Electronic Document Format | The Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan (TEST)

FILING GUIDELINES FOR ELECTRONIC VERSIONS OF APPEAL DOCUMENTS

1. Required Equipment: You will need the following hardware and software to electronically file documents in eCourt:

a computer with a standard operating system such as Microsoft Windows XP, Windows 7 or Vista, or Macintosh OS X;
a scanner to create PDF copies of certain documents, such as lower court orders, photograph and paper exhibits, etc., which may not exist in an electronic format;
an internet service connection and web browser that supports 128-bit encryption;
a PDF compatible word processor, such as Corel WordPerfect or Microsoft Word;
a version of Portable Document Format (PDF) writer software, such as Adobe Acrobat (being the current industry standard), capable of producing:
PDF documents
Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
page numbering
hypertext links
bookmarks

2. Electronic Document Format: You must submit your electronic documents to the Court in portable document format (PDF). If possible, when creating the PDF document you should convert it from Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect to PDF. You should scan only those documents that exist in only paper or printed format. All to PDF documents must have Optical Character Recognition. The optimal resolution for a PDF document submitted to the Court is 300 dpi.

3. True Copy: The electronic copy of a document must be a true representation (i.e., an identical or true copy) of the paper format original. The content and number of pages of both the electronic copy and the paper original must be identical.

4. No Security Features: Do not incorporate any file properties into or activate any security settings with respect to any PDF document submitted to the Court that might restrict or prevent the Court or its staff from viewing, printing, saving or searching the electronic document.

5. Page Numbering: The page numbering in the electronic copies of all appeal documents must be identical to the page numbering of the paper original. Notwithstanding the requirements of the Rules, to facilitate the organization of appeal documents and cross-referencing between appeal documents, the parties should following the following pagination scheme:

APPEAL BOOK

(a) The title page shall not have an assigned page number (i.e., page number shall be set at "none" in Adobe Acrobat);

(b) the index shall be numbered using small Roman numerals (i.e., i, ii, iii, and so on);

(c) the body of the Appeal Book, that is all pages following the index and before the transcript, shall be numbered consecutively and be preceded by a capital "A" (i.e., A1, A2, A3, and so on); and

(d) the transcript, which follows the body of the Appeal Book, shall use the actual transcript page numbers preceded by a capital "T". (For example, if only transcript pages 50 to 54, 75 to 76, 100 and 102 are included in the Appeal Book, the transcript pages should be numbered T50, T51, T52, T53, T54, T75, T76, T100 and T102. If the entire transcript is included, number the pages T1, T2, T3, and so on.).

FACTA

(a) the title page shall not have an assigned page number (i.e., page number shall be set at "none" in Adobe Acrobat);

(b) the index shall be numbered using small Roman numerals (i.e., i, ii, iii, and so on); and

(c) the body of the Factum, that is the pages following the index, including authorities, shall be numbered consecutively with the following prefix, as the case may be:

Appellant's Factum: "AF" (i.e., AF1, AF2, AF3, and so on)

Respondent's Factum: "RF" (i.e., RF1, RF2, RF3, and so on)

Intervener's Factum: "IF" (i.e., IF1, IF2, IF3, and so on)

6. Bookmarks and Hypertext links in Appeal Books and Facta:

Use Adobe Acrobat or other compatible software to create a "bookmark" for each item in the index or table of contents (including the list of exhibits). The bookmark should jump to the corresponding heading within the body of the PDF document. Once you have created all of your bookmarks you should set the Initial View options for the document so that the Bookmarks Panel displays automatically. Where practical, create a hypertext link for each authority cited to a neutral external source, e.g., CanLii, or a hypertext link to the Book of Authorities, provided the Book of Authorities is contained in the same electronic file.

7. Size of Appeal Books and Facta: Create only one electronic file for all volumes of an Appeal Book or Factum, provided the size of the file does not exceed 100 megabytes. Where the file will be larger than 100 megabytes, divide the file into two or more files, each of no more than 100 megabytes. Each accompanying file should start at a convenient location, e.g., at the beginning of a new heading in the table of contents. The first file should be around 100 megabytes and the second file should make up the remainder (if less than 100 megabytes).

8. Signatures: You are not required to scan a document to PDF just to prove the presence of signatures. With the exception of affidavits and statutory declarations, documents filed solely with a typewritten (e.g., "Joan Smith") or electronic signature satisfy the signature requirement.

If you have any difficulty, please do not hesitate to contact the Court of Appeal Manager, Court Policy & Operations, Daina Haniak, at (306) 787-8980 or dhaniak@sasklawcourts.ca, for further direction.

Additional Instruction / Help Documents
We have prepared the following task-specific instructions to assist in creating electronic docuements for the Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan. The instructions are specific to creating and modifying documents using Adobe Acrobat X Standard. The instructions are intended only as a general description of the process. Your procedure may vary depending on which PDF creation software you are using.