After having registered, you will receive a confirmation e-mail with an activation link attached. Only after clicking on the link, can you log into SMASHDOCs.
Please check your spam folder, in case your email provider accidentally identified the e-mail as spam.
If you didn’t get an e-mail or accidentally deleted it, you can ask for a new activation link. Go to the Login-page, click on “Forgot your password?” and enter your e-mail address to get a new link.
For a new SMASHDOCs document click on the green plus-button on the downright corner of the document list and select “Write new SMASHDOC”. A dialogue box appears and you can insert the document’s basic data, like the file name, document title and subtitle, description, tags and a footer. With a click on the button “Create document” the new SMASHDOCs document is saved and you can start inserting content.
First of all a new SMASHDOCs document is saved as a draft document, which only you can see and edit. If you want to give other users access to your document, you have to set it to review. How to do this we explain here.
No. SMASHDOCs is a pure web application, so you always need an internet connection to work with it.
In general, yes. But SMASHDOCs isn’t (yet) optimized for tablets and smartphones. We recommend using SMASHDOCs via your webbrowser on your desktop-computer or laptop.
The document title is the heading of your document when exporting it. Thus, you don’t have to add a heading in your document. The file name describes your document more accurate. Here is an example: if you write a manual, the document title would be “manual version 2.0”. After exporting, this title turns into the heading of the document. Within the filme name, you can add more information about your document, e.g. “manual for copy machine XY, version 2.0. German”. The file name does not appear in the exported document.
In the document list only the file name is displayed. But our search tool takes into consideration the file name as well as the document title while searching for keywords.
Adjust the font for your SMASHDOCs document by clicking “options” and following “format” in the top right corner of the document. Whether these settings are taken over for the export, depends on your personal templates. With SMASHDOCs Premium, your documents get exported directly in the configured format, and you don’t have to worry about fonts and format settings. For standard exports the font can be aligned within the Word document.
To highlight text or headings in colour, click on “options” in the header of your document and then choose “format”. Under “fonts & colours” you can choose individually for text, headings and numbered headings which colours you want to adjust. This adjustment will be taken over for all sections with the same text type; then, all headings or text sections have the same colour. Single words or characters cannot be highlighted in colours. But please note: coloured highlights of text and headings are not replicated after exporting.
Furthermore, confusions and misunderstandings can occur because new changes in the document (adding or deleting sections or text) are also highlighted in colours. We recommend not adjusting colored highlights of texts until exporting your document in the required format.
SMASHDOCs is about creating and reviewing documents, so page numbers and word counts are superfluous. After exporting your document, e.g. in a Word file, Word will automatically calculate the page numbers and words for you.
Of course, you can work with shortcuts in every SMASHDOCs document. Here you have an overview about all shortcuts:
To import a document click on the green plus-button in the downright corner of the document list and select “Import MS Word document”. A dialogue box appears and you can either insert your Word document via drag & drop or browse for it on your local drive. In the second step you can determine how an identified Word formatting template will be processed in SMASHDOCs. In the third and last step you can edit the metadata of your document. SMASHDOCs then creates a new document out of your Word file.
Please note that you can only import documents in .docx format. Documents with .doc format are not supported.
That’s because of the technical background .Docx has been the standard format since MS Word 2007 and so it is simply more actual. Furthermore it has greater space-saving capabilities and is faster than the doc. format, because it saves its layout in XML and CSS datas. That’s why you can only import the actual docx. format to SMASHDOCs.
The import of change sequences in Word documents is not possible at the moment – we are working on this! Exclusively the text of your document will be imported, anyhow inserting changes and their recording is much easier with SMASHDOCs 😉
You can easily move documents into trash by clicking on the cog icon on the right of the document title in the document overview list and choose “Move to trash” from the context menu. Once the document is in trash, you can restore it, if required. Open the folder “trash” and click in the context menu “restore”. Please note that restored documents appear in the folder “my documents” and you can move them from there – if required – to another folder.
If you delete a folder with documents, the folder disappears and the documents are moved automatically in the folder “my documents”. If you also want to delete the documents, you have to delete them individually. Instructions how to do this, you can find here.
Once documents are shared for review, they can be edited by a lot of people. Thus, even as approver or editor such documents can not be deleted. Every user can move the document to trash, however only in relation to their own document list. The user will no longer receive any notifications about new changes or comments anymore. The document still appears in the document list of the remaining users and can be edited and reviewed by them. That’s how we prevent the unauthorised deleting of documents and sections histories.
