Reprocessing Everlaw and Non-Everlaw Processed Documents

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Reprocessing Everlaw-processed documents

If you have Database Admin or Upload permissions, you can retroactively re-configure documents that have already been uploaded. For example, you can change the timezone information, replace or remove images, or re-run documents that weren’t initially processed because of a missing or incorrect password, or a decryption key.

You can reprocess documents from the results table, selecting the documents you wish to reprocess by using the checkboxes on the left-hand side of the results table. 

Once you've selected the documents you'd like to reprocess, click the Batch icon in the results table. Then, click Reprocess. 

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Select the "Everlaw processed" tab to reprocess documents that were processed on Everlaw (native files).

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You can re-configure the following settings: 

  • PDFs (creating PDFs will not affect your billable size or impact your cost in any way)
  • Passwords for password-protected files
    • Note that for password-protected files, the native viewer in the review window will be unavailable until you reprocess. After reprocessing with the password, you will be able to use the native viewer.
  • [Advanced Settings] Timezone
  • [Advanced Settings] Page size
  • [Advanced Settings] OCR language
  • [Advanced Settings] Decryption

The "dataset default" option that is available for many of these settings refers to the original configuration settings of an upload. In other words, for each document that is being reprocessed with the "dataset default" option, Everlaw will refer to the original upload settings to determine the value of a particular setting. You can review the configuration settings for a given upload via the upload card.

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And, you can see which upload set a document is part of by adding the "Document Set" column to your results table view.

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As you select these configuration settings, you are rerunning them from their original state. This means any previous settings from the initial upload will be overridden. This includes images, regardless of the setting you choose for PDFs. For example, selecting "No documents" means that no new images will be created upon reprocessing; however, the old images will be deleted to ensure that image and text files correspond.

Additionally, any documents that have images with highlights or redactions applied will not be reprocessed. This is to avoid changing the underlying PDF. If you are an Organization Administrator, then you can choose to override this behavior and reprocess documents with highlights or redactions. 

In Advanced Settings, you can specify a different Timezone, Page Size, or OCR language. By default, OCR language detection is set to Autodetect. You can learn more about OCR language detection in the native uploads article.

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If you want to reprocess audio files for transcription in Spanish, you can use the OCR language field to do so. Make sure that you mark ‘Spanish’ as the language. 

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When you have configured the settings appropriately, click Process. Everlaw will begin to reprocess documents. Your originally uploaded documents will be replaced by the reprocessed ones.

Please note that work product, such as codes and annotations, will not be changed or removed during reprocessing.

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Reprocessing non-Everlaw processed documents

You can also reprocess documents not originally processed on Everlaw. This can be particularly helpful if you’ve received documents that do not have searchable text, which can lead to problems during review (ex. unable to use hit highlighting in image view, unable to search for documents based on text if a separate text file was not included, etc.). Below is a table with common non-searchable files that can be encountered:

Image only PDFs These PDF files were created without a text layer. If separate text files are included, then these documents are searchable through the associated text file. In general, regardless of whether an associated text file exists, hit highlighting and other text-based tools will not work in the image view of these files. 
TIFF Images

Standard TIFF files only contain images and not embedded text. If separate text files are included, then these documents are searchable through the associated text file. In general, regardless of whether an associated text file exists, hit highlighting and other text-based tools will not work in the image view of these files. 

You can use the reprocessing tool to generate searchable images or PDFs for documents that lack embedded text. 

First, select the reprocessing option from the batch options on the results table. Then, select the Non-Everlaw processed tab.

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Here, you have the option to generate either PDFs & Text, or only Text. Generating PDFs will overwrite existing images/PDFs.

Please note that reprocessing non-Everlaw-processed documents may increase the billable size of the documents as a result of newly generated and stored image files. 

If you have chosen to image your reprocessed documents, you can also select whether or not to create PDF versions of documents that don’t image well, like spreadsheets. By selecting "No documents," your existing images/PDFs will be removed and no new images will be created.

If you'd like to keep existing PDFs and only generate new text files, select the Text option. 

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If your documents do not have natives, Everlaw will convert the documents’ images into searchable PDFs. This will preserve the Bates stamps on the documents. If your documents do have natives, Everlaw will replace the existing images on the platform with PDFs that are generated from the documents’ natives. Note that this will remove the Bates stamps, as well as any other features not present in the native versions of the documents, from the new PDFs.

Upon reprocessing, Everlaw will first attempt to generate text from a native file. If there is no native file for a document, Everlaw will check for embedded text in a PDF. Finally, if there is neither native file nor embedded text, the document will be OCR’d.

Advanced settings:  

Metadata: If you choose Ignore, the metadata of your documents will not be changed. If you select Merge, Everlaw will generate new metadata values from the native versions of your documents. If a document already has metadata values in certain fields, the original values will be retained. Any value that already exists on the document will also be retained.

Note that selecting Merge has the potential to change your documents’ metadata from what the producing party provided.

Timezone: You can choose a timezone to be used for extracted date metadata without a timezone specified. If you leave the field empty, Everlaw will use UTC.

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OCR Language and Page Size will follow the same rules as that of configuring native uploads.

Once you click Process, you will get a notification that the task has been queued, and another one once it is complete. To view the progress of the processing job, navigate to the Data Transfer icon and select Uploads. The processing job will be represented by a card within the Processing Jobs tab on the lefthand side.

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You can read more about how to upload documents, and how to re-configure your upload, here.

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