Proposal Pack Wizard Changelog

What's new in Proposal Pack Wizard 17.6

Apr 4, 2024

Updated the Security System and Communication Proposal layout to display in the full list of layouts instead of the From Customer Support section.
When importing a new Quick Start list is now unchecked if the project previously was associated with a sample proposal.
Fixed an error message that would occur when a spacer line was added to an empty line item database. Spacer lines can now only be added if at least one line item row exists.

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 17.5 (Jan 31, 2024)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 17.4 (Dec 23, 2023)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 17.3 (Nov 28, 2023)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 17.2 (Oct 27, 2023)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 17.1 (Oct 3, 2023)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 17.0 (Sep 22, 2023)

Added a line item database system for quotes, schedules, business plan financials, etc. The new line item database system works for both Novice and Expert Edition users. Novice Edition users can use any of the premade quote and Sample Proposal databases as-is. Expert Edition users can customize any premade databases and create custom databases.
A new PDF manual has been added for the line item database system.
All the included Sample Proposals that used to use Excel spreadsheets for quotes, schedules and business plan information have been converted to use the new line item database system. Importing any of these Sample Proposals will let you use that Sample Proposal's custom line item database for your own projects. Expert Edition users can customize these databases.
The Wizard and the installers have been upgraded to new EV code signing certificates for enhanced Windows security.
Permission errors are captured better with an option to retry once the user closes the file that was trying to be deleted.
Changed all Twitter references to X in the Social Media tags.
The Excel spreadsheet linking feature is now disabled by default as the new line item database system takes precedent. The Excel linking feature can be turned on in the Preferences and used along with the new line item database system. Note that the new line item database system has features that allow for pulling in cell data from an Excel spreadsheet into the line item database which may be more useful.
Removed the legacy static Table of Contents creation option.
Turning on QuoteWerks document creation features will temporarily turn off the new line item quoting system. The line item system will be turned back on when QuoteWerks creation is turned off.
The 32-bit QuoteWerks direct connection API has been removed. QuoteWerks support is still included and works as it always has. The direct connection feature was a time saving option and since QuoteWerks never released a 64-bit API the direct connection option has been removed as Word is primarily installed in the 64-bit version now.
The project database import/export feature has been removed.
The Word Insert Bug screens have been removed after Microsoft fixed their bug.
Minor bug fixes and enhancements.

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 16.06 (Mar 1, 2023)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 16.05 (Dec 22, 2022)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 16.04 (Oct 1, 2022)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 16.03 (Sep 1, 2022)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 16.02 (Jul 27, 2022)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 16.01 (Jun 30, 2022)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 16.00 (Jun 3, 2022)

Added support for the new Proposal Pack V19 and Proposal Kit Professional V22 products. 177 new chapter templates have been added and are now available in the Wizard.
Added 19 more business situations to the Add Templates tab to accommodate the new chapter templates.
1 new Quick Start import list added (690 total).
Streamlined the Wizard home screen interface by removing the Create Document button which is a redundant button. The project screen now includes a 2nd button to save the project without building the project documents and instead of asking to build the documents when the original Ok, Save Project button was clicked that button now automatically builds the project documents.
The Team Editing feature is now automatically turned on by default in the Expert Edition.
The Team Editing screen now can change the order of chapters and remove chapters when the main project document is rebuilt without having to go back to the project screen to edit the chapter layout.
If multiple monitors are detected during startup the Wizard will ask if you want to turn on Multi-Monitor mode and will do so without having to turn it on in the Preferences. The Wizard will only ask this question once.
Updated the post-processing tool for converting chapter headers and the Edit Styles option to automatically convert graphic chapter headers to text so they reposition the chapter headers more in line with how the original logos were positioned vertically relative to the chapter header text. This eliminates the need to manually reposition chapter headers to make them appear more visually appealing in many design themes.
Updated the post-processing tool for converting chapter headers so it also converts the Title Page’s Proposal graphic and repositions that graphic as well to be more visually appealing.
Updated the conversion of the Title Page graphic to text to read the resolution of the image in case it is in a non-standard DPI which would previously cause the graphic to be repositioned incorrectly.
Fixed a couple post-processing tools so if the setup screen for the tool was canceled it wouldn’t continue to perform that operation.

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 15.18 (May 5, 2022)

3 new Quick Start import lists added (689 total).
Added a new post processing tool that allows changing the entire color scheme of a document including documents that have been edited with custom colors. The tool will prescan all changeable elements (fonts, tables, borders, shapes) to identify up to 10 used colors and allows changing each to a new color.
Added the ability to create Font type presets. You can create up to 40 presets and each preset contains the settings for the entire set of 50 customizable font styles. This gives the ability to easily switch design themes and have different font types, sizes and colors created to go with different themes.
All the font style settings and the new presets have been moved from the Options.ini database file to a new file FontStyles.ini.
Removed limit of 40 selectable items in a Multiple Choice Database list when creating custom sort ordered lists. Max allowable number can now be custom sorted.
Added 5 new categories (15 total) and 50 tags (150 total) to the Multiple Choice Database.
The Multiple Choice Database configuration can now auto-add the Multiple Choice tags into the templates when assigning a tag to a template.
The Multiple Choice system is updated to use the custom versions of templates found in the new MyTemplates folder if any exist.
Added the ability to delete the Word files for user added templates from the database. Stock templates can still be removed from the database listings but the Word documents for stock Proposal Pack templates will still not be deleted.
Added checks when removing templates from the database if they are in use in the Multiple Choice database and if a custom copy exists in the MyTemplates folder.
Defaulted the Wizard to using Word popup messages boxes. If running in a multi-monitor system and message boxes are displaying on the wrong monitor, there is now a Preferences checkbox to turn on Multi-Monitor Mode. This will use Wizard specific popup message boxes. However, this feature is not tested across all possible Wizard interactions. If Multi-Monitor mode appears to have a locked-up screen turn this feature back off and contact us for assistance.
If the Show All Templates option is checked in the Add Templates screen, then changes are made to the template list outside this screen, the drop down lists will now reload with the current selections.

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 15.17 (Mar 27, 2022)

2 new Quick Start import lists added (686 total).
The Preferences tool for searching for template installations now allows browsing to any location to better accommodate custom installations.
The Pick Documents screens Presets adds an Update Preset button to streamline making updates to presets vs having to delete then readd a modified preset.
Added a new feature allowing users to copy their own versions of stock templates into a new folder MyTemplates. This allows users to keep their customized versions of chapter templates separate from the main library. This also allows a single customized copy of a chapter template to be used across multiple Proposal Pack design themes and for network setups to have customized versions per individual user when the main library is shared by everyone on a network.
The Multiple Choice selection screen when adding data for a project will now warn the user if they are selecting drop in data but did not select the page for that data yet in the project.
Expanded sizes of Multiple Choice selection fields to accommodate long titles.
Expanded the maximum number of drop in content files in the Multiple Choice database from 300 to 2000.
Labels showing the count of how many data elements are selected added to the Multiple Choice selection screen.
Added an option to delete all paragraph data files created by the Wizard when resetting the Multiple Choice database to original settings. User has the option to backup the files in case they had been customized.
Added admin option to turn off Multiple Choice warning messages for missing data which may be non-issues depending on how the Multiple Choice system is setup and used in practice.
Fixed an issue where only about 65 items could be selected from all the Multiple Choice drop downs due to a string length limitation in Word saving to the .ini database files. Now up to 2000 drop down items could be selected for a single project.
Fixed an issue in the database export/import with the new Social Media data values.

