New Departures Table output format, enhanced review features for Excel Redlines, and accuracy improvements for Draftable Legal

Hello,

We’re excited to share our February release of Draftable Legal (v25.2.0), delivering a host of new features and improvements, including our new Departures Table output format to all users, enhanced review features for Excel Redlines, accuracy and quality improvements to our algorithms, and new markup options for vision impaired users.

Read on to see the top five new features and improvements from Draftable Legal February 2025 (v25.2.0).

February release highlights

1. Quickly export and share Departure Tables – Streamline clause reviews by exporting the Departures Table directly into the email body, with or without the filters in your change list – no extra formatting needed.
2. Faster, clearer Excel change tracking – Share summary of changes in Excel files more efficiently with worksheet names now displayed in the Changes Report, clearer redline visibility in the Excel Viewer, and redlined text appearing directly in the Changes Report.
3. More precise document comparisons – Enjoy greater accuracy in text box and PowerPoint comparisons, with our improved algorithm ensuring less false positives in capturing changes, especially in complex slide decks and structured documents.
4. More markup customisation options – Make comparisons easier to read by customising how changes are displayed, with new options to ignore changes to footers in Changes Pages Only mode and highlight changed text within the markup schema.
5. Smarter 1-Click Compare file loading – Save time when working with version-controlled documents, as 1-Click Compare now automatically selects the two most recent versions when comparing files in a DMS, eliminating manual selection steps.

Quickly export and share Departure Tables

All users can now automatically generate a table formatted output document showing:

• All changes with the relevant clause number referenced
• Microsoft Word comments on changes from input files
• Any tags or notes added in Draftable shown in a 'Review Notes' column

Based on feedback from customers testing the preview version of this feature, the February release includes the following improvements:

• Better output formatting for readability.
• A new option in the 'next actions' menu of the Draftable viewer to export the Departures Table directly into the email body, with or without the change list filtering applied (pictured).
• The ability to extract inline notes on changes if identified by square brackets []

• Added ability to extract inline comments within the Departures Table into the 'Review Notes' column (pictured).

Faster, clearer Excel change tracking

Based on further feedback from customers since January's release of our Excel Redline viewer in Draftable, we have made improvements to this workflow to ensure better legibility of formula changes in the viewer and provide more information in the changes report.?

Below is an example of our improvement for enhanced legibility for the Excel Viewer when formula change borders are displayed.

Below is an example of the updated Changes Report (shown here in an email body) now displaying worksheet names in the "Location" column and redlined text from changes in each change row.

More precise document comparisons

Improved comparison of text boxes

Users who compare documents with text boxes will now see higher quality outputs thanks to improvements to our Text Box comparisons algorithm. This improvement has removed the likelihood of Draftable displaying false changes (i.e. showing unchanged text boxes as insertions and deletions) due to small movements in the location of the text box, and ensures that revised inserted text in text box is displayed in a way that is easy to read.

Improved quality of Redline in PowerPoint

We have also released an enhanced PowerPoint Redline algorithm for more accurate slide comparisons. Specifically, these improvements have optimised our comparison algorithm to:

• Ensure moved text boxes are clearly displayed as a move
• Missing markup for inserted shapes
• Optimise text size to avoid redlined text running outside of the slide

More markup customisation options

Ignore footnote changes in Changed Pages Only output

We heard from many law firms that their DMS often inserts the Document ID and version number into the footer of their documents. This meant every page of their comparisons has a footer change, and while lawyers do want to see those changes redlined, footer changes should on their own be enough to include a page in the 'Changed Pages Only' PDF output.?

In our February release, we have implemented a new Redline profile setting (set to off by default) that ensures if the only change on a page is either in the header or footer, these changes will be ignored in the 'Changed Pages Only' PDF export.

Importantly, the 'Changed Pages Only' output will still show redlined changes in the header and footer for pages that are included.

New Markup Schema option to use highlights to display changes

Legal teams working with vision impaired clients or staff often have trouble ensuring changes can be easily seen and understood by those audiences. Based on feedback from users, our February release includes a new option in the Redline Profile settings to use highlights to indicate changes.??

Smarter 1-Click Compare file loading

When using 1-Click Compare commands in a DMS, users previously were asked to first select the two versions for comparison from a list. We have now updated the '1-Click Compare' logic to leverage the setting available in the Integrations tab of the Settings menu, enabling users to have Draftable automatically select the two most recent versions of a file when using 1-Click Compare.

To enable this, users or administrators just need to check the integration setting 'Enable automatic selection of the two latest versions'.

All product improvements are the direct result of insights from our customers. We are extremely grateful for the excellent feedback we have received which allows new releases to be possible.

If you have feature ideas or product performance feedback, we'd love to hear from you - send us an email at [email protected].