Overview

Formalizer is a proprietary transcription software developed for exclusive use within Copytalk. As such, it can be a little rough around the edges, and you will sometimes run into bugs or issues that have you scratching your head. The majority of these can be easily fixed or avoided with the following techniques and tips. In the rare case you encounter a problem that is not addressed on this page, contact an OS or OM.

This page is in a FAQ-style, containing the most common problems Scribes run into when trying to work in Formalizer. If you are running into issues that are impacting your ability to process work, or are just simply annoying, try to see if your issue is covered here in this list first. The solution might be relatively simple!

Processing Quirks

These issues are odd Formalizer behaviors or Windows quirks that are not necessarily bugs, but tend to throw people off when they occur.

Formalizer won't let me send my job.

When this happens, something has usually been entered incorrectly or a required field has not been used.

• Double check if the job is a fixed-addressee or a non-fixed job.
  • If it's non-fixed (and thus needs recipients), make sure you either have recipients in the [1 field or a proper recipient error code entered.
  • If the job had multiple issues that needed different error codes, make sure you only entered one error code to cover all the issues, as using multiple error code fields will overwrite each other. Check out this section on multiple error codes for how to address this.
• If the job is a Forms job:
  • Check if there are any fields highlighted in red on the F1 tab. If any are red, they were likely not formatted correctly. Check the Forms page to see how it should be formatted.
• If Formalizer gives you a popup that says "Selected text will be ignored. Please set correct markers.":
  • Double check that there aren't any odd or unintended characters left in front of the [3 or [4 brackets.
  • If it's a review job, try selecting the drop down arrow next to the "Get Job" icon and selecting the item with your ID on it. Don't worry about potentially overwriting any corrections - this kind of review "job" is just a carbon copy of the QA's changes returned to you for your review, and does not affect what goes out to the customer. Sending the job simply clears it from your queue.
• If you got an error box that says "AAA":
  • This might happen when you use Alt Tab.
  • Hit OK and close each box that comes up.
  • It should let you send the job. Inform an OS if the error box does not go away.

My text keeps disappearing as I type it!

There are a handful of potential causes for this:

• If you used the hotkeys for capitalization more than two times in a row, you will likely have gotten either an odd character, a box, or, most rarely, a blank space. Delete this character when it appears.
  • The formatting keys for capitalization, if pressed several times in a row, will be interpreted by Windows as a Unicode input. The majority of these are invalid characters within Formalizer and will cause strange behavior, like disappearing text. Rarely, this character will be invisible — simply try backspacing a couple words if this happens and it may correct the issue.
  • As a side note, you can hold down the capitalization hotkeys to format multiple words in sequence without issue. You can also highlight a whole section and use a single capitalization hotkey to capitalize each word in the highlighted section.
• One letter macros can cause issues when trying to erase the word later by also erasing the word right in front of it, causing holes or missing words in the text.
• Double check that you didn't bump the Insert key. This doesn't actually make the text "disappear," but will result in you overwriting the text in front of the cursor. You may not even notice this has been turned on until you go back to edit something.
  • There is actually an "INS" indicator in the bottom right of Formalizer that will turn solid black if Insert has been turned on.
  • This indicator doesn't always switch on when hitting Insert when you are tabbed out of the Formalizer window.
  • Another hint that Insert has been turned on is that the blinking text cursor changes from a | symbol to a _ symbol.
• Sometimes modifier keys or other non-characters (Alt, Ctrl, Shift, Esc, etc) can get virtually "stuck" on and can cause odd behavior like this. Pressing the key again should get it "unstuck," so try pressing each of these keys one at a time to see if that resolves the issue.
  • Notably, if "Esc" is stuck like this, it will cause all your macros to cancel when you try to use them.

The text is somehow aligned to the right. How do I change it back?

• First try Ctrl + Z to try to undo the hotkey trigger, if this was done in the middle of a job.
• If that does not work, or if it is a QA review job that arrived like this, you can try Ctrl + J.
• If neither of these work, you will just have to complete the job as-is. The text alignment does not actually show up on the customer's end result (remember that we can't fulfill requests to center justify, for example). The next job you receive should be back to normal left alignment.