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 15.16 (Mar 1, 2022)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 15.15 (Feb 1, 2022)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 15.14 (Dec 26, 2021)

Added new social media data tag support. 10 new tags <<SocialMedia[1-10]>> are now available to use in the Wizard interface and have been added to a number of templates in the recent Proposal Pack update. Templates with the new tags are Company History, About Us, Company Information, Contact Us, Social Media, Back Page and Back Page Generic.
The new social media tags have an additional feature when embedded in the documents where the display text can be different than the underlying URL.
Reorganized the document post processing screens to group tools based on what they do (text tools, graphics tools, testing tools, structural tools and troubleshooting tools).
Added popup help descriptions of each document post processing tool.
Added a post processing batch tool to remove all hyperlinks from emails and URLs in the document. The text remains and only the clickable link and any URL font styling is removed (underline and color).
Added a post processing batch tool to remove page borders.
Added post processing batch tools to replace all the custom graphics that can be used in the MyGraphics folder. Tools are added to change out the Letterhead, Page Header, Title Page logo, Back Page watermark, Title page watermark, Body pages watermark and Description graphics.
Added post processing batch tools to load complex watermarks stored in external .docx format files such as are used in the MyGraphics folder for replacing the body pages watermark, Title Page watermark and Back Page watermark as well as the body pages headers and footers.
Added support to all the MyGraphics custom graphics and batch processing graphics tools to use both PNG and JPG format files. If both JPG and PNG formats exist for a file the JPG format will be used first.
Improved document creation performance by turning off the crash logging system by default (reverting to its previous default state) and reducing the volume of progress bar refreshes.
8 new Quick Start import lists added (678 total).
If page borders are turned on (either via the Style Settings screen or using the Page Borders post-processing tool) and full size shape objects are used in the body pages then the full size shape objects will be removed top prevent the page borders from being hidden.
Updated all Proposal Pack version numbers from 18.3 to 18.4 to reflect the updates to all the template package products for the social media tags.
Removed the page header logo file, alternate header and alternate footer file options from the Edit Style’s Branding tab as these features are handled via the MyGraphics folder options. The Branding tab has been renamed Page Headers.
Fixed issue with batch data importing if a Nickname was used in a row that any subsequent rows that did not use a Nickname would not be imported.
Fixed issue with the category list drop down disappearing in a recent update.

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 15.13 (Oct 27, 2021)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 15.12 (Sep 20, 2021)

A new startup screen is displayed when more than one Proposal Pack design theme is installed allowing the user to select which design to default to more easily.
Added a post-processing tool for adding up to 50 extra document sections to the start and/or end of a completed document. Sections are unlinked to allow inserting external content that requires independent page settings, headers and/or footers.
When updating existing projects and the company and/or client data is changed the Wizard will ask if you want to update the copy in the CRM database as well.
Installing the Wizard using the ZIP file installer into a OneDrive needed a fix due to Windows trying to use a hyperlink (https) path instead of a drive letter in some cases. The Wizard will now detect non-drive letter paths on the setup and if found will prompt the user to browse to a drive letter based path.
Suppressed an error that has a occurred a few times in foreign language installations decrypting UTF8 to Unicode data. If an error occurs it will silently return as much of the data that could be decrypted as possible.
Fixed a duplicate record import issue in the CRM record importing feature where it would increase the duplicate record count by 2 instead of 1 in the final report.
Fixed a project batch external data import issue where a duplicate record was not being detected and allowed a duplicate project to be created.
If a Proposal Pack was deleted and the repair wizard is unable to locate it, or the user couldn’t browse to it the Wizard will give the user the option to disable the style in the database to allow the Wizard to continue running.
Added extra tests to the Wizard to compare the setup paths for multiple device or multiple user configurations using the same network or cloud based Wizard database. All root paths on all devices must be the same and the Wizard will test for this on each new setup and startup of each Wizard to ensure path integrity is maintained in the database.
Added option to turn off archiving of orphaned project folders in the Preferences > Files and Folders screen. Intended for use with multi-user setups using the same project folder so users who don’t see other users projects won’t archive those other users projects.
Added more documentation for network and cloud based installs.

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 15.11 (Aug 19, 2021)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 15.10 (Jun 16, 2021)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 15.9 (Jun 2, 2021)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 15.8 (Apr 28, 2021)

5 new Quick Start import lists added (660 total).
Added a feature to speed up data entry if your clients are in the same area. You can configure the Wizard to automatically copy the City, State, Zip Code, Country, and County from the Company Data to the Client Data screen. There is a new Preferences option to set this feature to Yes, No and Ask.
Added a new tab to the Edit Current Document for managing project backups. Features include making new backups for individual projects, restoring from any backup, and deleting backups.
Added support for changes in Proposal Kit Professional built-in design themes being changed to Global #4 and Classic #18.
Added flag in the Preferences to turn off table borders globally for when using more than one design theme and you want to turn off table borders without individually disabling them in each installed design theme.
Added flag to the Fonts screen to dynamically set the color based on Color #3 of the current design theme.
Novice Edition users now have access to a handful of the document post processing tools.
Added a post processing tool to batch change all hyperlinks and email addresses to a single value while retaining the original text. This is useful for when creating fictional documents with URLs where you do not want the links to be broken by pointing them at a known URL.
Added a post processing tool to set all text in the document's footers to a specific Word Style.
Added a post processing tool to change all the major body and header fonts in the document. This tool can be used with the tool to change chapter headers to editable text to also change the editable text font style as well.
Added a post processing tool to convert all the chapter headers in graphic design theme Proposal Packs to editable text to prevent having to change that setting in the Styles screen and rebuild the document from scratch. This tool will update the Table of Contents and convert the Title Page Proposal graphic to editable text.
Updated demo styles from line art to new photo design themes.
If using graphic design theme Proposal Packs the text "(Long Version)" and "(Short Version)" will be removed from the Table of Contents when including one of the Non-Disclosure forms.
Fixed an issue where if an invalid URL or email address were entered Word would generate an error trying to convert it to a hyperlink. If an email or URL field does not appear to be valid the Wizard will not try to have Word convert it to a hyperlink.
Changed back to the default setting that keeps the Title Page and Back Page watermark pictures and shapes in the header vs moving them into the body. Some Word installs can get the ZOrder of the shapes wrong when moving them. This has no effect on the final printed or PDF versions of the documents.

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 15.7 (Mar 29, 2021)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 15.6 (Mar 5, 2021)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 15.5 (Jan 27, 2021)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 15.4 (Jan 4, 2021)

Added support for 10 new Proposal Pack design themes (470 total) now available from the Edit Styles screen drop down as new add-on designs. Add-on design themes are purchased separately.
1 new Quick Start import lists added (644 total).
Added more comments to the crash reporting form. Added an extra field to help describe more details in crash reports.
Added option to skip updating OLE Excel links between spreadsheets and Word documents when cloning projects with linked files.
New project management screen added with expanded features. Now multiple projects can be cloned, deleted, and have their tracking statuses updated at once. The Clone Project button has been moved into the new screen. The clone, project status and tracking reporting are all Expert Edition features.
The Delete Project option now includes a new option to archive project files to a new archive folder to ensure work is not lost on any documents created for projects being deleted.
The Delete Project option now includes a new option to search for and archive orphaned project folders. Orphaned project folders are the hard drive folders containing the Word, Excel and PDF documents created for a project but the project itself has been deleted from the Wizard database.
The Delete Project option has a new feature that will optionally delete orphaned project batches. Batches that are not linked to any projects (either due to not having any added in the first place or having them deleted) are considered orphaned batches.
The project status tracking reports are updated to include the user comments and you can control which projects are exported to the tracking report. Field widths are set wider for the longer data fields in the exported spreadsheet.
Open Project Folder and Refresh List buttons added to the Team Editing tab of the editing screen.
Added drop down for selecting projects from a batch in the Search Projects form and the project selection form.
Fixed issue with CompanyNickname field case in the example batch Excel import file.
Fixed issue with the status tracking dates potentially not being cleared out when a deleted project slot in the database is reused for a new project.
Added descriptions of new batch tools to manual.
Added links to new videos into related manual chapters.

