Unless you have found some strange practice niche, if you are an attorney you are undoubtedly awash in numerous legal forms. Both corporate and litigation attorneys have countless forms they must complete on a regular basis. And the forms are not limited to government requirements. I know of one large San Francisco firm that requires its attorneys to complete a three-page form to order exhibit tabs.

For the past century or so, forms were always tackled in the same way. The secretary would go to the filing cabinet, pull out a barely readable, twelfth generation copy of a form, and type in the information provided by the attorney. A forms service would attempt to keep the filing cabinet stocked with the latest forms.

Then, with the advent of computers and laser printers, software publishers began offering programs that provide forms on disk. Although the forms could theoretically be filled out on the screen and then printed, the interface was often so awkward that secretaries would use the program only to print out a blank form, and then type in the information. In any event, the programs could offer only "official" forms, so the old system still had to be maintained for all of the lesser forms, such as those dreamed up by a court clerk for use in one judge's court.

Then came form creation software, which permitted intrepid souls to attempt to create forms that matched the original forms, only to have them rejected by a court clerk because their form used Times New Roman font instead of Humanst 970 BT.

The programs tested herein represent the latest, and most successful, attempts to tackle forms. Both programs, OmniForm 1.1 and Formbuster 2.1, create forms from existing documents as opposed to creating them from scratch. These "form conversion" programs allow any form to be turned into a computer form.

Formbuster 2.1

Form conversion programs take one of two approaches. With the first approach, the program actually creates an all new textual form, with cells for the data entry points, much like a spreadsheet. The second approach is to create a graphic version of the form, and allow information to be entered onto that graphic. Formbuster follows the second approach, and while it lacks many of the features of OmniForm, that simplicity may cause the program to actually be used by your staff.

You bring forms into Formbuster in one of three ways. You can import scanned or faxed documents, or, since it has its own printer driver, you can "print" a document you have created with your wordprocessor into the program.

Once you have imported a document, by whatever means, your screen is filled with the document, ready to be completed, just as though it were sitting in your typewriter. You might expect that you could just move the cursor to where you want to type, and type in the information, but neither of the programs work that way. Instead, you have two options for inserting text -- text and tab modes.

In text mode, you are presented with a dialog box that has no relation to any point on the document. You just type in the text, hit return, and then "float" the text to wherever you want it to appear on the form. This is workable, but a little strained. For example, if the form asked, "Jury trial demanded? ( ) yes ( ) no," you would have to type an "X" in the dialog box, and then move it into the parentheses.

The far better approach is the tab mode. With this, you go through the document and click on every spot that will require text. This leaves a small box at every insertion point, and the document is then completed by just tabbing from point to point. These points will be saved with the document, so in the process of completing the form for the first time you have also created an official fill-in-the-blanks form.

Formbuster does not designate fields in the document, so there is no way to import data in the traditional sense. However, as you create a document, Formbuster's "Infobase" maintains a list of everything you have input. To reinsert something you have already typed, you can call up the list and then click on the already entered text to insert it in the document. Additionally, since Formbuster always saves the information that was inserted in the document the last time it was used, you avoid typing information that is standard for the form, such as your firm name.

Formbuster's straightforward approach has some inherent problems. First, all three import techniques yield a final document that looks like a fax. Your form will never look like an original document. Although all the information you insert will appear as neatly typed text, I would not put it past a court clerk to reject a "faxed" document.

I also found it frustrating that if I chose to scan or fax the form to Formbuster, I could never get a completely straight document. Formbuster allows you to rotate documents in 90 degree increments so you can type sideways text, but you cannot rotate one or two degrees to straighten the form.

If you need to squeeze a lot of information into a small area, Formbuster will allow you to change the font size and type at each insertion point. However, the program does not remember these changes, so the next time you use the form you will have to re-select the fonts.

Finally, I was disappointed by Formbuster's documentation, which was sparse and lacked any index.

OmniForm 1.1

OmniForm, building on the company's OmniPage OCR technology, has created a far more sophisticated form conversion program. Rather than simply inserting text into an imported graphic file, OmniForm creates a new, original form. In this way, there is no degradation in the form. Indeed, quite the opposite is true. When I faxed in the aforesaid twelfth generation copies, they came out as first generation originals.

As with Formbuster, you begin the OmniForm process by either scanning a form or using a faxed copy. Unlike Formbuster, however, OmniForm links with the scanner, so you do not need to first scan the document with another program.

Once the document has been imported, OmniForm performs three steps. Based on the text and any lines, it automatically straightens the document. It then performs an OCR scan and interprets any text. Finally, it looks for anything that would indicate a data insertion point, such as text ending with colons, and flags those points.

OmniForm's "Logical Form Recognition" capability is quite impressive. Where the form asked for "Firm name and address," in a box, OmniForm properly recognized that as a data field, and treated it separately from the adjoining box. OmniForm also knew that "( )" represented a check box, and flagged it as such.

OmniForm accepts field names so that you can later import data. With this capability, information can automatically be carried across related forms. Also, you could have a separate database program that asks the questions necessary to complete a form, and then import the answers into the form. Especially impressive, OmniForm recognizes and names most of the fields on the first pass, based on the adjoining text.

As with any OCR program, OmniForm makes mistakes, but even with the poor faxes I tested, OmniForm did surprisingly well. Then, to correct the mistakes, OmniForm offers a split screen with the original graphic on the bottom and the new form on the top. If a word is unreadable on top, you can refer to the original below and make the correction.

Just as Formbuster's simple approach came with inherent problems, so does OmniForm's sophisticated approach. OmniForm does not offer Formbuster's ability to enter text into a graphic. Even if you are perfectly content with the scanned image, OmniForm insists on creating an all new form. This process always brings in errors that must be corrected, and that takes time. Aside from having to remove the sender information from a document you fax into Formbuster, there are no errors in the form. It looks like a fax, and it is usually a little crooked, but there are no errors to correct. I was able to create a useable, two page Joint Case Management Statement in about 15 minutes with Formbuster, once I had familiarized myself with the program. With OmniForm, I ended up with a much more pristine final product, but the same form took over an hour.

OmniForm also needs to add an incremental zoom. The only views offered were 100%, which made the text too small to read, and 200%, which was so large I could not always tell where I was in the document. Formbuster has a sliding button bar that allows you to adjust the form to the most legible size.

Which is Best?

As much as I liked Formbuster's simplicity (and its much lower price), for most people OmniForm will be the better choice. Although it forces you to invest more time in creating the form, the final product is far more professional in appearance. In California, the courts are now required to accept faxed documents, so I could probably get by with Formbuster's fax-like output. Nonetheless, I still prefer to submit clearer documents.

OmniForm's ability to create forms that are better than the original raises some interesting possibilities. Form services could offer fax-on-demand forms, since a fax copy can now be translated into an original. Even better, OmniForm supports MS Mail and cc:Mail, so forms could be e-mailed and thereby avoid the conversion step altogether.

In defense of Formbuster, it must be noted that it always produces a form. OmniForm's sophistication sometimes renders it useless. When I pushed OmniForm too hard, such as with a complicated tax form, it produced a form that was unusable and beyond repair. Formbuster's output may be of lower quality, but it will never leave you empty handed.

AARON P. MORRIS is a partner with Morris & Stone, located in Santa Ana, California. His practice areas include business litigation and employment law.  Mr. Morris has published numerous articles on business and computer related topics. He can be contacted at (714) 954-0700 or by Email.