Flexibility is a quality desired and respected in many software solutions and applications. With some software products though, their flexibility can extend beyond what the casual user may normally experience if that product has the capacity to be integrated easily into other bespoke third party applications.
One example of a product that has the ability to offer legal users even more than they’d expected from what’s offered ‘out-of-the-box’ is Power PDF, from Nuance Communications. Nuance Power PDF has been developed to deliver best-in-class features, powerful security options and support and simplified licensing for users and IT alike, as well as delivering significant cost savings.
Nuance Power PDF – more performance for legal professionals in and out of the box
With those qualities at its core, Nuance Power PDF already boasts a solid track record in providing legal firms with fast, convenient access to comprehensive, reliable, easy-to-use PDF functionality, while coming in at a fraction of the price of competitor solutions. Now, with the help of Diskbuilder – a leading e-bible solution which assembles documents in a searchable, encrypted and branded application – Power PDF’s capabilities have been extended further still. Thanks to it being made compatible with Diskbuilder’s web browser module, it now integrates with e-bibles, giving legal firms more choice over what PDF editing and creation tool they can choose to deploy, unshackling them from being tied to one solution.
This is a significant development, given that e-bibles are used by many legal firms to collate documents from a certain case in order to store or give to a client at the end of a project. As such, e-bibles have become central – and invaluable – to how legal firms’ fee earners access vital case information when working. Today, they are an established tool used by legal firms for storing, indexing and comprehensively searching large volumes of documents related to any case files.
Making better e-bibles with Nuance Power PDF
For more than a decade, Diskbuilder has been leveraging web technologies on the desktop for clients, delivering e-bibles on CD-ROMS and DVDs. However, many legal firms are accelerating the pace at which they are moving to connected, digital environments with data stored on servers rather than CD-ROMs or DVDs. Taking an e-bible, via the web viewer route, means there is less traffic on the network, which means users can access an e-bible’s content faster. That is important because performance is a significant consideration for fee earners who charge on a quarter minute basis, so it is imperative that they can load case data quickly.
From web lock out to web look up
While the principle of this move to web viewer-based e-bibles is accepted, in practice it previously came with some difficulties. Many legal firms were reluctant to use a well-known PDF creation tool’s browser plug-in based on security concerns that they had, following a variety of reported vulnerabilities allowing attackers to execute arbitrary code, corrupt system memory and bypass security. Julian Weaver, director, Diskbuilder, explained: “We have found that clients’ IT departments did not want to re-enable the plug-in. Many legal firms’ security policy was to lock that creation tool out of their browser environment, making internal web-based access to e-bible content nigh on impossible.”
Taking control of security
From his knowledge of clients’ requirements for Diskbuilder and his experience with Power PDF, Julian is confident that as legal firms switch to Diskbuilder supported by Power PDF, “…there will be no problem with the plug-in. There is no stigma attached to the Power PDF plug-in, so legal firms should feel comfortable using it. Legal firms can use Power PDF in their web browser to easily access files from the e-bible and they can view PDFs in the browser without any problems or concerns.” With this development and compatibility with e-bibles, Power PDF is set to help legal firms to make the transition to more secure and faster ways to access content stored on e-bibles, with the added assurance that “…when legal firms roll out Power PDF with the Diskbuilder web viewer, they will be able to view it immediately without any changes necessary on their part.”
Performance, ease of use and security weren’t the only benefits Julian cited as advantages of Power PDF. “Unlike the current PDF plug-in – which has no workarounds for some long-standing reported issues – Power PDF was great to work with, due to its features and functions, but also because Nuance Communications was so willing to help support the integration with Diskbuilder to achieve an even better e-bible solution for legal firms.”