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 15.3 (Nov 17, 2020)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 15.2 (Oct 22, 2020)

Added support for 10 new Proposal Pack design themes (450 total) now available from the Edit Styles screen drop down as new add-on designs. Add-on design themes are purchased separately.
5 new Quick Start import lists added (641 total).
Added example files for use with the company and client CRM database importing using files.
Added importing from Outlook to the Company Data screen and updated how QuoteWerks data is imported.
Added ability to import company and client data directly into the reusable CRM database from external files, SalesForce, QuoteWerks and Outlook.
Reorganized the interface for importing 3rd party company and client data to add all 3rd party options into a new popup screen.
Added Preferences options to individually toggle on/off the popup screens for importing client data at the point a new project is added. The same functionality is now available directly from the Company Data and Client Data screens.
Added Clear Form buttons to the Company Data, Client Data and reusable CRM Company and Client data screens.
Rebuilt the Preferences Batch Processing screen to match the Edit Current Documents screen with a list box of options vs checkboxes allowing for easier additions of new tools. Also added the ability to select individual Word documents to process from the selected folder instead of processing all documents in the folder.
Added a Batch Processing tool that will swap out the main document body section’s watermark with either a custom watermarked defined in the MyGraphics folder’s Watermark-Body.docx file or if that file doesn’t exist from the stock design theme’s Watermark-Body.docx file found in the Graphics/PNG_Graphics folder. This tool can be used to change the background design after a document has been changed or fix a problem that occurs on some installations of Word where the background watermark disappears during assembly.
Added a Batch Processing tool that will move any full size shape object in the main document body section to the rear of the ZOrder. This tool can be used to fix the ZOrder that occurs on some installations of Word randomly where Word will move a full size shape object to the front and hides the other elements behind it during assembly.
Added a Batch Processing tool to remove any full page shape objects in the document. This can be used to fix an issue with ZOrders out of order by removing unused shape objects.
Added a Batch Processing tool to automatically update the Table of Contents object.
Added ability to define which QuoteWerks field is used to determine if a quote is loaded. The default is using the “SoldToCompany” field in QuoteWerks.
Added links to new videos into related manual chapters.

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 15.1 (Sep 13, 2020)

Added support for 10 new Proposal Pack design themes (440 total) now available from the Edit Styles screen drop down as new add-on designs. Add-on design themes are purchased separately.
Added an About button to the Wizard home screen which will display more information about what edition and mode the Wizard is running in as well as information about Word and Windows. Buttons are included to check for updates to installed template packs and buttons for instructions on how to unlock features when not running in full feature modes.
Updated the VBA code signing certificate on the Wizard document and the EXE installers till 2023.
Increased the default maximum number of SalesForce records that will load into the drop down lists from 25 to 100.
6 new Quick Start import lists added (636 total).
Added button to Manage Batch screen to reset the design theme if reusing projects created previously with a different design theme and the new batch is going to build the documents in a different design theme.
If a batch is currently setup then saving document projects will not automatically generate the documents as the project is saved as the assumption is any projects being edited will be generated during the running of the batch.
Added feature to the batch processing that allows user to either overwrite duplicate files in the external batch folder or create new copies.
Added ability to change the design theme assigned to previous batches to recreate the documents in a different design theme when the batch is rerun.
Added more logging information to the crash log during document assembly.
Captured Unicode character values out of range to prevent error messages during foreign language translations.
Added links to new videos into related manual chapters.
Added to startup tutorial for the Edit Current Document screen.
Fixed issue when editing batch template from a previously run batch would change the index numbers of any projects created from that template.
Added new manual chapter How do I Switch to the 3rd Party Integration Enabled Wizard?

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 15.0 (Jul 31, 2020)

Added support for 10 new Proposal Pack design themes (430 total) now available from the Edit Styles screen drop down as new add-on designs. Add-on design themes are purchased separately.
Several structural and database changes to the Wizard were required to complete the batch processing system that required a full version upgrade. Incremental patches are no longer possible to the previous version.
The document batch processing system has been completed adding the ability to make batch updates to previous batches such as adding new pages to assembled proposals, letters, invoices, checklists, etc. and have them automatically added to all the projects in a previously run batch.
Generated documents now have the background graphics of the Title Page and Back Page moved out of the header and into the body of the page. This makes it slightly easier to replace them with your own and shows the full color during editing.
Added new messages when running restricted 10S version of Wizard why 3rd party integrations are disabled and how to ensure the proper Word software is installed to support them.
The Wizard installer defaults to linking the Desktop shortcut to the version without 3rd Party integrations to ensure users do not get errors when using incompatible editions of Word. The Preferences features have been updated to add compatibility tests which give instructions about what integration options will work and how to resolve incompatibilities.
Added button to Preferences > Integrations screen to test system compatibility for using 3rd Party integration features.
Added button to Preferences > Integrations screen to make a new Desktop shortcut link for running the integration enabled versions of the Wizard.
Added button to manually register the SalesForce DLL from the Wizard Preferences in case the Wizard was installed from the ZIP file.
Added button to connect to SalesForce from the Preferences > Integrations > SalesForce screen.
Added a new Document Processing tab to the Edit screen (Expert Edition only) that allows post processing cleanup and checking of project documents. This moves existing Preferences tools more easily accessible from the Edit screen.
Added a document processing tool for testing for left over data and instructional tag text added to the Document Processing tab and Preferences batch processing screens.
Added a document processing tool to remove all body text in a document set to the Proposal Kit Important Body Text style. This is to support the creation of an editor’s version of a document that uses instructional text for writers that needs to be removed when the proposal writing is completed.
Added ability to import a contact from Outlook when creating a new project.
Added the ability to use the Wizard’s built-in Client CRM database as a data source for creating projects for a batch.
Addition of new Wizard CRM company and client records when a new project is created is skipped if the company name, first name and last name are all blank.
Added QuoteWerks option to turn off the missing template messages when creating QuoteWerks templates that do not use any stock Proposal Kit cost related pages.
Added new manual chapter How do the Edit Screen Document Processing Tools Work?
Added new manual chapter How do I Integrate with Outlook?

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 14.11 (Jun 19, 2020)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 14.10 (May 6, 2020)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 14.9 (Apr 2, 2020)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 14.8 (Feb 6, 2020)

Added support for 10 new Proposal Pack design themes (390 total) now available from the Edit Styles screen drop down as new add-on designs. Add-on design themes are purchased separately.
Added hundreds of new currency codes and language formats to the Expert Edition currency translation feature.
Added 5 new business situations to the Quick Start list (605 total).
The Wizard can now apply currency code translations to the Excel spreadsheets. When using the Excel Dynamic Spreadsheet linking feature the currency code translations in the spreadsheets will be applied to the Word document. For example, all currency cells in Excel spreadsheets can be changed from USD $ to the Euro symbol €, Pounds £, etc.
Added a button to edit the custom delimiter file in the Multiple Choice Database setup screen.
Fixed an issue with the stock line delimiter not working after a recent upgrade to Word in the Multiple Choice Database feature.
Added extra error checking and ease of use feedback to the Multiple Choice Database screens.
Wizard installers will now detect if the 64-bit edition of Office is installed and will point the Wizard desktop shortcut to the 64-bit version of the Wizard.
Wizard installers will not prompt to reboot the computer after an install or uninstall which in the past could occasionally be asked.
The Proposal Pack product list has split out the sports related design themes into a new “Sports” category.
Added a checkbox option on the first tutorial to turn off all other tutorials. This is helpful for users reinstalling or who are familiar with the Wizard already.
Reduced lengths of strings used in Dynamic Excel Spreadsheet linking to potentially fix an occasional string to long error when expanding long ranges of tags.
Added links to videos to the related Wizard manual chapters.
Added new manual chapter How do I Create an Editable Copy of one of the Samples?
Added new manual chapter How do I Add Supporting Documents to my Project?
Added new manual chapter How to Edit Page Headers that are Graphics

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 14.7 (Dec 2, 2019)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 14.6 (Oct 7, 2019)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 14.5 (Aug 29, 2019)

Added support for 10 new Proposal Pack design themes now available from the Edit Styles screen drop down as new add-on designs. Add-on design themes are purchased separately.
Auto-populating Presets are now loaded when a project is created instead of when the Pick Documents button is clicked. This eliminates one extra step when creating projects using presets.
Multiple Choice databases that are setup with specific templates that must have data selected for them will also be autoloaded now when the project is created instead of when the Pick Documents button is clicked. This eliminates one extra step when creating projects using the Multiple Choice database features.
Added 2 more business situations to the Quick Start import lists (597 total).
Updated the Edit Screen popup tutorial to note buttons added in the last update for adding Estimate Pack and Project Management Pack documents from the Edit Screen.
Add a new example in the MyGraphics folder illustrating how to create complex custom watermark backgrounds to be imported into the Title Page, body pages and Back Page. The new folder is titled Example-WatermarksUsingDocs.
Using custom watermark documents such as Watermark-Title.docx, Watermark-Body.docx and Watermark-BackPage.docx now supports rotation of shape objects.
Fixed an issue where the Wizard was not importing custom Watermark-Title.png/.jpg and Watermark-BackPage.png/.jpg graphics into styles that did not already have a background picture in the Title Page and Back Page.
Fixed issue in Edit Document screen where Spreadsheet tab was not always turning on when Estimate Pack or Project Management Pack spreadsheets added to a project from the edit screen.
Fixed an issue where the custom Back Page logo graphic was not being imported when a custom Watermark-BackPage.docx file was also imported at the same time.
Fixed an issue where the background from the body section could replicate into the last back page section when using a custom Watermark-BackPage.docx file to import a custom back page design.