Right after I sent a job, a character replaced a name in the subject line.

This usually happens when an uncommon name gets left highlighted by Spellcheck and you accidentally bump a key while pressing Enter; usually the backslash ( \ ). If you message an OS politely explaining what happened, they should be able to reset the job so that it can be re-done.

I got a QA job back I don't remember sending to QA.

First double check in the title bar if the job was QAed by XXXX "for direct send" or "to QA."

• If it was for direct send:
  • This is intentional. Unless we are severely behind turnaround time in the queue, all direct send jobs that are reviewed by QA are toggled to return to the scribe for review.
• If it was for QA send:
  • You likely accidentally toggled the "To QA" box with the Alt + Q hotkey.

I sent a job to QA, but it was marked as "false direct send." Why did the QA FDS me?

Pay attention to whether the title bar says it was for requested QA review, and look at the QA's comments on the F2 tab. It's likely the job is actually an FQA, but you are reading the "false direct send" that Formalizer tags on the title bar. (Yes, it's confusing; we're not sure when Formalizer started doing this.)

If a job was a QA send, there is no way for a QA to change it to an FDS; it can only be marked as an FQA in the system.

I don't see any comments on the F2 tab, or there are strange labels instead of comments.

There is a horizontal scroll bar on the F2 tab that is likely stuck scrolled to the right. There's a scroll bar at the bottom that you should be able to drag back to the left to see the full comments.

• If you look closely, you will notice that these labels correspond to what text was highlighted and the time code associated with it. This is the information that lets you jump to that section that was bookmarked.

The F1 tab says "Failed item," or has a bunch of fields I've never seen before.

First, verify that the job is not actually a Forms job.

If the job does not require Forms, you likely accidentally triggered a hotkey to change the job type. Use the hotkey Ctrl + Shift + M or click the "E-mail" button on the left sidebar; the F1 tab label should return to saying "E-mail."

Opening Formalizer just opens a Notepad window instead.

This Notepad window is the recent update changelog. Close the window, and the normal Formalizer login window should appear.

The Windows Scribe account will not let me log in due to a lockout.

If you are an in-office employee, first verify that you are not trying to log into the "Custom" profile or, more commonly, the "cbs_training" profile that is used for new scribe onboarding and macro training. If so, click the "Other User" button on the bottom left, and enter the ID as "Scribe".

Inform an OS, OM, or IT. They will need to unlock the Scribe account on their end.

Known Glitches

These issues are known minor glitches or bugs in Formalizer that have not been fixed yet, or can't be fixed for whatever reason.

"Change All" in Spellcheck did not work correctly.

Change All has always been known to not work correctly in Formalizer's spellcheck. You may have had success using it before, but it is fairly inconsistent in whether it functions or not.

This is why we encourage to use the single "Change" (Alt + H) instead. You can still use "Ignore All" (Alt + G) safely.

The text in the QA or QAQA job I am reviewing has gone blank.

This can sometimes happen if:

• You use the Ctrl + Backspace hotkey. Ctrl + Z should get the text back, but using Ctrl + Backspace again will make it go blank again.
• If you accidentally bump "Alt + G" or click the "Get Job" button.
• If you unselect "Get Next Job" (Alt + J), but then re-select it before sending the job out.

Ctrl + Z is the first thing to try to get your text back. If that doesn't work, you can try going to the drop down button right next to the "Get Job" button and click on the original Scribe's iteration on the list. If you do this method, the text will reset to the original state you received it in, so you will have to re-do any changes you made.

I got a review back from QA that has comments and answers on F2, but the text is entirely blank.

The QA for your job may have run into the issue mentioned above where they accidentally hit the Get Job button. Sometimes when this happens, even if the QA tries to restore the text successfully on their end, the text will appear blank to the scribe that receives the job back.

Usually on the back end of Formalizer, the actual text still ends up going to the customer in this instance; you just don't have the copy to review for yourself. Always message an OS when this happens, so they can double check that is the case.

