Frequently Asked Questions
How are Contract Tools and Turner similar?
Contract Tools and Turner both include the following features:
- Navigation and management tools for provisions, defined terms, cross-references, related items, comments, and ancillaries
- Proofreading for common contract drafting problems; ways to see problems in context and ignore problems that don’t bother you
- Automatic updating as you type and delete text
- Defined term autocompletion
- Ways to navigate a document by clicking its text; navigation history (Back and Forward buttons)
- Ways to create cross-references that update automatically
- Ways to easily make formatting in your document consistent
- Enhanced search capabilities
How are Contract Tools and Turner different?
Here are some major differences between Contract Tools and Turner:
- Contract Tools is a Word add-in for Windows PCs. Turner is a standalone app for macOS.
- Contract Tools analyzes the text of your document to find defined terms, cross-references, provisions, and other items. Turner finds these items when you import documents from other file formats, and also offers controls for creating these items.
- You can export Turner documents to a number of formats, including DOCX, PDF, and HTML files suitable for the SEC’s EDGAR system. Also, some things that are time-consuming to create in Word, like an index of defined terms, can be included in exported files with a few clicks. Contract Tools doesn’t change Word’s export capabilities.
Do Contract Tools and Turner work with non–English language documents?
Some features of Contract Tools and Turner work with documents in any language, but Contract Tools and Turner are best suited to documents in English.
Do Contract Tools and Turner send information over the internet?
Contract Tools and Turner send information over the internet to begin a trial, to validate your license activation, and to check for updates. Turner asks whether you want to send diagnostic information over the internet if Turner quits unexpectedly. Contract Tools and Turner never log or share any information about your documents. See our privacy statement to learn more.
Do Contract Tools and Turner work with PDFs?
Contract Tools works with PDFs that you open in Word, and you can open PDFs in Word 2013 and later. Turner can import PDFs.
Do Contract Tools and Turner detect text (using OCR) in PDFs that lack text data?
No. There are many apps available for detecting text in PDFs that lack text data. We use OCRmyPDF. Search the internet for “ocr app” to learn about other apps.
Do Contract Tools and Turner offer features for comparing documents (creating redlines and blacklines)?
No. There are many apps available for comparing documents. Search the internet for “compare documents” to learn more. To learn how to compare documents in Word, visit Compare document differences using the legal blackline option.
Do Contract Tools and Turner offer features for sharing content with others?
Yes. You can share proofreading results, lists of comments, and other content by using copy and paste. To learn how to do this in Contract Tools, visit The Contract Tools Pane – Copying and Pasting the Contents of Views. To learn how to do this in Turner, visit The Navigator.
How do I begin a free trial of Contract Tools?
Install Contract Tools, open a document or create a new document in Word to show the Contract Tools pane, and then click Begin Trial. Visit Trying Contract Tools to learn more.
How do Contract Tools and Turner subscriptions work?
Contract Tools and Turner subscriptions work the same way most other subscriptions work. When you buy a Contract Tools or Turner subscription, you pay for the first period, and then your subscription automatically renews (and your payment method is automatically charged) every subsequent period, unless you cancel your subscription or your payment method can’t be charged.
If you don’t want your subscription to automatically renew, you can easily cancel it; visit Managing Your Contract Tools Subscription or Managing Your Turner Subscription to learn how. After you cancel your subscription, you can keep using Contract Tools or Turner until your subscription period ends.
Can I use a Contract Tools activation key to activate Turner, or a Turner activation key to activate Contract Tools?
No. Contract Tools and Turner are licensed separately.
Can I use an activation key to activate Contract Tools or Turner on more than one computer at the same time?
No. If you have more than one computer, you can deactivate Contract Tools or Turner on one computer, and then reactivate it on another. If you forget to deactivate Contract Tools or Turner on one of your computers, you can easily deactivate it on a computer that you don’t have access to. As an alternative, you can buy subscriptions for each of your computers. If there are many people in your organization who want to use Contract Tools or Turner, email sales@papersoftware.com.
Why does Contract Tools say I’m using a virtual machine when I seem to be using real hardware?
Activating and beginning a trial of Contract Tools require Windows and Word to be installed on real hardware, not on a virtual machine; visit Using Contract Tools on a Virtual Machine to learn more. Some technologies (like Hyper‑V and Memory Integrity) make Windows run in a virtual machine in a way that isn’t obvious. Other technologies (like Remote Desktop Services) can make Word seem like it’s installed on your PC, but it’s actually installed on a remote server and running in a virtualized environment. To detect virtual machines, we use LimeLM by wyDay. LimeLM is used on millions of devices all over the world, and it has more than 10 years of development behind it.
If an alert message about virtual machines appears when you try to activate or begin a trial of Contract Tools, it’s practically certain that some form of virtualization is being used with Windows or Word.
Can I use Contract Tools on a virtual machine?
Yes, but there’s a 5-license minimum, and it’s necessary to use Contract Tools License Server (a lightweight app, not hardware). You can use an instance of Contract Tools License Server that we host using Amazon Web Services; visit Hosted License Servers for technical details. Or, you can install Contract Tools License Server on real hardware running Windows Vista or later, or Windows Server 2008 or later. Setup usually takes only a few minutes. Visit Contract Tools License Server to learn more.
Can I and my colleagues try Contract Tools and Turner at our organization?
Yes. We offer 3-month pilot deployments to organizations. Email sales@papersoftware.com to learn more. The Contract Tools evaluation agreement is available here, and the Turner evaluation agreement is available here.