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 18.1 (Jul 9, 2019)

Updated all the cost related chapter templates to adjust the table sizes to look better when used with page borders.
Left aligned header text in all the cost related chapters to make the tables display consistently with tables in other templates.
All the photo designed Proposal Pack design themes have been updated to separate out individual photographs in the Title Page and Back Page as individual picture objects. This is coupled with a new feature in the Expert Edition of the Wizard software that allows you to have the Wizard swap out any or all of the stock design photographs with your own by just making a new image and saving it in the Wizard’s MyGraphics folder with the appropriate name.
The Title Page, Back Page and Watermark-Body templates have been updated in every Proposal Pack to remove hidden legacy Word shape objects that could cause the ordering of some shapes to be out of place when using some Expert Edition features such as generating documents for use with QuoteWerks or using some of the Expert Edition custom branding features.
The Title Page templates in all bundled Title Page Packs that come included with Proposal Pack and Proposal Kit Professional or that are purchased separately have also been updated to remove hidden legacy Word shape objects.
The V18 conversion of all templates from legacy Word .doc formats to current Word .docx formats uncovered an obscure Word bug in the templates that caused the ZOrder variable to be invalid numbers in some cases. While this normally does not cause a problem, in some cases such as turning on Expert Edition features to import custom graphics or generate documents for use in 3rd-party systems the ZOrder bug could cause shape objects to change their ordering and go behind or in front of other shapes out of order. This update resets the ZOrder to correct values in all Title Page and Back Page templates. This only affected a small number of more complex Proposal Pack design themes however all of them have been updated.
Word icons have been updated to match the latest updates from Microsoft.
Alternate versions of cost table layout templates added for use with QuoteWerks.
Minor updates to instructional text wording in some templates.
Minor updates to URLs in the browser interface.
Bundled Novice Wizard software has been upgraded to version 14.4
Proposal Pack V18
All Word documents have been converted from the legacy Word 2003 .doc format to the current Word .docx format.
All Excel spreadsheets have been converted from the legacy Excel 2003 .xls format to the current Excel .xlsx format.
The Wizard software has been updated to remove all legacy Word 2003 support and now only works with the current Word and Excel file formats.

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 14.4 (Jul 6, 2019)

Added 5 more business situations to the Quick Start import lists (595 total).
Added a new feature that allows you to swap out any photographs used in photo designed Proposal Packs by putting a replacement photo in the same dimensions and file name into the MyGraphics folder (Expert Edition only). This only works with the upgraded V18.1 versions of the Proposal Packs with redesigned Title Page and Back Page templates that split out every photograph into individual replaceable objects. Also added a matching help video.
Added the ability to remove the ‹‹Domain›› tag from document footers by setting the Alternate Footer Text field in the Preferences screen to the Word BLANK.
The current project’s ‹‹CurrentDate›› field is updated every time documents are added to a project to ensure that the tag is inserted with the current date vs the date the project was first created. Primarily used for when adding extra documents to project such as invoices, contracts, Estimate Pack and Project Management Pack templates.
The Wizard is now integrated with the Estimate Pack and Project Management Pack template collections which are part of the Proposal Kit Professional bundle. You can now add templates from these libraries directly to your projects in the Wizard. Templates will also have the design theme customizations and data merge tags applied to them.
When applying a color scheme to a document the Wizard will now set the fill color of text objects (in addition to Shapes) that have COLOR[1-6] set as the Alternate Text.
When applying a color scheme to a document any paragraph borders that are visible with a black border will have their color set to the same color as table borders.
Updated the URL conversion formatting to skip applying URL formatting to Table of Contents paragraphs.
Updated instructions in the example CustomFooter.docx files that custom page numbers must be put inside text objects.
The demo Title Page templates included in the Wizard have been updated to remove legacy shape objects.
The demo Cost Summary templates have been updated to match the Cost Summary table changes in the retail Proposal Packs.
Added a new example into the MyGraphics folder "Example-MultiPictureDesignReplacement" showing how to do a complete design change using custom photographs to replace those that come with photo designed Proposal Packs.
Updated the Preferences tools for applying Proposal Kit Word Styles and page settings to external documents to also add custom bullet points to the Bullet font type and the default 1.25" left and right page margin sizes used by Proposal Kit templates.
When QuoteWerks remapping was turned off some buttons in the Project screen were not turning back on until the Wizard was restarted.
When QuoteWerks remapping is turned on and the QuoteWerks 3rd-Party features is enabled (for use with a different workflow) the Wizard won’t ask to import a quote.
When QuoteWerks remapping is turned on the Wizard will move all header objects in the Title Page and Back Page to the background of the body of the page using the ZOrder and rebuilding the shape objects and reinserting the graphics one at a time as opposed the previous version that did a mass copy and paste operation. This prevents Word from causing the ZOrder to be out of order across the objects which can happen at times when moving all objects with copy and paste.
Added new manual chapter How do I Integrate with Estimate Pack?
Added new manual chapter How do I Integrate with Project Management Pack?

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 14.3 (May 10, 2019)

Added 5 more business situations to the Quick Start import lists (590 total).
This update is primarily focused on expanded QuoteWerks integration features with the goal of being able to create custom QuoteWerks layout files ready to use as-is in QuoteWerks without any manual reformatting or editing that was previously required. The process has been streamlined to require the fewest number of steps from turning on QuoteWerks remapping features to getting your document into the QuoteWerks system ready to use.
A new button was added to the Preferences > QuoteWerks tab that with a single click will reconfigure all the Wizard options required to start creating ready-to-use QuoteWerks layout files. Previously several screens had to have specific options set separately. A single click of the same button will restore the Wizard to generating Proposal Kit format documents.
Rewrote the 5 Minute Quick Start QuoteWerks chapter and added a matching video.
If QuoteWerks remapping is turned on the Wizard will put you directly into the QuoteWerks tab of the Edit Current Project Document screen after a document is generated.
QuoteWerks remapping will also now replace the tables in all the cost related Proposal Pack chapters with a QuoteWerks compatible table complete with QuoteWerks tags that matches the design theme of the Proposal Pack in use. Chapters are those such as the Cost Summary, Estimate, Quote, Invoice, Work Order, and other variations of the quote pages.
The Wizard can communicate with your running instance of QuoteWerks and can build either a single QuoteWerks compatible cost table layout for all line items or multiple tables one per QuoteWerks Item Type each with its own subtotal.
The Wizard can be configured to build QuoteWerks layouts with QuoteWerks either running or not even installed on the same computer. You can manually enter your QuoteWerks Item Types in the Wizard’s Preferences or have the Wizard load them from a running instance of QuoteWerks.
The Wizard’s default table layouts for use with QuoteWerks can be edited from the Preferences > QuoteWerks screen.
Improved ability for Wizard to connect to QuoteWerks without having to be restarted. All QuoteWerks disconnected graphics can be clicked to initiate a reconnect and QuoteWerks can be reconnected from the Preferences > QuoteWerks tab.
9 new QuoteWerks tags added to the remapping feature.
Spots for 20 additional remappable tags added to the remapping screen.
Open Documents button added to the QuoteWerks tab in the Edit Current Project Document screen so all editing and saving of the QuoteWerks layout files can be done from one screen.
Non-mapped Proposal Kit tags will now be left intact instead of being replaced with blanks when remapping to QuoteWerks is enabled.
QuoteWerks database settings have been moved from the Options.ini file to the new QuoteWerks.ini file.
Wizard will reformat documents to make them more QuoteWerks compatible. Such reformatting includes moving shape objects and pictures from the headers into the body of the Title Page and Back Page, making the body watermark backgrounds less complex in some Proposal Pack design themes and changing the alignment of all shape and picture objects. QuoteWerks does its own document processing in ways that do not support Word features that Proposal Kit supports that can cause formatting problems.
Added a new Bullets tab to the Edit Style screen with a new feature to give more control over bullet points. A dropdown list had been added that allows you to cause the Wizard to replace any stock bullet points (graphic bullets or symbol bullets) with an alternate standard bullet point with a custom color. This feature helps when creating documents for use in other platforms that may not support graphic bullet points.
Added a 5.5x8.5 Statement size to the paper size settings.
The Document Project’s Delete All Files button will now remove extra documents added from the new buttons to add letters and contracts in the Edit Current Project Document screen.
Added a button to the Add Contract tab to remove externally added contracts which also unchecks the Contract and Terms template.
If the Contract and Templates template is removed from a project any externally added contract tied to that template will now be removed as well.
Added the ability to load Quick Start lists and change out the general purpose Cover Letter for the grant Cover Sheet.

