Reference Guide

This reference guide covers all functionalities in Visiodocs. Select any of the links below. Note that you can also read tooltips when hovering a mouse cursor over the various features in Visiodocs. For advanced product information and troubleshooting, see the FAQ.

Projects, Folders, Documents

In Visiodocs, each project can hold one or more document folders. Separating your documents into more folders can be done from the start, or you can move documents between folders later. Each project can individually be shared for collaboration with one or more email addresses.

In the Main Workspace, try the Guided Tour in the User Settings menu .

Project Dashboard

When you log in to Visiodocs, you start out in the Project Dashboard, and have the options:

  • Create a new project.
  • Open a project in the Main Workspace (select/click a project).
  • Sort the project list by name, creation date or view date (usein the list header).
  • Delete, rename and copy a project (usein each project line).
  • Share a project to collaborate with others, see more in Project Share (usein each project line).

In the top of the dashboard you can access your account information (), see more about User Settings in the Main Workspace.

Project Share

You can share your project with others, including all the documents, annotations, document layouts, categories etc. You find the share option in either the Project Dashboard or Main Workspace. By sharing your project you can facilitate the whole work process of sharing documents, reading and having a collaboration about the content, all done in one single tool.

To share a project, you enter the email of one or more project members, and an invitation will be sent out to each. You can input several emails in one input by separating with commas.
You can invite anyone, they do not need to have an existing account with Visiodocs (but all will need to log in to access the project). To invite existing Visiodocs users, you should use the email they have already registered in their Visiodocs account.
If having trouble receiving invitations, check your email spam folder.

When sharing a project you allow others to read your documents, and add their own annotations. Project members without ‘can edit’ privilige are restricted from adding, deleting and moving documents, and they can only delete their own annotation and comments. Only you, as the project owner, can change the sharing settings. All project members can make a copy of a project, so that they can work privately with the documents.

Main Workspace

After selecting a project in the dashboard, you go to the Main Workspace. This consist of 3 major panes (left, middle, right) – 

Folder Workspace … Document Workspace … Annotation Report

 In the toolbar’s Main Menu () you manage projects, folders and documents, and have the options:

  • Switch to the Project Dashboard.
  • Projects.
    • Select the project to view.
    • Sort the project list by name, creation date or view date.
    • Create new, copy, rename, delete the selected project.
    • Share the viewed project.
  • Folders.
    • Select the folder to view.
    • Create new, copy, rename, delete the selected folder.
  • Documents.
    • Add (upload) documents.
    • Delete the selected documents.
    • Download the selected documents (including annotations, both markups and comments).
    • Move or copy the selected documents to another folder.
    • Select/unselect all documents.
    • Sort documents by name or dates.
    • Grid size (number of columns of documents to show).
  • Bundle the selected documents (merge documents to form a legal court document bundle). See Document Bundle section for details.
  • Annotation Report, download or print. See Annotation Report section for details.

Options for individual documents are available in the menu under each document in the Folder Workspace. See the section on Folder Workspace for details.

You can also change the displayed project, folder or document by selecting the respective titles in the status bar in the bottom of the screen.

User Settings

Selecting  in the toolbar will show the User Menu containing a number of options specific for your user account and the appearance of Visiodocs.

  • User account dialog (shows your name).
    • See and modify your authentication credentials (login settings) required to access you private data in Visiodocs. You can set up Visiodocs so that you can log in with more than one login-method, which also allows you to change from using one method to another. If authenticated (logged in) by email and password, you can also change your display name, email or password.
    • Restore a project or the user account from any of the automatic daily backups.
    • Delete your Visiodocs account and all related data.
    • Opt-in to receive the Visiodocs Newsletter. This option is only shown if you did not select it during account creation. The newsletter can be cancelled later via a link in the newsletter.
  • Subscription dialog. You can use Visiodocs for free with limitations, for more storage and features see details in the dialog.
  • Options.
    • Color Theme. Choose between several dark and light themes.
    • Annotation Report colors.
    • Date and time display format.
    • Drag document in Folder Workspace to by preference leave a blank position behind or not.
    • Reload Visiodocs app. Restarts the Visiodocs web page.
    • Reset display options stored locally in your web browser (this option will reload Visiodocs).
  • Visiodocs Guided Tour, Videos and Reference Guide (this).
  • Fullscreen. Switch Visiodocs in and out of fullscreen mode.
  • Log out. Terminate your authenticated state. Note that if you chose “keep me logged in” when you logged in, your private data is still accessible when you open a new browser tab, unless you use this explicit log out option.

