Add or edit sub-index entries

Add, edit, or remove the sub-index entries that appear beneath a document in the Document Index.

Sub-index entries are the individual lines that appear beneath a document row in the tab — typically the exhibits or chapters from an affidavit or bundle tab. Each entry has a title, a level, and a page range.

Open the Edit Subindex dialog

1. In the tab, hover over the document row you want to edit — action icons appear at the bottom-right of its Description cell.
2. Click the icon.

The Edit Subindex dialog opens, showing the current sub-index entries for that document. If there are none yet, it opens with a single placeholder row ("Enter document description") for you to fill in. The dialog is persistent — pressing Esc or clicking outside won't close it; use to close without saving.

Check entries against the document

Click any row in the table to jump the document to that entry's page start, so you can confirm each title and page number against the document as you go. The Edit Subindex dialog is split in two — the entry table on the left, the source document alongside it on the right — and the document opens straight away, even for a large file.

If the document has no PDF attached, the right-hand side shows "No PDF available to preview for this document." instead.

Generate sub-index entries from the PDF

1. In the Edit Subindex dialog, click Generate from PDF.
2. Review the entries that appear in the table.
3. Click to apply them.

BriefTech builds the sub-index from the PDF for you, and it works even when the PDF has no bookmarks of its own. Generate from PDF needs a PDF — if the document has no PDF attached, BriefTech asks you to upload one first.

Generate from PDF replaces the whole table. When it finds entries, it overwrites every row currently shown in the dialog — including any you added or edited by hand — with the generated set. It does not merge, and there's no confirmation first. The replacement isn't stored until you click Save. Only when generation finds nothing is the table left unchanged.

Review the generated entries

Auto-generated entries are a starting point, not a finished index — always check them before you save.

• If BriefTech runs into anything it isn't sure about while reading a bundle index — for example page numbers it can't line up with the pages in this PDF — an amber banner appears at the top of the dialog listing the issues (for example "2 issues found while reading the index — review before saving"), with a button. Read each issue and fix the affected rows before saving.
• If the bundle's index table lists documents from a later volume, those entries may be pulled in as well, and their page numbers can be wrong — a later volume's page numbers can't be worked out from this PDF. Delete any entries that don't belong to this volume before you save.

Add entries manually

1. In the Edit Subindex dialog, click Add subindex item.
2. A new row appears. Double-click each field to edit it:

   • Level — the entry's depth, as a whole number from 0 upwards. Leave it at 0 in most cases: sub-index entries always sit one level beneath their parent document in the exported bundle, so a higher number here won't nest an entry any deeper.
   • Title — the text that appears in the index. Required.
   • Page start — the page number where this entry begins (1-based). Required.
   • Page end — the page number where this entry ends. Optional; if you set it, it must be the same as or after the Page start, or BriefTech won't let you save.
   • Date — the date of the entry. Optional; BriefTech accepts several formats and standardises them when you save:

     • A full date, for example 2018-01-31, 31/01/2018, or 31.01.2018
     • A month and year, for example 01/2018
     • A range, for example 2018-01-01 to 2018-12-31

     Dates are read day-first, so 31/01/2018 means 31 January (US month-first order isn't supported). Type undated for a document with no date, or leave the field blank to clear it — an undated sub-index entry shows a blank date in the index and bundle (not the word "Undated"). If the value can't be read as a date, BriefTech shows Invalid date format.
3. Click to apply.

How the sub-index stays ordered:

• The list is always kept in page order — entries sort by their page start as you add or edit them, so the sub-index reads top to bottom in the same order as the document.
• A new entry is added at the bottom, with its Page start pre-filled to one page after the furthest page any existing entry covers (page 1 for the very first entry). Change it to the entry's real page — the list re-sorts into page order when you do.
• If two entries' page ranges overlap, or leave a gap between them, an amber warning icon appears next to the page number on the affected rows — hover it to see what's wrong.
• These warnings are guidance only — they never stop you saving.

Edit an existing entry

Any field in the table can be edited the same way — make your change, then click .

After the bundle has been paginated (switch to Preview), sub-index entries appear as their own rows in the Document Index. There you can edit a sub-index title or date directly without opening the dialog — double-click the cell in the sub-index row, or hover the row and click the icon that appears on the cell. Before pagination, edit entries from the Edit Subindex dialog (above).

Preview an entry at its page

Once the bundle has been paginated (switch to Preview) so sub-index rows appear in the Document Index, hover over a sub-index row in the tab and click the icon that appears next to its number to open the source document in the preview pane at that entry's page — a quick way to confirm an entry points at the right page. The icon appears only when the entry has a page to jump to.

Remove an entry

Click the icon on the right of the row you want to delete, then click .

What you've built

You now have a sub-index that sits beneath its document's heading in the tab and mirrors the tabs and pagination of the original bundle, so the main index reads as one complete guide to the record — the way to show what's inside a document that is itself a bundle, such as a Bundle of Documents or an affidavit with exhibits. When you generate a paginated court bundle, each entry is written into the bundle PDF as a nested bookmark (outline entry) beneath its document's own bookmark, so it appears in the PDF reader's bookmark panel indented one level under the parent document, each jumping to the page where it begins.

Related

From Document Index to court bundle

How the Document Index and the bundle share one source of truth.

Manage headings in the Document Index

Add, rename, move, and generate the headings that organise the index.

Reorder documents and add structure

Drag documents to reorder them and move them between sections.

Generate a paginated court bundle

Produce the bundle where sub-index entries appear as nested PDF bookmarks.