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 14.1 (Mar 1, 2019)

Added 10 more business situations to the Quick Start import lists (580 total).
Added an Add Invoice button to the Edit Current Document screen (Expert Edition only). This allows you to easily add an invoice to an existing project. The invoice will be created as a separate document from the master project document. The Invoice Calculator Excel spreadsheet will also be copied unless a cost related page already exists such as a Cost Summary, Estimate, etc. In this case the Invoice will be matched to the existing cost page. If the spreadsheet linking is turned on the Invoice page will be linked to the cells in the existing cost spreadsheet, otherwise they will be linked to the Invoice Calculator spreadsheet.
Added an Add Letter or Checklist button to the Edit Current Document screen (Expert Edition only). This allows you to easily add a letter or development checklist document to an existing project such as a customer follow-up letter, etc.
Added an Add Legal Contract button to the Edit Current Document screen (Expert Edition only). This allows you to easily add a template from the Proposal Kit Professional’s Contract Pack library if installed. This feature also allows adding multiple Contract Pack templates to a single project whereas the Pick Document screen only supports adding one per project.
The Invoice template settings have been changed to create the Invoice as a document separate from the main project document instead of being inserted into it to support the new Edit screen button for adding an Invoice to an existing project.
The Create Reusable Template button on the Edit screen has been expanded to also allow selecting any external Word documents in the project for use as reusable templates such as an invoice, letters, checklists or contracts. If the selected Word document also has a matching Excel spreadsheet, that spreadsheet will also be added as a reusable template.
Added a Refresh button on the Edit screen for use when the user opens the projects file folder in the operating system and makes changes to the documents such as manually deleting files. Use the Refresh button to reload the interface lists of files based on the new contents of the file folder.
The Create Revision button on the Edit screen has been expanded to also create backup files for any Word documents on the Edit screen. Only the master project document will have a new backup file created with an incremented file name while all other Word documents will have a single copy saved to the project Backup folder.
An Expert Edition feature has been added to create additional Word Section breaks at the end of the assembled document. This allows for inserting additional content such as supplied forms and tables that requires different page margins and/or different headers and footers from the rest of the document while still maintaining the overall structure of the Proposal Kit layout and the Back Page. Up to 100 additional pages with independent Sections can be added.
The Auto Open documents in the Edit screen has been changed to be turned off by default due to additional features that can cause many more documents to be available to be auto-selected than in the past. This option can be turned on in the Preferences.
If the Auto Open documents in the Edit screen is turned off, then the Word documents will also not be auto-selected in the file lists anymore.
The master project document when backed up by the Wizard will now be backed up into the project’s “Backup” subfolder instead of the main project folder.
A ReadMe.pdf instruction manual has been added to the ’Alternates’ folder to help explain what the .docx files in that folder are used for and to direct users to read the appropriate manual chapters for additional information.
Two new screens have been added to the Edit screen tutorial to cover the new buttons added in this update.
If a file is deleted from the project using the Edit screen’s Delete button and that file is an external invoice, letter, checklist or contract then the projects selected list of files will have that template removed so it does not get accidentally rebuilt into the project unless the user explicitly adds it back.
A Delete button was added to the Spreadsheets tab of the Edit screen for deleting any project spreadsheets.
In the Team Editing tab of the Edit screen when a document is recombined from the individual chapters and when projects are generated using user customized content the Wizard will check for added Section Breaks and warn that it may cause the template to not be formatted correctly.
When the Edit screen detects both Word and PDF files and user selects PDF files to be opened it won’t open the Excel files as well. Excel files are only opened if the Word files are opened.
Added a Search Contracts button to the screen that allows the user to select a Contract Pack template in various tabs of the Pick Documents screen.
If a custom Table of Contents object has been added to the stock TableContents.docx file by the user, the Wizard will use it instead of inserting its own stock TOC object. The Wizard will update the user added TOC object with the appropriate TC Field and Proposal Kit Page Header tags to ensure all the page headers are added properly.
When the Add Templates screen’s Contract and Terms checkbox is checked when the Proposal Kit Professional or a Contract Pack is installed user will be prompted to select a specific contract template.
Added an Expert Edition configuration option to have the Wizard automatically remove the instructional text in red font type from the cost and invoice pages.
Expanded the feature that replaces the ‹‹R#C#›› tags in cost and invoice templates with plain text when the dynamic Excel spreadsheet linking is turned off to work with every alternate version of table layouts and Excel sheet. The layout of the Invoice will also be automatically matched to the layout of any cost page already added to the project.
Fixed an issue when ‹‹R#C#›› tags are replaced with OLE links to the Excel spreadsheets that the paragraph style (left, right, center) was not being retained. Now OLE links will be set to the same style as the text it replaces.
Fixed an issue where the master project document was backed up when external files were added to the project that did not affect the master project document. The master project document is only auto-backed up when the Wizard makes changes to it such as adding new pages.
Fixed an issue with the customizing of the file list database when editing the settings of existing stock templates.

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 14.0 (Mar 1, 2019)

All Proposal Kit template products and the Proposal Pack Wizard software have been upgraded to work only with .docx and .xlsx files. All Word and Excel documents included in all products have been converted to the current Word and Excel file formats. All use of and references to legacy file formats have been removed. This upgrade effectively removes legacy support for Word 2003 across all Proposal Kit products.
This allows you to now customize all the stock templates with features available in all versions of Word and import content from any Word document.
A reusable Client and Company CRM database has been added. This allows you to select from a list of records for your company and client screens to be populated from. Create lists of employees who will be sending out documents and lists of clients or just base information for locations such as cities you provide services in. This is an Expert Edition feature.
Added a new manual chapter How do I Use the Client and Company CRM Database?
The configuration features for setting up a networking or alternate location for databases and project files will now automatically copy your database files and update all the links in the associated files such as absolute links between copied Word documents and Excel spreadsheets.
Added a fast and streamlined process to create reusable templates right from the Edit Document screen. This process will also automatically put the reusable templates on a Custom Top 40 list up and make that Custom Top 40 list the default you see in the Pick Documents screen. This is an Expert Edition feature.
The Wizard can detect when it thinks you might be creating a document for use as a reusable template (when the Mail Merge and Dynamic XLS Linking boxes are unchecked) and will ask at that point it is created if you want to add it to the database and will walk you through the process.
A new Category H (Section 12) has been added to the database of templates for holding all user-created custom fully assembled templates. This makes it easier to locate your custom templates in the various Wizard screens for editing and adding to your future projects.
The ability to use already linked Word documents and Excel spreadsheets has been added to the reusable template feature. The Wizard will now update the links between files as they are copied from the database to your project folder.
Added 10 more business situations to the Quick Start import lists (570 total).
You can now set any of the many Top 40 lists, including the custom lists, as the default Top 40 that is shown first on the Pick Documents screen.
The Preferences tool for adding custom templates to the database will also allow you to automatically add the new templates to a Custom Top 40 list. The Custom Top 40 list will also be set as the default in the Pick Document screen making it easier to find and add your custom templates to future projects.
Changed the order in which Word and Excel files are opened together. Excel files for your project are opened first followed by the Word document. This prevents the spreadsheets from being opened in read-only mode by Word when they are directly linked with OLE links. This affects the Edit Style, Edit Project and Pick Documents screens.
The Clone Project feature is updated so it can also work with linked Word documents and Excel spreadsheets. The cloning process will update the links in the Word document as the files are copied to a new project folder.
QuoteWerks features will default to saving layouts in .docx format. Other file formats can be used as well such as .doc and .rtf.
The QuoteWerks tab in the Preferences screen is now visible if QuoteWerks is not installed. This allows for creating QuoteWerks layout files on a remote computer.
Added a new manual chapter 5 Minute Quick Start QuoteWerks
All security signatures on the Wizard and the installer programs have been upgraded with SH2 SHA-256 certificates.
All external web site links are converted from http to https.
The Time Line template is now searchable using the term Timeline.
Added 5 new slots in the Third Party Preferences screen to accommodate more add-on packages and external integrations.
All reports generated by the Wizard are now in Word format instead of plain text files.
The Wizard will not load old versions of template packages that use legacy file formats into its list of available templates. With the upgrade to .docx/.xlsx file formats only template products with these new file formats will be recognized by the Wizard.
The ability to use relative links in a Word document to a cell in an Excel spreadsheet has been removed due to restrictions in Word. All paths in a Word document must now be absolute paths.
The Import/Export tool now uses an .xml file format and opens it with Excel.
The new client and company CRM database has been added to the Import/Export tool. This feature can also export an older version Project database into the new client CRM database.
Fixed an issue with some design themes not adding the revision number to the Title Page when creating a revision document.
Fixed an issue with Word 2007 setting position of some graphics that would generate an error message.
The new client and company CRM database has been added to the database testing tool.
Sped up the process of canceling the generating long documents.
Added ability to set the Server URL when connecting to SalesForce accounts. SalesForce splits users among different servers and the login now needs the ability to specify which server to connect to.
Created a workaround for a Word 2007-2010 bug that can, in some cases, cause generated documents to lose the background Title Page and/or Back Page graphics.

