Problem with using Clip Creation Scripts in Trial Director
The Tip of the Night for November 11, 2015 was to use a script to create clips in Trial Director. I have to confess that there is a serious problem with creating clips this way. These clips will not be included in a Case Clip Report. Neither the text of the transcript excerpts, the page and line references, or the actual clip identifiers will show up in a detailed or summary Case Clips Report. This is the report which can be written to a Word document, text file, or PDF by going to File . . . Print to File while on the 'Transcript Manager' tab. See the first screen grab below. When the dialog box opens, (see the second screen grab below) it doesn't matter which options you choose - selected clips or clips; 'Print Selected Clips'; or whether you sort by page and lines or the clip identifier; or what file type you write to. It also doesn't matter if you change from transcript view to clip view, and CTRL select some clips. Any clips created with the script will not show up in the report.
This error can turn out to be a significant stumbling block in the crunch before trial. You want an easy to way to find the clips with phrases the attorney will refer to, or at least the page and lines of the excerpted testimony. It would be possible to create an index of the latter from the script itself, but that's an unnecessary hassle.
I checked with InData's tech support today and confirmed there isn't a solution to this problem. Using the script prevents the software from collecting the information it needs for the reports. Hopefully InData will come out with an update soon that resolves this problem.
It's also regrettable that Trial Director doesn't allow all of the segments for all clips to be displayed automatically. Clip and segments are arranged hierarchically tree structure. Only the segments at the second level list the page and line references. It's not possible to fully expand the tree structure without clicking on each segment. As a result you can't scan through the clips looking for a page and line reference that could be your only cue from an attorney in the courtroom. Again, I confirmed with InData tech support that there's no way around this problem.
Having to refer to a separate index matching up clip identifiers (which you really want to be easier to key in while in presentation mode than a full page & line reference, like SMITH CLIP 188:2 - 189:12 - it should be SMITH CLIP 33) is cumbersome while presenting during a trial and gets away from what Trial Director is supposed to let you do.