Tooltips are usage hints which appear when you hover over an icon. So they show you which function hides behind that button.
To switch them on or off, you have to click in the document list beside your profil pic on the button “settings”, followed again by “settings”. There you can find “show tooltips”. Place a tick to switch them on, without the tick they are switched off.
In review mode, you can use the so-called live-redline. Thereby, all changes that you are inserting are highlighted below the section, see figure. Adding and deleting text is highlighted green or red on a yellow background. This facilitates keeping track of all the changes you made, especially during long editing sessions.
The live-redline is disabled by default. But you can enable or (again) disable it by clicking on your profile picture on the upper right corner of your document, choosing settings and putting a checkmark on “show live-changes”.
If you haven’t shared your document for review, changes are saved automatically. After starting review, your changes are saved automatically when you click outside the section. You can also save the changes manually by clicking the shortcut STRG/CMD + S or by clicking on the green arrow on the top right corner of the relevant text section, which appears while inserting new changes.
“Set to review” means to release your document to other users for review. In the process of starting the review of your document, you invite as many users as you want to the document and assign different user roles. After this, you can edit your document together with the invited users.
If you have not shared your document with other users, then click in the header of the document on the blue button “set to review”. A dialogue box appears and you can insert the names or email adresses of the users you want to work with. To complete the invitation click “start reviewing” and the users will be invited to the document.
If you already shared your document with other users, but want to add more, click in the header of your document “add users” under “options”. Again a dialogue box appears and you can insert the user’s names or email addresses to invite them to your document.
In SMASHDOCs there are four different user roles:
Unlike the additional rights (see here), users can only have one user role. The user role’s allocation and modification in a review document is only possible by those users that have the additional right “admin”.
In SMASHDOCs there are three additional rights, that can be assigned beside the respective user role:
Unlike user roles, you can decide per user how many additional rights he or she should have. So it is also possible to assign all three rights to one us
The number of users you can invite to one document depends on the deployment option. If you have any questions regarding the number of invitations, please contact your system adim.
If you don’t want a user to work on one of your documents any longer, you have the possibility to deactive him.
To deactivate a user, simply select the “User list” of the respective document and remove the tick mark next to “Activ”. To do this, you have to be the document administrator of the document.
Deactivated users will be immediately notified by email and no longer be able to see the document in their document list. In case a user opened a document while being deactivated, he won’t be able to work on the document anymore and will be informed about the deactivation in a dialogue window. A deactivated user cannot find the document using the search function and isn’t able to access it via the document link.
Deactivated users immediately disappear from the list “Active” and are displayed only in the list “Inactive” from then on.
If you want to reactivate a user, just put again a tick next to “Active”. Then the reactivated user appears in the list “Active” again and will be automatically notified per email. The user is now able to see the document in his document list again and to open it.
Yes. In the header of your document you can find the “user list” by clicking on “options”. This is an overview of all users working on the document. After opening the list, you can find in the top right corner the button “edit user”. Click on it and you can edit the users roles and additional rights.
But be careful: you cannot assign more authoritative roles to other users to the one you have. That means, if you have the role “editor” you cannot assign the role “approver” to other users, because this roles has more rights than you own role has. Furthermore it is only possible to edit and change the user roles if you have the “admin” rights, otherwise you have no access to the user’s roles and rights.
If you want to know which user role you have been assigned in a document, you can look it up in the header on the top right corner beside the profile picture. Hovering over the button shows a short summary of the extent of your role’s editing rights. But to see this you have to activate the tool tips!
For an overview about all users working together on a document, click “user list” in the header of the document under “options”. In this list all users are listed with their user role, additional rights and activity level.
You can find a new document in the folder “my documents”. Subsequently you can move it – if you want to – to another folder.
If the new document is still unseen, a notification appears in the tab bar on the left side. This way, you can find the document even easier.
Figure: Notification “unopened documents”If you get invited to a new document, you always receive an email too. By clicking on the attached link, you will be transferred directly to the document.
If you have been invited to a document, you receive a notification via email from SMASHDOCs. In this email you get informed about which users invited you to which document and also a link to directly open up the document.
You can also find the new document in the folder “my documents”, for this click here.
To make change suggestions click in the relevant section and start inserting the changes. If you are finished with editing, click on the green button on the top right corner, the shortcut STRG/CMD +S or outside the section and your changes will be saved. Please note: change suggestions can only be inserted in review-sections and only if you have the user role “editor” or “approver”!