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 13.2 (Aug 2, 2018)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 13.1 (Mar 10, 2018)

Support added for installing and running Proposal Pack Wizard on Windows 10 S or Windows in S Mode.
Windows 10 S / S Mode adds a layer of extra security that requires the Wizard and our template products (Proposal Packs, Contract Packs, Title Page Packs and Professional bundle) to be installed using the .ZIP files. Some minor updates have been made to all the template products .ZIP files to add setup files used by the Wizard that were previously only included in the .EXE installers. Because Windows 10 S / S Mode does not allow .EXE files downloaded from the internet or copied directly to the computer to be run all Proposal Kit products must be installed using the .ZIP files on Windows 10 S / S Mode PCs.
The functionality of the Wizard’s installer .EXE program has been added to the Wizard itself and a .ZIP file installer for the Wizard has been added to allow downloading onto a Windows 10 S / S Mode PC.
The Wizard can now set itself up and configure its database and registry without having the .EXE installer perform that task.
Added manual chapter How do I Install on Windows 10 S?
The addition of the Wizard setup ability for Windows 10 S / S Mode has also been expanded to allow the Wizard to repair any broken paths found in the Wizard registry key and the Wizard database files. This allows you to now be able to drag and drop your entire Proposal Pack Wizard and Proposal Kit product install folders from one computer to another or to move the install folders to a new location on your PC or to a network drive. The Wizard will check for any changed or broken paths every time it runs and will attempt to repair them based on the new location. This allows for seamlessly moving your entire installation without having to reinstall and reconfigure everything when moving to a new computer or a network setup.
Added manual chapter How do I Move to a New Computer?
The registered to name is first pulled from what the user enters in the product installer screen. If blank, then from what the user enters during the Wizard setup.
Due to security restrictions the Salesforce DLL cannot be registered during setup via the .ZIP file on Windows 10 S / S Mode PCs. The Salesforce connectivity features are not available if running in Windows 10 S or S Mode. Because of this a separate Wizard is included for use in Windows 10 S / S Mode that has Salesforce features compiled out.
Added 4 more business situations to the Quick Start import lists (540 total).
Added more custom spreadsheet linking samples.
The Wizard will automatically turn off the display of non-printing characters when the Wizard first runs and when it opens any of its documents. This will help prevent formatting issues that might occur during automated processing.
Removed some old Word 2003 references.
Removed message that could popup sometimes when trying to automatically set table vertical border colors on tables with mismatched rows and columns.
Fixed the Orange Grey color values in the custom color scheme.
Improved the instructions on how to set Custom X/Y logo scaling factors in the Edit Style Graphics tab.
The ability to edit stock Title Page templates has been added to the Novice Edition of the Wizard. This was previously an Expert Edition feature.
Added more error checking when opening PDF and Word documents in case the user’s system is not configured properly with default applications.
Added information to automated error reporting to tell when users are using 32-bit or 64-bit Word.
Fixed a potential error that could occur with a list index out of range in the Preferences when the user custom configured one specific list and removed default items.

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 13.0 (Dec 4, 2017)