Folder Workspace

In the Folder Workspace (left side of the Main Workspace) you have the central navigation point for your documents. Here you select a document to view it in the Document Workspace, and you can rearrange the document layout to your preference in many ways:

  • Drag and drop a document to reposition it. On touchscreens, hold down on the item for a second before starting dragging. To move more documents see the ‘move selected here’ option in the Individual Document Options below.
  • Sort by name or dates (options found in the toolbar’s Main Menu ).
  • Group documents by inserting section headers (see Individual Document Options below).
  • Insert a new blank position by double-clicking a position (double-tap on touchscreens), or by dragging a document or a blank on to the next position.
  • Remove a blank position by selecting the top-corner “x”.
  • Insert more documents in any of the blank positions by selecting the “+”. You can also add documents using drag-and-drop from the computer. See details on different file formats below.
The Folder Workspace can be shown/hidden by selecting the “<<< handle” on the right-hand border of the Folder Workspace.

In the status bar (below the Folder Workspace) you can change the displayed project and folder. When the project is shared you can access the sharing settings next to the project name. In the status bar you can also see the number of documents in the folder, and jump to the selected/highlighted document ().

Individual Document Options
Each of the documents in the Folder Workspace offers a number of options in the document thumbnail menu opened by selecting the document title. The options are:

  •  Select one or more documents. Selected documents are addressed by many options like delete, bundle, move etc.
    •  To select a range of documents, select the first, and then hold the shift-key when selecting the last.
  • Copy the document with/without annotations. Having more than one copy of the same document allows you to have direct access to multiple locations in the same document. You can combine this with the ‘Update thumbnail’ to help identify the copies.
  • Rename. The document title is by default the file name, but you can modify this for clarity. You can also revert back to the original file name. Also the document’s date (originally the file date stamp) can be modified.
  • Delete. Removes the document from the folder. If the document has copies, these are not affected.
  • Properties. Display document information about file name, dates, file size and number of pages.
  • Update thumbnail. Allows you to change the document’s thumbnail you prefer, to the page currently viewed in the Document Workspace.
  • Insert section header. Split the documents into sections by inserting a title bar in front of any of the documents.
  • Move selected here. Select one or more documents with (select a range by holding the shift-key).
Visiodocs supports PDF as well as many office and image file formats. Internally documents are handled in PDF format, and other file formats are converted automatically. When you add a document to Visiodocs, is shown while the document is being loaded and if necessary converted. If a file conversion fails,  is shown for the document. Password protected PDF files are also supported; here a  is shown until the document is selected and the password is entered.

Document Workspace

In the Document Workspace (middle part of the Main Workspace) you basically read documents, and annotate the important information in the documents. You browse the document using the mouse wheel or on touchscreens by swiping, or you can use the controls in the status bar below the document, as well as use various Keyboard Shortcuts. See the separate section on Annotation below.

You can control the appearance of the document by using these options in the toolbar at the top the screen:

  • Page orientation rotates pages right, left or upside down or resets all orientations. In the orientation menu you can specify whether changes should affect the current page, or the whole document.
  • Page zoom resizes the page so either the full page or page width fits the screen size. You can also zoom to another size using Ctrl/Cmd + mouse wheel or pinch zoom on touchscreens.
  • Page layout can be set to show one or two pages horizontally. The ‘cover page’ layout shows page 1 by itself, and the other pages in pairs.
  •  Document split allows you to divide the document’s pages into two or more new documents. In the split menu you can choose to whether discard or keep the original document, and to include the original document’s annotations in the new documents.

In the status bar below the Document Workspace you can change the displayed document by selecting the document title. You can also list and browse the history of displayed documents with.

Annotation

While reading documents you can add annotations to the important locations in the documents. An annotation consists of a markup in the document and optionally one or more comments. The markups can be either a graphical rectangle you place in the document, or a text selection.

To use one of the annotation tools, enable it in the toolbar. Note that in the ‘annotation tools menu’ you can control whether the tool should remain enabled after use (‘Keep tool on’). This can be convenient if you plan to make frequent annotations.

  •  The rectangle annotation tool allows you to mark any area on the page.
  •  A   A   A  The text annotation tools allows you to mark text in the page. Text markup can be either a highlight, an underline or a strikeout. Note that these tools require the text in the document to be selectable (some scanned documents does not include this). 
  • 6 different colors can be used, and you can give the colors titles, allowing you to differentiate your individual annotations. In the Annotation Report you can also filter the list to any of these colors.
  • Categories (text labels) can be created and used with annotations. More than one category can be used for the individual annotation.  In the Annotation Report you can also filter the list to one or more categories.

Annotation Comment Input
When you have created (or selected) an annotation markup in the document, you can add a comment to the annotation.

Depending on whether you have the Annotation Report shown (right side of the Main Workspace), you enter either the comment in the report or in the comment box shown in the bottom of the Document Workspace.

You show/hide the Annotation Report by selecting the “>>> handle” on the left-hand border of the report.

Include line breaks in your comments by using shift+enter.

Annotation Options
See more about annotation options in the Annotation Report section below.

Selecting  in the toolbar, will show the search pane. The search pane gives you a classic text search, but also provides navigation between documents by selecting to search across all documents in the folder. Options are:

  • Enter a search text.
  •  Search across all documents in the current folder.
  • Match letter case of search text.
  • Match only whole words in the search text.

Note that you can also make use of the browser’s search/find feature to search in e.g. document titles, comments etc.

