Format Files can be thought of as predefined styles that you save to both speed the process of delivering a proposal and to present your proposal with professional appearance and consistency. They should not be confused with "templates" as there remains some rigidity within the software as is explained elsewhere.

3 examples of Format Files are shown below, each demonstrating an express different purpose. It's to your advantage to create and save several different formats with this software and we hope to express that purpose clearly herein.

In the illustration immediately below, the category, quantity and amount fields have been predefined for a wedding event. And, in this case and after entering the description under each category, quantity amounts are inserted by simply clicking in the designated areas and typing a number (note: only numbers can be entered into this field as true with the Amount areas). Erasing the term "Qty." or "Amt." is not required because as soon as the software recognizes a valid numeric expression, it automatically erases the phrase "Qty." or "Amt." These phrases are displayed for navigational purposes only.

After entering the quantity and hitting the Return key, focus is placed in the product or service description area (the text area in between Qty. and Amt.) It is again to your advantage to have available a relevant Frequent Terms List to speed the process of entering the description for your product or service. You can create as many Frequent Terms Lists as you desire and navigate from one to another by simply pressing F5. It is also to your advantage to associate a price with each item as such: Reception Tables[25.00]... the amount being enclosed in square brackets less the currency symbol. By so doing, you'll avoid the need for inline calculation as it will be done automatically.

You will also want to create and save Format Files for presentational purposes as demonstrated below.

In this case, we've clearly defined our company presentation with our own font and color. While we cannot change the font and color in the text areas, we change change our logo and defining labels. This gives us the opportunity to mirror other in-house documents (such as invoices) to add consistency and clarity to our proposal.

And finally, in the example shown below, we edited this contract with the Contract Manager and wanted to emphasize 2 lines in our contract language to make sure they were not overlooked. We chose the color red so they would stand out, but we could have chosen a different font or BOLD as well.

These 3 examples are just some of the ways you can format your files. Literally, there are countless ways to present your proposal to your client... and make your proposal appear with the same professional appearance as your other documents. Wishing you all prosperity!