Prepare a Bundle with BriefTech
A guided, end-to-end walkthrough — take any set of documents from upload to a finished, paginated bundle ready for filing or sharing.
Welcome. In this tutorial we'll prepare a bundle of documents — the steps are the same whether you are building a Common Bundle of Documents, a Bundle of Authorities, a Records of Appeal, or any other bundle type. Only the preset and column layout change.
We'll follow the stages of the workflow in order, using a set of your own practice documents organised into folders — the fastest way to shape your index, though not a requirement: you can also upload loose files and add the index headings by hand in Step 5. The whole run takes around twenty minutes and produces a paginated, cover-paged PDF ready for filing.
Before you start
By the end of this tutorial you'll have:
a paginated PDF for each volume, plus a ZIP containing them all,
a table of contents that reflects the structure you defined,
a cover page ready to customise with your firm's details, and
PDF bookmarks that jump directly to each document.
Before you open BriefTech, prepare a set of practice documents on your computer. You can use folders to organise how documents are grouped in the index under headers — each folder you create can become a header in the Document Index once you run Generate index headings → Group by folder in Step 5. For example:
Bundle Practice/
├── Cause Papers/
├── Correspondence/
└── Expert Reports/You do not need many files — two or three documents per folder is enough to see the workflow in action.
Step 1 — Create the matter and upload your documents
A matter is BriefTech's container for a single case.
Sign in to BriefTech. You'll land on the Matters screen.
Click
.In Input Matter Reference, type
Practice — Bundle of Documents.Click
.
BriefTech opens the new matter on its 
tab, showing an empty upload zone.
Now upload your practice folders:
Drag the top-level folder containing all your subfolders into the upload zone. (
opens a picker for individual files only, so dragging is the only way to add a whole folder on a new matter. Once the matter has documents in it, the Files tab also offers an Upload → Upload Folder menu.) If you didn't organise your documents into folders, upload the loose files instead and add the index headings by hand in Step 5 — a folder structure is optional.BriefTech stages the folder tree in a Gather Files For Upload step so you can check your selection. Click
to start the upload.BriefTech uploads the entire folder tree and preserves the subfolder names, so they are available when you design the index / table of contents later.
You should see the documents appear in the file list, grouped under their folders.
How folders become headers: Each folder you upload can become a header in the Document Index — you turn folders into headings in Step 5 — and the documents inside it are then grouped beneath that header. You can rename, reorder, or add headers at any time in the 
tab — but starting with a folder structure is the fastest way to get your index shaped correctly.
A document showing an error or warning icon? Hover over it to read the message, then:
Persistent error — right-click the row and choose
(see Reprocess a failed document).Still failing — the file may be corrupted or an unsupported type; contact BriefTech support.
Don't want it in the bundle? An error document still appears in the table of contents and takes one page — tick its checkbox, click the bin icon in the toolbar and confirm. It moves to the Bin, where it stays recoverable, rather than being deleted outright.
A document's own text is poor or garbled? — if BriefTech kept a document's existing text (Skipped Text) but it's wrong, right-click and choose
to re-read every page from scratch (see Document processing and errors).
Force OCR brings a document's credit charge forward — it is not a separate fee. Each document is charged once, roughly 1 credit per 50 pages, and choosing triggers that charge early for any document not yet charged.
Already charged — Force OCR costs nothing, and no confirmation appears.
Not yet charged — BriefTech shows a Confirm Force-OCR dialog with the exact amount, so you can cancel.
Step 2 — Let BriefTech process the documents
BriefTech extracts text, dates, and descriptions automatically as each file uploads. This runs in the background and you don't need to do anything while it runs.
Click the
tab.Watch the Document Date and Document Description columns fill in for each row. A spinner shows that a document is still being processed.
Wait until every row shows a date and a description before continuing.
Need to add or remove documents?
Add — drag more files into the pool from the
tab at any time, or go to the tab and use the Upload button (choose Upload Folder) to add whole folders.Remove — tick a document's checkbox, then click the bin icon in the toolbar and confirm. Documents in the Bin stay recoverable until you delete them from there.
Find recent uploads — sort by the Uploaded column using its header.
See Upload documents for a full guide.
Step 3 — Review and correct dates and descriptions
The bundle's table of contents is built from the Document Date and Document Description fields. Review them now so the index reflects your reading of the documents.