Annotation Report

The Annotation Report (right side of the Main Workspace) is shown/hidden by selecting the “>>> handle” on the left-hand border of the report. This report gives you the complete overview of all annotations you have made throughout all the documents in the project. By selecting one of the annotations in the report, the Document Workspace will take you to the related location in any of the documents in the project.

For each of the annotations in the report you have these options:

  •  Add an extra comment to the annotation.
  • (shows a menu). Delete a comment, or delete the complete annotation, including both the related markup and comments. See the Annotation Report Options below about deleting multiple annotations.
  •  (shows a menu). Categorize an annotation. You can apply one or more categories to an annotation and later filter the report by a category (see Filters below).
  •  (shows a menu). Format the markup. Change markup color and change text markup type,  A   A   A  (if the markup is one of these types).
  • / Reorder annotations. When listing and sorting annotations by categories, you can arrange the order of the annotations in the list (see Filters below).
  • Select the annotation (see options under Tools and Options below).
  •  View the markup’s document snapshot. Hover the option with the mouse or select it to lock/unlock the view of the snapshot.
Filters () 

You can control the contents of the report in the filter menu, by these four properties:

  • Category. Show all, or annotations with a specific category, or without any category.
  • Color. Show all, or annotations with a specific color.
  • Scope. Show annotations in the selected document, in the folder or in the entire project.
  • Order. Arrange the annotations by their position in the project, or when listing annotations with a specific category, you can manually order them to compose an ordered presentation.

All filters can be reset using ‘Reset all’. The ‘Keep menu open’ option allows you to conveniently change more properties in the filter menu.

The filter menu also offer layout settings for the downloaded and printed report:

  • Layout. How wide the annotation comments are shown, when ‘document markup snapshots’ are included in the report.
  • Contents: Include a cover page, markup colors, ‘document markup snapshots’ and page footer.

Tools and Options

  • Download Annotation Report as PDF. Adjust report content in the Filter Menu (see above).
  • Print Annotation Report. Adjust report content in the Filter Menu (see above).
  • Show report list with large (or normal) font size.
  •  Show selection boxes. Select multiple annotations to apply operations in ‘more options menu’  ().
  •   (shows a menu). More options.
    • Mark all annotations as selected (or unselect).
    • Apply a color on all selected annotations.
    • Apply or remove a category on all selected annotations.
    • Delete all selected annotations including all related markups and comments.

In the status bar below the report, you can see number of annotations and comments, and jump to the selected/highlighted annotation ().

Document Bundle

With the Document Bundle (Main Menu ) you can merge all the selected documents () in the folder into a single PDF document, including Table of Contents and with all annotations (including both markups and comments).

The Document Bundle includes:

  • Table of contents optionally with.
    • Section headers.
    • Appendix references for each documents.
  • Consecutive page numbers for the whole bundle.
  • Duplex printing page layout.
  • Filter annotations by colors.
  • Markup highlights solid or outlined, and margin lines.

When no documents are selected () in the Folder Workspace, the Document Bundle feature will use all documents in the folder.

Keyboard Shortcuts

On devices with keyboards you can use keyboard shortcuts to speed up using features in Visiodocs.

On Apple devices use the Options key (⌥) instead of the Alt key, and the Command key (⌘) instead of the Ctrl key.

The letters in the shortcuts refer to key positions on US QWERTY keyboard layout, i.e. some letters will differ on e.g. French keyboards.

On Windows keyboards, the AltGr key can be used instead of the Alt key.

 

Folder Workspace   
  Function Key
  Folder Workspace Alt(⌥) + F
  Document select  
     Prev. Shift + ←
     Next Shift + →
     First Shift + Home
     Last Shift + End
  Columns  
     Up Alt(⌥) + C
     Down  Alt(⌥) + Shift + C
     Up/down  Ctrl(⌘) + Mouse wheel
(Touchscreen pinch)
     
Document Workspace    
  Function Key
  Page switch  
     Prev. Page Up
     Next Page Down
     First Home
     Last End
  Panning view ←, ↑, →, ↓
  Zoom  
     In "+"
     Out "-"
     In/out Ctrl(⌘) + Mouse wheel
(Touchscreen pinch)
  Annotation tool, on/off Alt(⌥) + A
  Page layouts Alt(⌥) + L
  Zoom modes Alt(⌥) + Z
  Orientation  
     Right Alt(⌥) + O
     Left Alt(⌥) + Shift + O
  Document Split  
     Split mark on/off Alt(⌥) + M
     Split document Alt(⌥) + N
  Search  Alt(⌥) + S
     
Annotation Report  
  Function Key
  Annotation Report download Alt(⌥) + R
  Annotation select  
     Prev. Shift + ↑
     Next Shift + ↓
     
More   
  Function Key
  Project List Alt(⌥) + P
  Color theme  
     Next Alt(⌥) + T
     Prev. Alt(⌥) + Shift + T
  Reference guide Alt(⌥) + U