Navigating and Viewing Documents in the Review Window

The review window allows you to view individual documents and apply codes, notes, highlights, and redactions, along with a wide range of functionality. To open the review window, click on an individual document in the results table.

The instructions in this article are applicable to both the classic and full screen review window. This article will also reference different format views in the review window, such as PDF/Image and Text view.  

Table of contents

• Review window formats
  • PDF and image views
  • Text view
  • Native view
    • Reviewing in the Native view
  • Media and spreadsheet view
• Zoom and page orientation
• Navigating within a page
• Navigating between pages in a document
• Review window limits

Review window formats

When a document is uploaded to Everlaw, multiple formats of the file are either provided or generated. These formats are generally the PDF or Image of the document, the document’s text, and the native version of the document (if provided). You can easily toggle between these various format views in the top right of the review window.

Certain formats are more optimal than others for reviewing a document, depending on the document type or the type of review you're looking to conduct. Spreadsheets will not include Image view because the spreadsheets are best viewed in Native view. A production that does not include natives will not have a Native view. The below sections describe conditions for which each view is available and some examples of when you might use them.

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PDF and image views

If a document has a PDF or image, then this view is typically recommended. It preserves document formatting while still allowing you to apply highlights and redactions. Depending on the document you’re viewing, you will either see PDF or Image view available.

The type of view displayed is dependent on the following conditions:

• If a document is uploaded as native data, then PDF view will be available unless an uploader chooses not to create PDFs or if the original document’s file type does not convert well to PDF (such as an audio file). Additionally, PDF view will be available when the document is uploaded as processed data and the provided image is a PDF.
• If the document was uploaded as processed data and the image file is not a PDF (such as a TIFF), then Image view will be available.

PDFs with embedded text allow for more review functionality than Image view. For example, in PDF view you can highlight/redact specific text, as well as create custom hits. Image view is more limited; however, you can still create redactions and highlights by clicking and dragging a window. Everlaw recommends reviewing in PDF/Image view when possible, as it provides the most amount of review functionality while maintaining original document formatting.

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Text view

The Text view is available if the document has extracted or OCR text. The Text view is a good option for review if there is no image for the document, or if you want to see the document text only. Another good opportunity to use Text view is to use hit highlights on a spreadsheet. If the text file exceeds 5 million characters, the viewer will display a truncated view of only the first 5 million characters. Users can export the text file to review in full on a local computer.

You cannot add highlights or redactions in the Text view. Unlike PDF/Image view, you can scroll between pages by clicking "next page" and "previous page," indicated as tall buttons to the right and left of the document. You can zoom in and out, using the same tools as you would in the PDF/Image view, but you cannot zoom to page height or width since the orientation is consistent in Text view. 

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Native view

The native view of  a document is an image generated from the native file in real time. You can view native files  from the Native view of documents. 

If your document does not have a native file associated with it, then Native view will not be an available option. If the native file exceeds 500 MB (for PDF and EML files) or 10 MB (for other native file types, excluding spreadsheets), the viewer will be unable to load the file and a notification will appear asking you to download the file to review on your local computer.

If Everlaw has flagged a native file as malicious during ingestion, you will receive a pop-up notifying you that the file has been flagged. You may choose to download or not download the potentially malicious file.

Reviewing in the Native view

Functionality in the Native view is more limited than in the PDF/Image view for most documents (spreadsheets and media files are exceptions; please see the section below). If there's a comparable PDF/Image view available for that document, Everlaw recommends viewing the document in PDF/Image view. Here are some notes on functionality to be aware of when reviewing in the Native view: 

• In Native view, you cannot add highlights or redactions. You can view hit highlights and create custom hits, but you cannot redact them.
• The Native view will typically load slower than the PDF/Image view. 
• If your original document has tracked changes "turned on," then the tracked changes will appear in both Native and PDF/Image view.
• If your original document has comments, the comments will not appear in Native, but will appear in PDF/Image view.  Everlaw does not process any metadata associated with comments.

In PDF/image view, both the tracked change and comment are displayed:

  

If you cannot see tracked changes in the native view, it may be that your tracked changes are hidden within your original application. You may need to re-upload the document with track changes "turned on" in your original application (like Word) if you need them to be displayed in the native and image view. 

Media and spreadsheet view

In some situations, the Native view option is replaced by another view. This is because certain file types have special native viewers: media files (audio and video) and spreadsheet files. In these particular situations, the Native view icon is replaced with different views.

The Media view will appear for audio and video files:

To learn more about media review, visit Media Review.