In the
tab, find a row whose Document Date looks wrong or is missing.Double-click the Document Date cell. It opens a free-text date editor, not a calendar. If BriefTech found more than one date in the document, a short list of those candidate dates appears — click the correct one. If it found only one, or none, type the date in yourself.
Click outside the cell to confirm. The cell updates immediately.
Repeat for any other dates that need correcting.
Now review the descriptions:
Find a row whose Document Description you want to improve.
Double-click the Document Description cell. An inline editor opens.
Edit the text to match the document's title or your preferred form, then click outside to confirm.
The cell turns blue to show it has been edited by hand. BriefTech will not overwrite a value you've set manually.
Verifying against the source document: Click any row to open that document in the side preview pane, without leaving the tab. Drag the splitter to widen the pane, or collapse it with the chevron.
Use the filename as the description. If a document's filename is already the right description, hover the Document Description cell and click 
to apply it directly instead of typing.
Once you've hand-edited a description (as in Step 3 above), that row locks: the quick-fill and regenerate icons disappear and the row's padlock closes (
). The 
translate icon stays available either way. Click the padlock to unlock the row and bring the AI icons back, then click 
to regenerate the AI description, or double-click the cell to edit. See Bulk-edit metadata across many documents for other options.
Translating descriptions: To translate a description into another language, hover the Document Description cell and click the icon. If the language you need is not listed, contact BriefTech. See Translate document descriptions for the full guide.
Step 4 — Refine descriptions for consistency
A bundle often contains many documents. The Refine Descriptions feature lets you bring a batch of descriptions into a consistent style in one go.
Manually edit at least one description into the exact style you want — two or three consistent examples give BriefTech more to work from. These become the reference rows (shown in blue).
Tick the checkboxes for your reference rows plus the remaining documents you want to restyle. The button stays disabled until the selection holds both at least one edited row and at least one un-edited row.
Click
in the toolbar above the Original File Name column.
BriefTech rewrites the unedited descriptions to match the style of your blue reference rows. Rows you manually edited (blue) are protected and will not be changed.
Step 5 — Generate the index using a preset
Now we'll build the table of contents that becomes the spine of the bundle.
Click the
tab.Click
in the toolbar.Choose Apply bundle/index preset.
Select Bundle of Documents.
Building a different bundle type? Select the preset that matches your bundle type — for example Bundle of Authorities, Records of Appeal (MY), or Record of Appeals (SG). See Document Index presets.
Applying the preset sets your index columns and bundle settings — but it does not create the section headings on its own. If you uploaded a folder structure, the quickest way to add them is to open the menu again and choose Generate index headings → 
: BriefTech creates one heading per uploaded folder and groups the documents beneath it. If you didn't, add the headings by hand using the tips below. (You can rename, reorder, or add headings afterwards in the Index tab either way.)
Run Group by folder before you edit headings by hand. Re-running it later replaces every heading in the index — including ones you added, renamed, or reordered yourself — and the change cannot be undone. BriefTech asks you to confirm only the first time you use Generate index headings on a matter; after that it rebuilds silently, with no warning.
Need to add or rename a header?
Add — hover the top edge of the Document Description cell on the row where the heading should start; an "Add heading:" strip fades in. Click its
chip and the heading is inserted above that row.Rename — double-click the heading (or use its ⋮ menu → Edit heading) to open the Edit Heading dialog.
See Manage headings in the Document Index for the full guide.
Need to reorder documents or sections? Drag any row by the drag handle (⠿) at its left edge:
a document row moves that document;
a header row moves only the heading — the documents beneath it stay where they are.
To move a whole section, tick the heading and every document under it first, then drag any one of the ticked rows — the drag carries the whole ticked selection.
Do this in Edit mode, then switch to Preview mode to see the finished layout. Full guides: Reorder documents and add structure and Manage headings in the Document Index.
Need to add sub-index entries? Sub-index entries are the individual lines that appear beneath a document in the index — for example, the tabs or exhibits within an affidavit. See Add or edit sub-index entries for the full guide.
Switch to Preview mode to check that the section headings match your folder names and that every document appears under the correct header.
Didn't upload a folder structure? You can still divide the index into sections by adding headings by hand, as described above, then dragging documents beneath each one. See Reorder documents and add structure.
Step 6 — Configure the cover page and volume settings
Before generating the bundle, open the bundle settings: in the tab, click 
in the toolbar. The bundle settings appear in this panel — configure them here.
Cover Page
Prepare a cover page template that includes your firm's details, the case reference, and the court. See the Template syntax reference for the tokens you can embed (case name, volume number, date, and so on).