Psi seems to be having issues staying connected.

Open the Start menu (Windows key) and double check that the Scribe profile is the only one currently logged in. If there is a "Custom" or "cbs_training" profile logged in, you will have to force the profiles to log out. cbs_training is usually the bigger culprit in the physical office, as newer scribes often forget to log out of it before leaving.

If this does not resolve the issue, Psi is probably having a service outage and management likely already is aware of the problem.

I keep having periods or words deleted when unintended.

This seems to be caused by accidentally hitting the F1 key, swapping between the other tabs and the F1 tab. Be mindful of this when using the Escape key or the number keys, too. We're still looking into this glitch and what exactly triggers it.

Crashes and Job Issues

These are issues that could impact your ability to log in, stay logged in, or to process work at all. You will likely need to contact an OS/OM/IT when these occur.

My screen got diagonal stripes and I got a popup about a "runtime error."

This is common once in a while. It's a generic error that's hard to diagnose and there are multiple things that could cause it, such as odd hotkey combinations, accidentally changing the job type, errors in your macro file, or other software bugs on the backend.

• You should be able to open Formalizer back up and log back in.
• You may receive the same job you were just working on.
• Inform an OS or contact IT if you are running into this error very frequently or several times in short succession.

I occasionally get a runtime error when I try to send a job. It's happening frequently enough to be disruptive.

If this happens sporadically, it's likely there's an issue with your macro file. Most often the culprit is single character/letter macros that you have added to your macro set. You will need to remove any single letter macros yourself or ask an OS for assistance.

• If you are getting this error repeatedly on the same job, inform an OS immediately. There may be an issue with Formalizer or the job in question.

I got a popup that says "Job was sent to another scribe."

This is fairly common to run into from time to time. Likely you did not do anything wrong, and the job will be pulled back and do what the popup said: go to another scribe. This might even happen when you first log in and get a job.

• You should be able to process the next job as normal.
• Inform an OS or contact IT if you are running into the error frequently or several times in short succession.

Formalizer seems to be stuck on "waiting for job."

When this happens and the queue is not in a Favorable status and/or you have not heard about any expected idle time, your personal job flow was just likely interrupted and has gotten stuck.

• Try pressing the "Get Job" button in the top left. (This doesn't always work.)
• Uncheck "Get Next Job" with Alt + J and log out.
• Log back in. You should be receiving jobs again.

Management will usually inform everyone if we expect to hit idle time soon or if we are currently idle. If you do not receive jobs after a log out and in, you are likely experiencing real idle and no jobs are available for you. If there is a genuine server issue affecting job flow, management will inform you and address the problem.

I have received several 0:00 jobs in a row. Is this normal?

One or two are normal; any more than that is a concern, especially in succession. Inform an OS or contact IT immediately; they will need to assist in resolving the problem.

I am connected to the NetExtender VPN, but when I open Formalizer it is stuck on "Connecting."

First try these steps:

• Verify that your internet service is stable and your ISP does not have any current known issues or outages.
• Disconnect from the VPN and immediately re-connect. Try opening Formalizer again.
• If this does not work, try restarting the computer.
• After a restart, connect to the VPN and wait about three to five minutes. Try opening Formalizer again.

If after trying these steps it still does not work, contact IT and inform an OS you are having connection problems.

My question or error is not on this list.

If this list doesn't help you resolve your issue, reach out to an OS or OM and they will likely be able to assist you.

A good format of information to pass to your OS/OM when reporting a new issue is:

• Your name.
• Details of the job you were working on, if applicable (Job audio length, Scribe or QA or Review job, QA ID#, etc)
• A brief description of the problem.
• If the problem is persistent/replicable, or if it was just a one-time error.

Sometimes it boils down to odd Windows behavior or quirks you are unaware of! And sometimes it is a serious issue with Formalizer itself that needs investigating. This guide can't cover everything, but it is meant to help you resolve some of the most common errors or quirks that people run into when working in Formalizer.

• Setting Up Psi
• Formalizer Hotkeys