Spreadsheet view will appear for spreadsheet files:

 

To learn more about spreadsheet review, visit Spreadsheet Review and Redactions.

If the native file exceeds 25 MB (for spreadsheets) or 10 MB (for other native file types), the viewer will be unable to load the file and a notification will appear asking you to download the file to review on your local computer. If Everlaw has flagged a native file as malicious during ingestion, you will receive a pop-up notifying you that the file has been flagged. You may choose to download or not download the potentially malicious file.

Zoom and page orientation

There are four zoom buttons and two rotation buttons that you can use to adjust the view of your document in the review window.

If you wish to rotate only one page of a document at a time:

1. Click the caret button next to the rotate clockwise button.
   A drop down menu will appear.
2. Select Current page.

To undo all orientation changes to all pages of a document:

1. Click the caret button next to the Rotate clockwise button.
   A drop down menu will appear.
2. Select reset to original orientation.
   You will be prompted to confirm this action before this change is applied.

If Permanent Rotation permissions are enabled for your user group in Project Settings, then changes you make to the orientation of a document will be applied when you or any other users on the project view and/or export that document. These changes occur in real time and are saved immediately; if multiple users are viewing a document simultaneously, permanent rotation changes take effect for all users instantaneously.  If a document with permanent orientation changes is exported from the results table, is produced, or is exported from Storybuilder, these orientation changes will be reflected in the exported images. 

If this permission is disabled for your user group, then orientation changes you make to any page(s) will be temporary, and will be discarded upon navigating away from the document. Non-permanent orientation changes will not affect exports or productions, and will not affect other users simultaneously viewing the document. Note that permanent rotations applied by other users still affect your view of a document and any exports you perform, as they do for all other users on the project, even when your Permanent Rotation permission is disabled. 

Permanent rotations in a project are not transferred to other projects, with one exception: if a document is rotated in an Early Case Assessment (ECA) project, and it is subsequently promoted to a review project, any permanent rotations will be applied to the document in the review project. 

Note: Permanent rotation is only saved if performed in the classic Review Window. Rotations in Quick Review will not be saved. 

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Navigating within a page

PDF/Image or Native view: If your document is zoomed in, you can move within the document by clicking the up, down, left, and right arrows on your keyboard. When zoomed in, if you reach the far left or right edge of a page, then pressing the left or right arrow keys will take you to the previous or next page, respectively. 

Text view: The document size will always be zoomed to width, regardless of your zoom setting. Pressing left and right on your keyboard will move you to the next page of text, and up and down on your keyboard will scroll.

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Navigating between pages in a document

You can employ scrolling or keyboard shortcuts to move between pages in a document. You can move to the next page of a document by scrolling with your mouse or by pressing and holding the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard. If your document is not zoomed in (i.e., it is zoomed to width or height, or zoomed out beyond either of these settings), then pressing the left or right arrow keys will simply take you to the previous or next page.

One option to move between pages of a document is to jump to a page. To do this, locate the page input box below the format selectors. Simply type the number of the page you'd like to go to, and press "enter" on your keyboard.

You can also click anywhere on the scrollbar to jump to a page.

 

In PDF/Image and Text view, you can also use the jump bar to navigate between pages. The jump bar is on the right side of the document. As you run your cursor along the length of the jump bar, the corresponding page and number of hits on that page is displayed. Clicking on the location will take you to that page.  

In addition, if there are hit highlights in the document you are viewing, the jump bar will display a color band at the appropriate page location of the highlight. The band’s color will correspond to the highlight color of the term or phrase in the hit-highlighting panel. This can help you quickly visualize where certain hit highlights are located.

To move to the next document, click the left or right arrow paddles at the bottom of the screen. You can also press "shift+down arrow" to move to the next document, or "shift+up arrow" to move to the previous document.

As you move from document to document, your navigation is reflected in the results table, which exists as a separate window. The document you’re currently viewing is highlighted in yellow. To learn more about results table navigation, visit Search Results Table.

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Review window limits

The maximum file size that can be displayed in the review window for each of the different viewers are as follows:

• Image viewer: No size limit
• PDF Viewer: 2GB;  the first 10,000 pages or 100MB of text (whichever comes first) are searchable with hit highlights
• Native Viewer: PDFs, EMLs: 500MB; other docs: 10MB
• Spreadsheet Viewer: 180MB
• Text Viewer: 5MB, and only the first 5 million characters

Please note that unsupported file types may not be displayed in any of the viewers. To learn more about supported file types, visit Supported Native Data Types.