Expand Cover Page, and under Cover Page Template click
to select your template file. (If a template is already set, the button reads 
.)Still in Cover Page, set Blank pages before index — the number of blank pages inserted after the cover page and before the index, in every volume. Leave it at 0 unless your filing rules require them.
Volumes Settings
In Max Pages Per Volume, enter the maximum page count per volume (check the relevant Practice Direction or court rules for the current limit).
Use Volume Split Strategy and Auto Split Threshold (pages) to control how BriefTech handles a document that would straddle a volume boundary — the threshold sets the point at which BriefTech pushes the document to the next sub-volume rather than splitting it mid-document. Leave both at their defaults for now.
Scroll to PDF Page Scaling at the bottom of the same section and set Scaling mode to Normalize to A4 by orientation, so that any non-A4 pages (scanned A3, letter-sized exhibits) are resized to A4 for filing. (Leave it on Keep original page size to keep pages at their original size.)
Pagination
In the Pagination section, you can hide the page-number stamp on specific pages (such as tab pages or cover pages) where stamping is not required. Those pages are still counted in the total pagination. You can also adjust the font size, font colour, and position of the page-number stamps. See Court bundle settings for all available options.
As you set each value the panel keeps your choice: once your template is accepted the Cover Page Template button changes from Upload to Replace with the filename shown in green, and every figure you entered stays in its field — so you can confirm your settings are in place before you generate.
Step 7 — Create the bundle
Still in the Create Bundle panel, click
at the bottom. If a red "Bundle settings need attention" banner appears, fix the settings it lists — the button stays disabled until they are valid.If a warning dialog lists documents with processing issues (password-protected, unsupported type, empty, or too large), click Create Bundle Anyway to proceed — affected files appear as placeholder pages — or
to resolve those documents first (see the Document processing and errors reference).The first time you export these files, BriefTech shows a Confirm Export dialog listing the credit cost ("This will consume N credits in total"). Review it and click
to proceed.
Clicking Export spends credits, and it cannot be undone. BriefTech charges roughly 1 credit per 50 pages, once per document — documents already charged earlier (for example by Force OCR in Step 1) are not charged again, which is why the dialog's total is often smaller than the bundle.
Cancel closes the dialog and abandons the run — nothing is charged and no bundle is built.
Not enough credits? BriefTech offers a watermarked export instead.
See How credits work.
BriefTech starts building the bundle, and generation can take a few minutes. A Bundles created successfully message appears when it finishes. A large bundle is handed to a background job that keeps running even if you move away — the success message then only reaches you if you are on the Index tab when it lands, but come back before it finishes and BriefTech picks the job up again, so you still get it. A practice set is normally small enough to finish in place and tell you wherever you are in the app. A Job Logs window opens by itself as soon as the run starts, showing the live log. You can close it at any time — the bundle keeps building. The 
icon in the top bar also pulses while any job is running; click it to open Background Jobs and check progress.
Step 8 — Download and check the bundle
When the bundle is ready, return to the Index tab and click
in the toolbar to reopen the panel — the finished volumes are listed directly below the button. The Background Jobs panel shows job status only; the downloads are always in the Create Bundle panel.Click the
download icon on the volume you want. Every run also produces a Complete Bundle (ZIP) card containing every volume PDF in one file — use that to download the whole bundle at once.
Open the PDF and check:
a cover page at the front of each volume,
a table of contents listing every document under its correct header,
continuous page numbers stamped across every document in each volume,
all pages are A4-sized, and
PDF bookmarks in the side panel that jump directly to each document.
If anything looks off, return to the tab, adjust the settings or structure, click in the toolbar to reopen the panel, and click again — you can regenerate as many times as you need.
From the second run onwards, BriefTech asks you to confirm first: Existing bundle files detected — starting a new bundle will overwrite previous results. Click Proceed to replace the volumes you downloaded earlier, or Cancel to keep them and stop.
What you've accomplished
You took an empty matter and:
uploaded a folder structure where each folder became a header in the Document Index,
reviewed and corrected AI-extracted dates and descriptions,
refined a batch of descriptions into a consistent style,
applied a bundle preset and refined the index by dragging rows, adding headers, and adding sub-index entries,
configured a cover page template, volume size, and A4 normalisation, and
generated and downloaded a paginated, bookmarked bundle.
This workflow is the same for every bundle type in BriefTech. Switch the preset to match your document type — everything else stays the same.
Where to go next
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