Use Styles
Once styles are applied to the objects within the bill design, the font settings throughout the design can be changed by modifying the style. Avoid changing font settings directly on the fields themselves, as this action will be interpreted by the system as a ‘manual override’ that will prevent future changes to the style from cascading to those fields.
Use Sections Appropriately
The Bill Header and Bill Footer sections are designed for use on Consolidated bills; where the Totals of the entire bill would comprise the sum of the totals of the individual matters on the consolidation. The Page Header and Page Footer are for page numeration and for listing information that applies to the b bill. Matter information is available in these sections for those who wish to utilize these sections for bill formats that are intended for single matter bills only. When matter information is placed in the Page Header, Page Footer, Bill Header or Bill Footer, and that Bill Format is used for printing consolidated bills, the results may be unsuitable. The matter fields will show the matter information for the first matter of the consolidation only, and will NOT change to reflect each individual matter on the bill. In order to design a format that may be used for single matter bills as well as consolidated bills, matter-specific fields are best reserved for the Matter Header and Matter Footer sections of the format.
Use Alignment and Size Buttons
Take advantage of the new Field Alignment, Layout Alignment and Field Size options that are available to align a group of fields with one click.
Review Properties
Each item in the design has its own properties that include powerful functions. Fields may be determined to print on the Prebill, Final Bill or Both. Other properties, such as: Can Grow, Can Shrink, and more may be used to further customize the behavior of an object. Similar properties are available for each section of the bill layout as well as for the layout as a whole. Review these options at the creation of each layout design. Take advantage of the countless settings available from within these properties to customize bill output.
Avoid Overlapping Rows
Enhancements have been made to allow for much more flexible and dynamic row control than ever before. In previous versions, rows in the bill design were of fixed size; now a row is determined by the size of each field. While this offers great control over the size of rows, it also allows overlapping rows, which has been known to cause fields to print on top of one another – especially when field suppression is involved. See the Suppress line if Zero topic within this section for a detailed description of this issue and how proper design techniques can be used to avoid printing overlap.
Use the Field Explorer
The field explorer is the quickest method for adding data fields to a bill format. The field explorer lists all available data fields for the current section. The field explorer list may also be grouped by field type or by classification to make finding a particular field easier.