Do Contract Tools and Turner have Export Control Classification Numbers (ECCNs)?
Contract Tools and Turner are self-classified under ECCN 5D992.
Do you offer volume discounts?
Yes, starting at 5 licenses. Email sales@papersoftware.com to learn more.
Do you offer discounts to students?
We offer discounts to groups of students (like clinics, classes, or entire law schools). Email sales@papersoftware.com to learn more. We don’t offer discounts to individual students.
Do you offer discounts to solo practitioners?
No.
Does Contract Tools work with Word documents that don’t use formatting, automatic list numbering, and similar Word features?
Yes. If your document includes formatting, automatic list numbering, and so on, Contract Tools analyzes these items to find information about your document. But Contract Tools can also analyze unformatted text (like text you copy and paste from a PDF).
Can I use Contract Tools while using Track Changes?
Yes. When you use Contract Tools and Track Changes together, you can add and delete text, show and hide revisions, and adjust other Track Changes settings as if you weren’t using Contract Tools. Depending on whether you want Contract Tools to analyze tracked deletions, you may want to adjust Track Changes settings; visit Analyzing When Using Track Changes to learn more.
Does Contract Tools change Word documents?
Yes, in two ways. By default, Contract Tools automatically detects the part of your document that you’re most likely to want to analyze, and then saves this information as a hidden bookmark; visit Analyzing Part of a Document to learn more. Contract Tools also saves analysis settings with documents as custom XML data; visit Saving Analysis Settings to learn more. It’s easy to turn these features off.
Do changes that Contract Tools makes to Word documents appear in comparisons (like redlines and blacklines)?
No.
Do changes that I make to Word documents while using Contract Tools appear in comparisons?
Yes.
Does Contract Tools work with Word for Microsoft 365?
You can use Contract Tools with Word for Microsoft 365 on a Windows PC. Contract Tools isn’t available for the Office mobile app or Word Online.
Is Contract Tools compatible with Word for Mac?
No. Consider using Turner instead.
Is Contract Tools compatible with WordPerfect?
No.
Does Contract Tools work with my document management system and my other Word add-ins?
Probably, but it’s not possible to test Contract Tools with all the document management systems and Word add-ins that are available. The best way to answer this question is to try Contract Tools.
If you use iManage Integration for Office, a solution is available to an issue that can cause Word to temporarily become unresponsive when closing documents while using Contract Tools; visit Configuring iManage Software to learn more.
Can I install Contract Tools on a computer I use at work?
This depends on how your organization administers your computer. If you can’t install Contract Tools, your system administrator may be able to install it for you. For example, if your system administrator has configured your computer to allow remote connections, your system administrator can use Remote Desktop Connection to access your computer, and then install Contract Tools by opening PowerShell 4.0 or later as an administrator and entering:
$filename = 'PaperSoftwareContractToolsSetup.exe'
$installerPath = "$([Environment]::GetFolderPath('Desktop'))\$filename"
[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bOR 'Tls12'
Invoke-WebRequest "https://papersoftware.com/$filename" -OutFile $installerPath
if ((Get-FileHash $installerPath).Hash -eq 'a81aa025a80262de64adbb6fb0c8af53dda4cc0fa21b62a3827d2a904950fe1f') {
& $installerPath
}
If an MSI file is preferred, your system administrator can enter:
$filename = 'PaperSoftwareContractTools.msi'
$installerPath = "$([Environment]::GetFolderPath('Desktop'))\$filename"
[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bOR 'Tls12'
Invoke-WebRequest "https://papersoftware.s3.amazonaws.com/$filename" -OutFile $installerPath
if ((Get-FileHash $installerPath).Hash -eq '4e7f63a4b3ad4bfc7ef1183d22327c690ec29e33396ac0aa94716f2e5f54b292') {
msiexec /i $installerPath
}
If your organization uses Chocolatey and allows installing community packages, your system administrator can enter in an administrator PowerShell or Command Prompt:
choco install contract-tools
Is Contract Tools malware?
No. Contract Tools is not, and does not contain, adware, malware, spyware, or any other junk by any other name. We take your security very seriously.
- We digitally sign every release of Contract Tools with a DigiCert Extended Validation Code Signing Certificate.
- We submit every release of Contract Tools to major antivirus software vendors for whitelisting.
- We scan every release of Contract Tools at VirusTotal.
Why does Microsoft Defender report a security alert when Contract Tools checks for an update?
Checking for a Contract Tools update is essentially a 3-step process:
- Contract Tools finds Advanced Updater. (Contract Tools uses Advanced Updater, part of Advanced Installer by Caphyon, to manage updates. Advanced Installer is widely used to create Windows installers and manage updates.) Advanced Updater is in the same folder as Contract Tools and named “PaperSoftwareContractToolsUpdater.exe” to identify it as Contract Tools’ updater. Contract Tools can be installed anywhere, so Contract Tools must determine the folder in which it has been installed to find Advanced Updater.
- Advanced Updater checks whether an installer for a more recent version of Contract Tools is available from https://papersoftware.s3.amazonaws.com (this is an address of Amazon S3 storage, not a website).
- If an installer for a more recent version of Contract Tools is available, Advanced Updater displays a dialog asking you to download and run the installer.
Because Contract Tools is a Word add-in, it appears to Microsoft Defender that Word itself is performing these steps. Because these steps are atypical of Word, a security alert is triggered.
You may be able to configure Microsoft Defender not to trigger this alert. As an alternative, you can disable automatically checking for Contract Tools updates; visit Updating Contract Tools to learn how.