Prepare a court bundle people can actually use

A hearing bundle is not a scrapbook of useful documents. It is the working copy that lets the judge, the parties, and any witnesses move to the same material at the same time. If the index says "witness statement, page 73", page 73 must be where every reader lands when they type 73 into the PDF viewer or turn to the printed page.

Specific rules vary between courts, tribunals, case types, and individual orders. Treat the court's own bundle direction as the source of truth for the required sections, maximum length, filing deadline, file-size limit, and method of service. The workflow below is a practical assembly routine, not legal advice about what evidence you should rely on or when it must be filed.

Start with the direction, not a template

Before you open a PDF tool, read the latest order or procedural direction. It may say who prepares the bundle, whether it must be electronic, whether paper copies are also required, how many pages are allowed, and when the bundle must be filed and served. In a tribunal or specialist list, the required order can differ from what another court expects.

Make a simple working list with columns for document name, date, source, current format, and intended bundle section. A common structure is:

1. Index and preliminary material.
2. Statements of case or applications and responses.
3. Witness statements.
4. Expert evidence, if permission has been given.
5. Disclosure and exhibits.
6. Chronology, schedules, or agreed reading list, where required.

Keep the documents in that order while you prepare them. If a direction requires a different sequence, follow that instead. The point is not to copy a generic layout; it is to create a bundle that matches the instruction for this hearing.

Assemble first, then paginate once

Bundle pagination should normally run continuously from the first page of the bundle to the last. Do not restart at page 1 for each exhibit or statement unless the direction expressly requires sectional numbering. The index depends on this: it should cite the bundle page number where each document starts, and preferably the page range for longer documents.

The practical rule is that the page number printed on the page should match the PDF viewer's page counter. If the cover sheet is unnumbered and the index begins at printed page 1 while the viewer says page 2, people will start giving two different references in the hearing. Avoid that by numbering every page that forms part of the bundle, including separator pages if you use them.

Use the merge PDF tool to combine source files in the bundle order. If one source document contains pages in the wrong sequence, fix it first with the page organiser rather than repairing a much larger merged file later. Once the order is stable, add continuous numbers with page numbers and update the index to match the final numbered PDF.

Make the index and bookmarks do different jobs

The index is for citation. It should be readable on paper and should give the judge enough detail to identify the document: date, description, author where useful, and bundle page number. Avoid vague entries such as "emails" when the hearing will refer to one email chain dated 14 March and another dated 22 March.

Bookmarks are for navigation. In an electronic bundle, add a bookmark for each major section and for long documents that people are likely to find during the hearing. A judge should be able to expand the bookmark panel and jump to witness statements, expert reports, disclosure, or the chronology without scrolling through hundreds of pages.

Do not use bookmarks as a substitute for page references. Screen sharing, paper copies, and quoted passages still need page numbers. The best bundle has both: an index that cites stable pages and bookmarks that reduce scrolling.

Keep exhibits readable and searchable

Scanned exhibits are often the weakest part of a bundle. A scan may look fine at thumbnail size but become unreadable when printed, rotated, or enlarged. Check orientation page by page. Portrait pages should open portrait, landscape tables should be rotated so they can be read without turning a laptop sideways, and single-sided consistency should be maintained unless the court has asked for a particular print format.

Where a page is a scan, run OCR with the OCR PDF tool. OCR adds a text layer so names, dates, invoice numbers, and phrases can be found with search. It does not change the visible exhibit, and it is not a substitute for checking the scan. Poor handwriting, faint photocopies, and skewed photographs may still need manual review.

Never alter the content of an exhibit to make your point stronger or the page look tidier. Do not crop out context, rewrite labels, clean up text, remove annotations, or change dates. Bundle work is assembly, pagination, and presentation. If an exhibit is difficult to read, deal with that transparently within the applicable rules rather than editing the exhibit itself.

Check filing size, service, and version control

Electronic filing often has a size limit. If the bundle is too large, find the cause before compressing blindly. Full-colour scanned pages, duplicate exhibits, and photographic inserts usually add more size than native PDF orders or typed statements. Any compression step must preserve legibility, page numbers, and OCR text. After reducing size, reopen the file and re-check the page count.

Serve the same paginated bundle on every party. If one person receives a later version with an extra page inserted before the witness statements, all page references after that point become unreliable. When a supplement is required, follow the court's direction on whether to create a supplemental bundle or a replacement bundle, and label it clearly.

Keep a final copy with a date and version in the filename, for example 2026-08-10-smith-v-jones-hearing-bundle-v1.pdf. Retain the working sources separately so you can explain how the bundle was assembled if a page reference is queried.

Final bundle checklist

• The court or tribunal direction has been checked for format, page limits, deadline, and service method.
• Documents are in the required order and the index cites final bundle page numbers.
• Printed page numbers match the PDF viewer's page counter from the first page onwards.
• Sections and long documents have useful bookmarks.
• Scanned pages are correctly oriented, legible, and searchable where OCR is appropriate.
• The filed and served copies have identical pagination for every party.