Our Frequently Asked Questions area is constantly being updated based on your questions. If you still need help please do not hesitate to call the help desk on 01322 621127 or e-mail fodsupport@shaws.co.uk.

We believe that we use a fairer way of charging. Our pricing structure is based on two criteria; firstly the groups of forms that you subscribe to, and secondly, if you are a solicitor’s practice or the legal section within a Local Authority, our price is based on the number of fee earners at your site and not the number of users or workstations that the software is installed onto. If you are a Local Authority, our pricing is quoted for unlimited users. Forms on Disk can be installed to your server and used throughout your authority.

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We charge an annual licence to use our forms. This annual charge is a one off yearly payment with no hidden extras. You receive all updates to forms and software during the year and also receive free telephone technical support. This also ensures that you never use an obsolete form and always have access to the latest features and benefits of the most up-to-date software.

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Yes. You pay an annual licence to use and receive support for our forms and software but the Law Society charges an additional Royalty fee for using some of their forms which we collect on their behalf. As at 1st April 2006 this is £137 for the Conveyancing group of forms, £21 for the Courts group, £13 for the Landlord & Tenant group, and £12 for the Divorce, Family Proceedings, and Probate group of forms.

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To obtain a no obligation quote you can either: telephone 01322-621-115, email fodsales@shaws.co.uk, or complete the online quote request form.

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Yes you can but Forms on Disk is licensed on a site licence basis. This means that you must purchase a licence for each office.

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Your annual licence for Forms on Disk is due to expire within 30 days. If you have not already received your licence renewal letter please contact us on 01322 621115, or e-mail fodrenewals@shaws.co.uk, and we will be pleased to help.

n.b. This message will not stop you from using Forms on Disk.

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This message has appeared as your software has timed out. This may be because you have not renewed your licence and therefore can no longer use Forms on Disk. Alternatively, you have not successfully installed your new licence floppy disk on your machine. Please locate your new licence floppy disk, insert it into the drive and click on the Start menu and choose Run. Type a:\update.exe, click OK and then follow the on-screen prompts.

n.b. If you have renewed your licence but cannot find your new licence floppy disk you may contact Shaws to obtain another. However, there may be a nominal charge for replacing your disk.

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Our minimum system requirements specify that a floppy disk drive is needed in order to fully install Forms on Disk. Please be aware of this when purchasing new hardware or when subscribing to Forms on Disk. If you do not have a floppy disk drive on your new machine we can put the licence onto a usb stick, however there is a charge of £20 for this service.

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No. To keep the costs down to a minimum we supply groups of forms and not individual forms.

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We have a number of different groups of forms available; to see a definitive listing please click here.

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Open the Catalogue window and click in the “Find” box at the top of the Catalogue. Now either type a keyword relating to the form or the form number itself into this box. Click on the “Find” button just to the right of this box and the first form occurrence matching your search criteria will be hi-lighted. If this is not the form you want click on the find button again until your desired form appears. Once your desired form is highlighted just click on this form to open it.

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If you have subscribed to our E-Bulletin service, you will be notified by email each time a form update is due. You can also use the On-Line update… feature in Forms on Disk to check and download new forms from our website. This is a FREE service for all our customers.

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In order to have this information updated, you will need to contact us and supply all new information such as address details, telephone numbers, etc. We will then send out a new licence disk containing the updated information. You can supply this information to us either by telephoning 01322-621-127, or emailing fodsupport@shaws.co.uk

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We have found that people tend to get problems with the continuation sheets if they put a lot of information into them spanning five - six pages or more. The continuation sheets were designed for small amounts of extra information that cannot fit onto the original form. Where some forms have become smaller in recent years, people are trying to put all that extra information into the continuation sheet, and so problems are caused handling large amounts of data.

To rectify this problem, a work around is to frequently tab back into the original form, and save it, and then tab back into the continuation sheet and continue with the work at hand.

If you have a continuation sheet saved that is causing problems, please feel free to email the form to us. Please make sure that you send it as an attachment using your normal email client rather than sending through Forms on Disk. Sending us an email through Forms on Disk the file is converts the form into a pdf document, which is not what we require.

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Please click here to see our minimum and recommended system requirements for Forms on Disk.

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This error occurs because the Forms on Disk program is looking for the licence file (shaws.dll) and cannot find it. This is normally due to an incorrect installation of Forms on Disk. The easiest way to fix this is to insert your licence floppy disk, click on the Start menu and select Run. Type a:\update.exe, click OK and follow the on-screen prompts. Now when you launch Forms on Disk you will not get this message.

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This normally means that your licence file (shaws.dll) has been corrupted. If you reinstall your licence floppy disk as detailed above this will solve the problem.

n.b. Please ensure that you have the latest version of Forms on Disk installed

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Yes, and further more you can share Forms on Disk with as many users as you want. Maintaining one copy of the forms on your network makes it much easier to keep them up to date. Please read the Installation Guide included with your software for instructions on installing Forms on Disk onto your network or click here to download a copy.

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Yes. Forms on Disk currently integrates with a number of Document Management and Case Management systems. For a list of currently compatible systems please click here. We supply an integration kit for companies and individuals wishing to integrate with Forms on Disk. For more information on this please click here.

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You need to firstly check that you are using the most recent version of Forms on Disk.. To do this, within Forms on Disk go to Help, and then About Forms on Disk. You need to be running Version 4.4.5, and dated after March 2006 for the On Line Update to be compatible with changes we have made to the program.

If you are running an earlier version than detailed above, you will need to install the latest version, which was sent out to all currently subscribed customers at the end of June.

If you are already running an up-to-date version of Forms on Disk, then please make a note of any error messages you are receiving, and either telephone 01322-621-127, or email fodsupport@shaws.co.uk.

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This is quite a common problem, and is very simple to resolve. Within Forms on Disk, go to File, Preferences, Operation, and then tick the box next to 'Printing Compatibility'. You will then need to press Ok, and shut down and re-open Forms on Disk for the new settings to come into effect.

If you do not have an option for 'Printing Compatibility' under the operation tab then you are running an older version of Forms on Disk, and you will need to install the update disk 4.3.3 which we sent out to all subscribed customers at the end of June 2004 in order to rectify this problem.

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n.b. We are continually updating our database of Court and Land Registry details. If you cannot find specific Court or Land Registry details in the drop down list or believe there may be errors in the details, please call our help desk on 01322 621127, or e-mail us at fodsupport@shaws.co.uk and we will include the revisions in our next update.

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This is a problem that has been reported to the company who provide the spellcheck for use in Forms on Disk.

The workaround suggested to us until the problem is resolved is to go to File, Preferences, Spelling, Options, and untick 'Ignore words in UPPERCASE'

This does mean that things like postcodes will have to go through the spellchecker, but the problem should now be rectified.

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