The major new feature in this version is the ability to dynamically link cells in Excel spreadsheets to your Word documents. In the past all of the financial and schedule related pages (cost summaries, work orders, budgets, ROI, timelines, installation schedules, etc.) were static Word tables that had to be manually typed in.
This is an Expert Edition feature.
This feature gives you automated financial calculations and scheduling that used to require costly 3rd-party quoting and project management software. We leverage the display features of Word and the calculation features of Excel to do the hard work for you.
Now all of the templates with matching spreadsheets will have the important data dynamically linked directly to the Excel spreadsheets. When you edit your calculations in the spreadsheet and save your changes your Word document can be automatically updated. This allows you to make changes to your financial data without having to keep manually retyping changes into the Word document. This also reduces the changes of errors occurring by mistyping data or forgetting to make updates manually.
For example, if you use the Cost Summary template to display a nicely formatted table in your Word document where you just want to show the major line items and totals you customize the Word template for the visual look and data you want the client to see. The Cost Summary page has a matching Cost Summary Calculator Excel spreadsheet linked to it where you type in your line items, costs, quantities, taxes and any number of other information to arrive at your final totals. As you make changes to the spreadsheet the Word document automatically updates whenever you open it.
This system is also completely customizable. You can customize our stock spreadsheets, Word tables and even make your own spreadsheets and link them to any pages. You can even embed links in any parts of the document to any spreadsheet cells. For example, if you want your total funding request amount to be displayed in the Cover Letter you can do so. Another example would be if you use an Installation Schedule you can link the starting date and ending date to your Cover Letter or anywhere else.
Most of the hundreds of samples have been reworked to include updated Excel spreadsheets using the new Excel dynamic linking feature that allow for all of the samples to be easily imported into your project.
All of the original Excel spreadsheets in all of the Proposal Kit products have been expanded to accommodate many more fields and additional calculations to work with the new Excel dynamic linking features.
The Edit Style > Manage Templates and the Pick Documents > Add Templates and Search by Name screens have checkboxes to let you filter by only those templates that have associated Excel spreadsheets to make it easier to find and add calculators to your project.
The Wizard now allows multiple spreadsheets associated with a template. Up to 9 additional spreadsheets can be associated by adding a number 2 to 9 to the end of the spreadsheet file name. This is mainly to support preassembled multi-page templates that have 2 or more linked spreadsheets added to the database as custom selectable templates.
Added a new manual chapter: What Types of Cost Calculation Features are Available?
Added a new manual chapter: What Happens if Dynamic Spreadsheet Linking is Disabled?
Added a new manual chapter: How do I Add Dynamically Linked Spreadsheet Calculations?
With the new Proposal Pack V17 and Proposal Kit Professional V20 all 2400+ pages of Acrobat PDF sample content is now also provided in editable Word formats. We have painstakingly hand edited thousands of pages of our samples to make them completely editable and loadable into your project.
In the past all of our samples were uneditable Acrobat PDFs. Now with just a click of a button you can import an entire sample as an editable Word document and have it converted into the visual design theme you purchased. This means a sample that was originally created in a different design theme than the one you purchased will be imported into your purchased design theme seamlessly.
Plus we also have replaced the names, addresses and other data with our mail merge tags so that yours and your client’s data will be merged into the sample content making it easier to reuse any of our prewritten samples.
Most of the samples with financial and schedule calculations (cost summaries, work orders, budgets, ROI, timelines, installation schedules, etc.) have filled in Excel spreadsheets dynamically linked to the Word document.
The end result is that instead of having a static uneditable PDF sample to just look at to get some writing ideas from and copying and pasting some of its text you can now with a click of a button have a the entire sample merged into your document with your data and linked Excel spreadsheets in your design theme ready to edit.
All you have to do is select a sample in the Pick Documents screen then click the Import Content from Selected Sample button, save your project and the sample content will be automatically imported replacing the stock fill-in-the-blank content.
Any Quick Start import lists that were based on a completed sample can also have the content from the sample imported into the project just like when importing the sample content from the View Samples page.
The Quick Start tab now lets you only show Quick Start layouts that have importable sample content.
The number of licensed computers/users per copy purchased has been increased from 3 to 5. You can now install the Wizard on up to 5 computers for use by up to 5 individuals within your company per license purchased.
The drop down lists of hundreds of samples are now sorted in alphabetical order.
The Document Project drop down lists can be optionally sorted in alphabetical order. There is now a preferences option to sort the drop down project lists alphabetically.
The Wizard will now detect when it stops processing a document and will ask if you want to automatically restart processing where you left off when the Wizard is restarted.
The Wizard now has a crash logging feature to help diagnose if it terminates unexpectedly while processing a document.
More detail has been added to the document processing progress bars so you know what stage it is in while processing long and complex documents better.
Color scheme application to Word tables is now done by row when possible instead of by cell due to how slow Word is when programmatically modifying a table cell by cell. This dramatically speeds up the document processing when applying custom color schemes. If a table has cells of different colors in the same row it reverts to updating cell by cell.
Sped up the document processing by determining when applying custom color schemes to Word tables was not necessary and skipping that process when possible. Word can be very slow when applying colors to Word table cells and table borders.
The old “Process Complete” popup message box has been replaced with a full screen that includes a breakdown of how long it took to process the document including timings for all of the major activities. This can assist in determining how best to customize the system to speed up processing based on how the user is intending to use the system.
The installer programs now check to see if Excel is installed and tell the user that it is required for using the new Excel dynamic linking features.
Mail merging was not working with text that had mail merge tags inside of a AutoShape object (i.e. the pull quote text blocks in some templates). Now tags are replaced with data inside AutoShape objects.
The error reporting feature now includes the count of number of documents that were processed to help diagnose processing errors.
When importing the list of chapters from a sample the Wizard will automatically always add the Back Page as many samples were created before the Back Page was added to the system.
Added a button on the document reordering screen to reset the default sort order and turn off the custom ordering of the pages. This is useful if you want to revert back to the stock ordering of pages.
When changing the background color in the styles Color screen the Use Shape Watermark is checked automatically to reduce the steps needed to add background page colors and to make the feature more intuitive to use.
Added a Preferences configuration screen to control how the new Excel dynamic linking features work.
Changed the ‘Add Templates Based on Selected Sample’ button to 'Import Content from Selected Sample' now that this operation also imports the actual text of the sample and Excel spreadsheets used by the sample into your project.
Replaced the digital security certificate with a new 3 year VeriSign security certificate.
Added 21 more business situations to the Quick Start import lists (536 total).
Added 35 more demo sample proposals (200 total). If you install a Proposal Pack or Professional bundle template package you will also get the complete versions of all 35 new samples.
The Wizard interface screens have all been updated with new screenshots and typography to match the new Proposal Kit web site and product design.
Added the registered users name or company to the home screen. This can be changed in the Preferences.
Added keywords as searchable terms in the Search by Name tab of the Pick Documents screen and imported keywords for many templates. For example, a search on ROI will now find a match for the template Return on Investment as ROI is a searchable keyword.
Added table formatting fields in the Edit Styles > Tables screen to set the top, bottom, left, right and spacing between cells. The fields are all set to DEFAULT which will cause the Wizard to skip any special processing. If you set these fields to within the allowable ranges the Wizard will apply the custom margins to all tables in the document.
Added an option in the Edit Styles > Tables screen that allows for turning off all table styling for borders and colors. If unchecked the Wizard will hide all of the table borders and set all table cell colors to the default background color. This feature will also reverse the colors of the white table text as turning off table colors can cause white text to not be visible by setting the color of the Proposal Kit Table Text 1 and Proposal Kit Table Text 2 styles to the color of the Proposal Kit Sub Header style.
The function that calculated unique identifiers (GUIDs) for the creation of custom import lists has been updated. The previous Windows API function now generates Permission Denied errors due to a recent Windows security update and Microsoft has changed the recommended method of generating GUIDs.
When cloning a project and copying the project documents the Word documents will be updated to point to the new cloned folder if any dynamic OLE field links are in the documents.
The Preset feature that used to be an Expert Edition feature is now also available in the Novice Edition.
Increased some limits in the Wizard to accommodate the additional samples, spreadsheets and upcoming design themes.
The list of spreadsheets in the Edit Styles > Edit Spreadsheets tab is now broken into categories of spreadsheets which are also now sorted alphabetically. Spreadsheets in the folder that are not in the Wizard’s databases will also now be added to the drop down list.
Fixed a decryption error message in the 64-bit Word version that would occur when saving the preferences. No actual problem was occurring.
A recent Microsoft update to Word was causing some crashes on some computers during mail merging data into text block objects in the Title Page. A fix has been made to work around this bug Microsoft recently introduced.
The Wizard now checks to see if it’s document is in Print View mode and if not it switches itself to Print View on startup. If the user had modified the Wizard’s document to something like Full Read Mode it could cause Visual Basic error messages on startup on some versions of Word.
Microsoft recently made changes in updates to Office 365 which cause hidden fields to be turned on by default which can cause the Wizard during assembly of documents to delete some graphic page headers. The Wizard now hides the hidden characters from view as it is processing files.
Fixed a bug in the 64-bit Office version that could cause Word to crash in various setup screens when browsing for a folder.
To improve the ability to open PDF documents from within the Wizard if a program is not detected as the default for viewing PDF files the Wizard will try to launch the PDF file via a browser.
The Wizard’s security certificate has been updated with a new Norton Symantec code signing certificate that doesn’t expire until 2020.

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 12.8 (Mar 2, 2017)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 12.7 (Jan 16, 2017)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 12.6 (Jan 16, 2017)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 12.5 (Jan 16, 2017)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 12.4 (Jan 16, 2017)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 12.3 (Jun 21, 2016)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 12.2 (Jun 21, 2016)

Added more support for full page size watermark backgrounds.
Added ability for Wizard to import .JPG images for the Title Page, Back Page and body background watermark images to better support photo-based design themes and custom creating your own photo-based design theme.
Added ability for Wizard to load more complex body page backgrounds from an external Word document. This allows for more complex body page backgrounds than just the importing of a single graphic. Some photo based Proposal Packs use this feature to incorporate both images and colors that can be customized using the Wizards color palette feature.
The Wizard can also now load a custom body background from the Watermark-Body.doc[x] file in the MyGraphics folder. This allows for both adding your own more complex body watermark to any Proposal Pack and overriding any default one that may exist in a photo designed Proposal Pack.
An example custom Watermark-Body.doc file has been added to the MyGraphics folder.
Added a photo based example to the MyGraphics examples to show how to create a photo based custom design theme.
Added a longer chapter on specific steps to follow when creating a customized design theme to the MyGraphics/Readme.PDF instructions.
Added 10 more business situations to the Quick Start import lists (480 total).
Changed some integer variables to long to help avoid overflow errors when dealing with large volumes of files.
Newer versions of Word were not allowing some combinations of border style and border width that used to work in older versions of Word. This would generate and out of bounds error when trying to use an invalid width. The default border widths have been changed to ensure invalid widths cannot be selected.
Added 10 new Proposal Pack designs to the Wizard database for the new photo designed pack add-ons.
Expanded size of error report screen to accommodate longer messages.
6th color added to the colors palette screen for customizable full page colors. Customizable full page colors are now part of the new photo based Proposal Packs and have been added to the Proposal Pack for Any Business and Proposal Pack for Government Grants packs.
You can configure different background colors for the Title Page/Pack Page and body pages as well as configurable dividers for separating images. Most new photo based Proposal Packs use shape objects on top of the photo backgrounds to allow the Wizard to change the colors of the separator lines between photos.
In the Word Fonts Preferences screen changed background color in view fonts so inverted colors are visible and now any custom colors from the current style and project will be applied to the sample view to show the final output the Wizard will generate.
Added 4 new custom Word Styles for inverted text colors to support light text on dark backgrounds.
Wizard can combine shape objects with custom background images or photos for more customizable page colors mixed with images. New photo designed Proposal Packs make use of customizable shape objects over the background photos. This allows for easy customizing of the colors of the blank areas reserved for text without requiring a graphics editor.
Moved page size setting higher up in the document processing process to work with resizing new photo designed watermark full size images when the paper size is set to a size other than standard 8.5x11 Letter size.
Added extra error checking if a custom footer file was defined to be used but no file was found.
Added extra error checking if both full page shape object and page borders turned on that page borders will be hidden. Word does not support both features together.
Added an example photo design theme to the demo version of the Wizard.
Expanded the manual chapter on using the 6-color palette with more tips.

