane they move into More. Show list opens the review panel with every change grouped by the version that made it, newest first, each with its citation and words. There you can decide a whole group and choose Undo to go back from your latest decision. When you have accepted everything, the next review starts from the file as it is then.

Your own edits are always part of the review: hob records them, the chip counts them apart, and the list shows them, but they are not drawn in the text. Check Show my changes in the review panel to draw them too, in your colour, for the pane you are looking at. Choose one of your changes in the list to draw it and open its card. Your edits stay in the review until you accept them; hob never accepts them for you.

For now, hob does not say which agent made a change: changes read Changed in hob. Your own changes and Word authors are named.

At the top of the review panel, Show changes in the text is the same switch as the chip: opening the panel turns it on, and you can turn it off and keep the list open. hob keeps your last choice for each file: closing the panel does not change it, and the file shows the same in every pane and the next time it opens.

Settings → Files & search → File behavior → Changes shown in the text chooses what the text shows for every document and workbook:

• Agents' changes (the default): the agents' changes show whenever the file is open. Your own changes are kept in the review and the count.
• All changes: your own changes show too.
• Only while reviewing: the changes show only while the review panel is open, or after you choose the chip.

A project can choose its own. The review keys are listed as Previous / Next Turn / Command / Change, Accept Change, and Reject Change in Keyboard shortcuts, where you can change them.

Go back to an earlier version

hob keeps versions of every Word document you open in it. The first version is the file as it was when you opened it. After that, hob records a version for each agent turn that changed the file, one for each burst of your own editing, and one when another program changes the file. You do not need to save versions yourself.

Versions in the toolbar lists them, newest first, with who made each version and when: By you, By an agent, or By you and an agent.

• Restore writes a version back into the file. hob asks once; the current version stays in the list, so you can return to it.
• Compare with current shows every change since that version in the review.
• Save version keeps the file as it is now, with an optional name, for a point you want to find later. A saved version is always kept.
• Delete (the trash button on a version) removes a version you no longer want, or every older version at once. hob asks first and says what goes and what stays. A deleted version's change becomes part of the next version, and the space it used is freed.

Versions are small: they share the parts of the file that did not change, so a typed word in a document costs a few kilobytes. Older versions settle into fewer as they age: every version for the last hour, then one for each 15 minutes for a day, one for each hour for a week, and one for each day after that. Each version shows how many earlier ones it includes.

Versions follow Settings → History & retention: Keep file revisions for (90 days by default) and Space for document and workbook versions (5 GB per project by default). A version you saved, a file's newest version, and the changes waiting for your review are always kept. hob keeps versions of files up to 64 MB.

You cannot delete the current version, the version the review starts at, or a version that Undo of a review decision goes back to; the version says why. Deleting older versions also leaves your saved versions. To remove the current version's change, restore an earlier version first.

hob pane open render --file contracts/lease.docx

hob pane view <pane-id> --paras 40:60
hob pane view <pane-id> --pages 4:5

hob attention pane:<pane-id> --location para:42 --message "The payment clause now names a due date."
hob attention pane:<pane-id> --location page:4:line:12-18

hob doc changes <pane-id>
hob annotate --items '[{"file":"contracts/lease.docx","location":"change:<change-id>","note":"Due date moved to the first business day."}]'

hob attention pane:<pane-id> --location change:<change-id>

hob doc accept <pane-id> <change-id> --seen <current-id>
hob doc reject <pane-id> --all --seen <current-id>
hob doc undo <pane-id>

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