Content related changes in a document can only be accepted or rejected by users with the role “approver”. Users with the role “editor” can insert changes but not decide upon them, “commentators” can exclusively create comments and questions and “reader” can only read the document but neither edit it or create conversations.
You can mark new changes in a document as seen, by clicking on the “blue eye” which appears on the right side of every section with new changes.
If you have a document with a lot of new changes, it is easier to have a look at the list of all changes with the tab bar on the left side, see following figure. With this list, you have a better overview about all new changes in the document. The red number indicates how many new unseen changes you have.
The list shows you all unseen as well as all open (decision overdue) changes in the document. With a click on one entry, SMASHDOCs navigates you immediately to the respective section und you can directly have a look at the changes. Again, you can mark an unseen change with a click on the “blue eye” as seen and as is required you can accept or reject the change.
There is also the possibility to mark all new changes in a document as seen at the same time. To do this, click on the document header on the blue button “mark as seen” and all unseen changes will be marked as seen.
If there is an open change in a document you want to accept, click in the relevant section with the open change and then the green tick icon on the top right corner.
An open change is displayed either as a green (something new was added) or as a red crossed out text (something was deleted). If you accept an inserted text, the section updates and the text turns black again. If you accept a deleted text or single words, they disappear from the section.
But you can only accept changes if you have the role “approver”!
If there is an open change, you don’t like and you want to reject it, click in the relevant section with the open change and then the red no symbol (circle with diagonal line through it) on the top right corner.
An open change is displayed either as a green (something new was added) or as a red crossed out text (something was deleted). If you reject inserted sections or single words, they disappear. If you reject a deletion of a section or single words, they remain in the document and the text turns black again.
But you can only reject changes if you have the role “approver”!
The retrieval of deleted draft sections in a review document is not possible.
In the tab bar on the left you have an overview of all deleted review sections in the archive. So if you deleted something accidentally, you can look it up and insert the section again.
The section history gives you an overview who inserted, deleted, accepted or rejected which changes at a certain time. This list tracks every single change and is in chronological order.
It is displayed either via the context menu under “show history” or via clicking on the number which you can see on the right side of every section.
There is a section history to any section in a document, no matter if it is a text, image or table section. It is displayed either via the context menu under “show history” or via clicking on the number which you can see on the right side of every section, which, by the way, provides you with information about the number of changes in the corresponding section.
Yes, by going back to the older version via the section history.
To do this, open the section history and choose the version of the section you want to restore. Subsequently click on the black button on the right side (see the following figure) and the section gets updated according to the selected version.
As soon as there are new changes in one of your documents, you receive an email from SMASHDOCs. It informs you exclusively about the document, and the changes you have to look up in the document.
In the document list you can see all documents with new unseen changes in the tab bar on the left side, see figure below. The red number indicates to you the number of documents with new unseen changes.
Figure: Notification of the documents with new changesIn the document the content related changes are displayed in different colors. Here we explain to you what each color means. There is also an overview about all changes in the document’s tab bar on the left. How to manage this list, we explain here.
As soon as there are new conversations in one of your documents, you receive an email from SMASHDOCs. It informs you exclusively about the document, and the conversations you have to look up in the document.
In the document list you can see all documents with new unseen changes (including conversations) on the left side, see following figure. The red number indicates to you the number of documents with new unseen changes.
Figure: Notifications about all documents with new changesIn the document itself, new unseen conversations are displayed on the right side of the section that contains a comment or a question. Furthermore you can get an overview about all conversations in a document in the tab bar on the left.
To insert new section in a document you have various possibilities.
For a new section, click in the appropriate area of the document where you want to add the section below and choose with a right click from the context menu “new section”. Now you can choose between adding a text, image or table. Decide what kind of section you want to have and it will be inserted.
For inserting a text section you can also press ENTER and a new text section appears, or you click on the little plus in the context menu.
If you want to add images you can easily drop it directly to the desired position in the document and the image section will be inserted automatically. Alternatively you can also click in the formatting bar on “insert image” and a image section will be inserted.
The same applies for tables. Alternatively you can insert table sections via the formatting bar by clicking on the relevant icon.
Inserting new sections in review documents is the same like inserting sections in draft documents, see here. But there is one significant difference:
In a review document new sections, no matter if it is a text, image or table, are saved as draft-sections first.
Thereby you can insert new content calmly and when you are finished you can release the section for all users in the document. To do this, click on the blue button on the top right corner of the draft-section. Only after releasing, can the section be edited by other users as usual, in draft mode you are the only one who can make content related changes.