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 12.1 (Jun 21, 2016)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 12.0 (Jun 21, 2016)

Increased maximum limits of number of templates in the Wizard databases to accommodate the newly added Proposal Pack templates with room for hundreds of custom user additions.
Added 380 new entries in the database for all of the new Proposal Pack templates.
Added 3 new entries in the database for all of the new Proposal Pack estimate spreadsheets.
Added 27 new business situations to the Quick Start import lists (over 450 total).
Added a document revision feature that archives your current master proposal document then updates a revision number in the Title Page of the document. All edits to the master proposal will then be made to the current revision and all past revisions will still exist in your project folder.
Added a feature to clone an entire existing installed Proposal Pack set of templates to a duplicate copy that is selectable in the Wizard as a new style. This is useful for when you want to make multiple custom design themes of your own or other customizations to the templates that would be too cumbersome to manage with just a single library of templates.
The Multiple Choice database feature now allows for changing the insert order of paragraph content in the Wizard’s Preferences. This is for use with lists that are setup for allowing the user to select multiple items for a single tag.
Added a new article to the articles database for How to Follow Up or Revise Your Business Proposal
Added edit buttons to open and edit the stock templates from within the Add Templates screens in the Wizard’s Project screen. This will make it easier to edit the stock templates while in the Project vs. having to go out to the Wizard home screen and into the Proposal Styles edit screens.
Added better error messages for a couple of obscure problems to better help catch invalid input values that can cause problems with Word.
The Wizard installers will give notices to Office 2003 and Office 2007 users to make sure they have all of the required Microsoft Office Service Packs #1, #2 and #3 installed to prevent potential problems running the Wizard on old and unpatched Office installations.
The Search By Name tab in the Pick Document screen now puts all exact and partial matches first followed by a the lists of alternate and related templates making it easier to find the exact and partial matches when long lists of results are found.
Added a Yes/No prompt when the Quit button on the Wizard home screen or the X box in the corner of the Wizard home screen are clicked. Along with an extra notification if the Wizard is still processing a document. This is to prevent accidental closing of the Wizard. If the Reduce Messages box in the Preferences is turned on this new Yes/No prompt will not be shown.
Updated the custom graphic import feature to allow for a full page size body watermark graphic image. Previously body watermark graphics would only be contained within the area of the colored page border. The full page size body watermark image will also be scaled if the page size is set differently than the standard letter size.
Added a message when selecting an alternate Title Page Pack design for the front cover that if the user already had a Proposal Pack with a custom designed front Title Page it will warn them the design might clash. The Title Page Packs are intended for use with the more customizable ‘Proposal Pack for Any Business’ and ‘Proposal Pack for Government Grants’ that let the user start with a pack of templates that doesn’t already include a graphic and logo design.
Added more information to an error message that can occur due to interference with the Wizard during processor or due to 3rd-party Add-In’s that have changed Word’s default behavior.
Restricted the screen for adding new documents copied from existing .doc files that the file extension must remain as .doc. For example, .docx and .docm files are not allowed to be combined in the Wizard database with .doc files.
Updated the Wizard tutorials to include the new features added to this version.
Maximum number of templates the free demo Novice Edition will assemble has been set to 10.
Renamed SoftwareDevelopment.doc legal contract to SoftwareDevelopmentContract.doc to prevent Wizard from confusing it with the Proposal Pack’s SoftwareDevelopment.doc template. Checks put in place to ensure no Contract Pack and Proposal Pack templates share the same file names. This is to prevent contract exhibits and schedules from being accidentally appended to a proposal template that shared the same name.

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 11.6 (Jun 21, 2016)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 11.5 (Jun 21, 2016)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 11.4 (Jun 21, 2016)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 11.3 (Jun 21, 2016)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 11.2 (Jun 21, 2016)

New in Proposal Pack Wizard 11.1 (Jun 21, 2016)

The Wizard now has built in support for creating and managing Acrobat PDF files. While you can always save your Word documents as PDF with Word and Acrobats built-in features. The Wizard now integrates the creating, opening and managing of the PDF versions of your documents directly into the Wizard interface. You do have to have Word 2007 or greater to use the PDF features, this feature is not available in Word 2003.
The Acrobat PDF support has also been integrated into other parts of the Wizard such as saving PDF files when cloning or backing up projects, notifying the user when PDFs may need to be resaved when the Word documents are changed, and testing the Word templates for tags that may have been forgotten to be edited or removed before saving in PDF format.
Added new manual chapter: How do I Save in PDF Format?
A new Preferences tool has been added for batch processing old or external Word documents. This allows you to make mass updates to a folder of Word documents for things such as updating headers, footers, page borders, page settings, color schemes, clickable URLs, Word font Styles, and document meta data. This feature is used to update old documents and to help prepare custom templates to be integrated into the Wizard database.
Added new manual chapter: How do I Batch Update Old or External Documents?
The Wizard now automatically opens the documents once they are built instead of the user having to manually click the Open Documents button which saves an extra step. This auto-open feature can be disabled in the Expert Wizard to restore the manual opening of the documents every time the edit screen is entered. The Wizard now also, auto-opens the documents after recombining them in the team editing mode.
Added 50 new Quick Start business situations (400 total) to the import lists of templates.
Added 2 new how-to articles to the article library.
Many of the existing Quick Start import lists of templates have been updated with more specialized chapters.
Added a delete button to the Edit Current Proposal screen to make it easier to remove files from the project folder.
Added a select button to the Edit Current Proposal screen for selecting all PDF’s. Also reworded the current select button for selecting only the Word documents.
If the Quick Start import list is a different proposal type (i.e. setup for a Grant or Business Plan) the Wizard will automatically now switch the proposal type of the project to match.
All documents opened by the Wizard are now put into Print View Mode. This can prevent errors if the user saved a document in a different view mode then later opened it in the Wizard and the Wizard tried to do an operation on it that is not allowed in that view mode.
Added some more error checking for out of range values in table border settings.
If the default project name is not changed by the user and a Quick Start list is selected the Wizard will now set the project name from the name of the imported list of templates.
If a Quick Start import list of templates is loaded then user cancels out of the Pick Documents screen the Wizard will now reset the main project screen settings that had been changed during the import of the Quick Start list.
Cleaned up the creation of folder names to remove extra blank spaces when introduced by removing other invalid characters.
Added checks so the Wizard home screen buttons cannot be clicked and used while the Wizard is building a document which could cause unexpected errors when users do not read the instructions to let the Wizard complete its build process uninterrupted.
If adding the Blank Templates to a project that also uses the new Back Page the Wizard now makes sure the Blank Templates come before the Back Page.
Added more verbose descriptions to some error messages created by Word.
When auto-generating file names the Wizard will now remove the “#” sign from any file names.
Replaced calling the Chr$ and ChrW$ functions in the foreign language translation features with Chr and ChrW calls because some early versions of Word 2003/2007 and some foreign language packs installed by Microsoft are missing the $ versions of the functions resulting in error messages.