Finalize Word documents for distribution

When you’re working in Word with assignments, you’ll notice that in all the places where assignments have been created, there’ll be a content control (a grey box) surrounding the area that’s been assigned.

Finalizing your document removes these content control boxes so they no longer appear in the document, and you’d want to do that when:

• You’re getting the document ready for distribution. It’s a good idea to do this before you distribute your document and send it on to clients, or partners, or vendors you’re working with. This essentially ‘cleans up’ the document and removes potentially distracting elements that your audience doesn’t need.
• You want to create another assignment in the same place for another purpose or another team member.

For example, in an RFx scenario, you might have a writing stage that involves gathering answers and information from SMEs, followed by a review stage that involves getting approvals for and/or reviewing the answers provided by the SMEs.

In this case, you’ll first create the writing assignments for the SMEs. When they have completed their work and you’re ready to proceed to the review stage, finalize allows you to remove the content controls from the completed work, so that you can create new assignments for the reviewers in the same spot in the document.

It is not possible to nest one assignment inside another, or to create another assignment in the exact same location where there’s already an assignment.

With Finalize, you can cater for multiple RFx stages or rounds of reviews, completing assignments and finalizing the document between each round, before creating the next set of assignments as your response moves to the next stage. 

Please note that Finalize is only applicable to Word documents, and does not apply to Excel or PowerPoint assignments.

In this article, we'll explain: 

1. Where to find Finalize in your QorusDocs Add-in for Word
2. How to Finalize your document when all the assignments in the document have a status of ‘Done’
3. Your Finalize options when all the assignments in the document do not have a status of ‘Done’

1. Where to find Finalize in your QorusDocs Add-in for Word

Click on 'Finalize' in the top nav (this menu item might be hidden under the menu or three

dots):

2. How to finalize assignments when all the assignments in the document have a status of ‘Done’  

Next, to finalize your document, simply click on ‘Finalize’:

That’s it! You will see the following notification confirming that the document is ready for distribution:

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3. How to finalize assignments when all the assignments in the document do NOT have a status of ‘Done’ 

If there are assignments in the document which do not have a status of ‘Done’ yet, you’ll see a window with the following options come up on your screen when you click ‘Finalize’:

• Cancel: Click this option if you no longer wish to finalize any assignments at all
• Mark done: Click this option if prior to finalizing the document, you’d like QorusDocs to change the status(es) of outstanding assignment(s) to ‘Done’. This will result in all assignments in the current document being finalized.
• Keep pending: Click this option if you’d like to leave the status(es) of outstanding assignment(s) exactly as they currently are (‘Assigned’ or ‘Rejected’) and finalize only those assignments that currently have a status of ‘Done’.

If you choose the ‘Mark done’ option, you will see a notification confirming that the document is ready for distribution.

If you choose the ‘Keep pending’ option, you will see a notification on your screen informing you of how many assignments are currently pending (or outstanding), along with a suggestion to finalize your document again once those assignments have been completed. You can click ‘OK’ and continue working.

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