Your very own draft-sections in the document are highlighted solid grey. Furthermore your profil pic appears on the left margin so that you can recognize your sections at first sight. After releasing, the picture and the colors disappear and the sections turn into review sections.
You can recognize draft-sections from other users by the white-grey highlighting and the lock icon on the right margin of the section. The profil pic on the left side shows you again, who created the draft-section.
Draft-sections from other user are locked for you and can be edited exclusively by the user who created the section. However, you have the possibility to set other people’s draft sections to review or even delete them, if you are admin of the document and/or have the role “approver”. Switching draft-sections is possible at anytime, even those from other users and also when you are not admin and/or approver.
Images can be easily inserted in two different ways. Either you upload an image by clicking on the “import images”-button in the formatting bar or you just insert it via drag & drop into your document. No matter which way you choose, a dialogue box opens and you can insert a caption. After saving, you can adapt the image size with the blue arrows on the right side of the image.
To insert a table click in the section where you want to add the table below and choose from the formatting bar “insert table”. A dialogue box appears and you can insert and merge rows and columns according to your desires, adjust the table’s size and add a title, which will be displayed below the table.
Furthermore you have the possibility to import complete Excel tables by copying them directly in the dialogue box.
To insert footnotes select the text section you want to add it to and click in the formatting bar on the button “add footnote”. All footnotes are numbered consecutively.
To insert a weblink select the text section where you want to insert it and then in the formatting bar on the button “weblink”. A dialogue box appears where you can insert the hyperlink. In the second field, you can specify how the link should be displayed in your document. Alternatively you can mark one or several words and insert the weblink.
Please note that weblinks can only be inserted in text sections and not into headings.
You have the possibility to insert cross-references from (numbered) headings, images, tables and text sections to another in your document. To do so, click in the section you want to insert the cross-reference and then on the button “cross-reference” in the formatting bar. A diagloue box appears and you can choose the section you want to refer. Furthermore you can choose if you just want to display the number (e.g. Figure 2) or also the context (e.g. Figure 2: customer satisfaction) of the section.
After inserting a cross-reference, a little symbol appears right to the section the cross-references was inserted. Click on it and you get a detailed list of all cross-references you inserted in the respective section.
An inserted cross-references is not only displayed beside the section the cross-reference was inserted, but also next to the section it refers to.
You can turn existing text sections into headings by clicking in the relevant section and then in the formatting bar on “heading”. Choose the size your heading should have and the existing text section gets formatted into a heading.
If you want to number headings, click in the respective text section and then in the formatting bar on “heading – outline numbered”. Furthermore choose if the heading should have an outline level or not. SMASHDOCs always offers you logical and consecutive numbering. When moving headings with numbering, the numbering adjusts automatically to the logical document structure.
Here we have great news for you: SMASHDOCs creates table of contents automatically.
For all images, tables, headings (even numbered headings), footnotes and weblinks, SMASHDOCs creates a relevant table of contents and updates it in case of changes. You can have a look at the table of contents in the tab bar on the left side.
Within lists you can choose if you want to number it or not. For both cases mark the sections that should turn into a list and click in the formatting bar either “unordered list” or “ordered list” and the sections get the respective formatting.
Because of technical reasons you can only subscript or superscript whole words.
To do this, highlight the word which you want to sub- or superscript and click in the formatting bar on the relevant button (see figure below).
Useful tip from our pros: separate the part of the word you want to sub- or superscript with a blank space from the rest. If you sub- or superscript the separated part, the blank space disappears and your word gets assembled again.
You can easily add a comment or a question via the context menu of the section. Click in the relevant section and open the context menu with a right click and choose “communication”. Decide if you want to add a comment or a question. On the right side of your document a dialogue box appears then and you can edit the comment or question and determine which user can see it. And that is why you can only create comments or question in review documents.
Yes, in fact you choose only those users who you want the comment or question to be visible to, as demonstrated in figure below.
Figure: Creating comments for selected usersDue to technical reasons, SMASHDOCs doesn’t differ between single characters (letters or numbers), but between single words. That’s why you only can format whole words so far – but we are working on this!
In the header of every document you can select “export” by clicking on “options”. Choose between exporting your document into a Word or HTML file. After this, printing and converting into PDF is possible for both formats.
Personalized templates are part of our premium offer. If you want more information about that, do not hesitate to contact us here or send an email to info@smashdocs.net. We will get in touch with you to discuss the details as soon as possible.
To delete your SMASHDOCs account after you have registered successfully, please contact us at info@smashdocs.net
