Guide
What Files and Briefs BriefAuthority Works With
On this page5 sections
The short answer
almost certainly yes, if your brief is a PDF or a Word .docx. BriefAuthority builds a Table of Authorities from a PDF with a text layer (page numbers come from the pages as filed), from a scanned PDF (read with OCR on your own computer), or from a Word .docx (add its final PDF and the finished table is written into your Word file; without the PDF it writes Word's own TA fields so Word for Windows builds the table). Briefs written in Google Docs, Pages or LibreOffice work once you export them to PDF or .docx. It recognises Bluebook and the California, New York and Michigan official citation styles, and it has 26 court presets, from the Supreme Court and every federal circuit to eleven states. It does not read handwriting or old two-page-spread scans.
It is free, needs no account, and runs in any modern browser on a Mac or Windows. The brief is never uploaded. Open the free Table of Authorities generator and drop the file in; the rest of this page says exactly what happens with each kind of file, and where the limits are.
File types, and what happens with each
| You have | What BriefAuthority does | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| The final PDF (exported from Word, Pages, Google Docs or a court filing) | Reads the text of every page in your browser and takes page numbers from the printed pages: roman-numeral front matter, briefs numbered from the cover, appendices | A formatted .docx Table of Authorities, or the table copied as text |
| A scanned or image-only PDF | Detects that the pages have no text and reads them with on-device OCR, about 1–1.5 seconds per page. For a partly scanned PDF it offers OCR for just the image pages | The same .docx table or text, after you review the entries |
| A Word .docx | Finds the authorities, lets you review them, then writes Word's own TA field codes into the document, plus a TOA field after your TABLE OF AUTHORITIES heading | Your .docx back; Word for Windows builds and updates the table (References › Update Table) |
| A Word .docx and the final PDF of the same brief (drop both together, or add the PDF later from the review or export screen) | Finds the authorities in the Word file, matches them with the ones in the PDF and takes the printed page numbers from the PDF. Entries it cannot match are flagged: “Not found in the PDF” or “Only in the PDF”. The PDF needs a text layer; a scanned PDF is not supported in this mode | Your .docx back with a finished, formatted Table of Authorities written as normal text under your TABLE OF AUTHORITIES heading (replacing a Word TOA field or an old typed table). Nothing else changes except added paragraph styles. Opens in Word for Mac, Pages and Google Docs with nothing to update |
| A Google Docs, Pages or LibreOffice document | Nothing directly; these formats are not read | Export to PDF (best for final page numbers) or .docx, then drop that file in |
| .doc, .pages or .odt | Not read directly | Save as PDF or .docx first |
Which path should you use? If the brief is final, use the PDF: the page numbers in the table are then the page numbers the court receives, and you do not need Word at all. If you want the table inside your own Word file, drop the .docx together with its final PDF: the finished table is written into the .docx with the page numbers from the PDF, and it works on a Mac. If you edit the Word file afterwards, pages can move, so save a new PDF and run it again before filing. Use the .docx path alone when the draft is still changing in Word for Windows and you want Word to keep the table up to date. Microsoft says Tables of Authorities aren't supported in Word for Mac or Word for the web, so Word for Mac cannot update TA fields; the finished table written from the final PDF needs no updating. More on this in Table of Authorities from a PDF and on a Mac.
Citation styles and courts
Citation styles it recognises
- Bluebook: full case citations, short forms, Id., supra, and references by case name alone (e.g. “Rehaif”).
- California official style: “(2002) 29 Cal.4th 53”, “Code Civ. Proc., § 425.16”.
- New York official style: “CPLR 3211”, “Penal Law § 125.25”, NY3d reporters.
- Citations without periods, as Michigan briefs often write them: “470 US 856”.
- State codes: e.g. “Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 44-1527”; U.S.C. and C.F.R.
- Court rules: federal and state rules of appellate, civil, criminal and evidence procedure.
- Constitutional provisions: federal and state.
| Court | Table heading | Passim |
|---|---|---|
| Supreme Court of the United States | Table of Cited Authorities | Off (barred by Rule 34.2) |
| Federal courts of appeals (generic), 1st–9th Circuits, Federal Circuit | Table of Authorities | Allowed (9th Cir. discourages it) |
| D.C., 10th Circuits | Table of Authorities | Off (barred by local rule) |
| 11th Circuit | Table of Citations | Off (barred by 11th Cir. R. 28-1(d)) |
| California, New York, Illinois | Table of Authorities | Allowed |
| Texas | Index of Authorities | Allowed |
| Florida, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Arizona | Table of Citations | Allowed |
| Michigan | Index of Authorities | Allowed |
| Oregon | Table of Authorities | Discouraged (ORAP 5.35(3)) |
| Generic / other court | Table of Authorities | Allowed |
A preset sets the heading and whether passim can be used; you can still change categories and entries on the review screen. Court rules change, so check your court's current rules before filing. The rules themselves are summarised in TOA rules, Passim: which courts ban it and Rules by state.
How well it works, by court
We ran the citation engine on 127 public briefs and motions from 55 federal and state courts and compared its result with the table of authorities counsel printed in each one. 105 documents could be scored. The figures are before any review; exact means the page list is identical to counsel's. Full method, exclusions and data: Table of Authorities benchmark.
| Court or document type | Documents scored | Cases found | Exact page lists |
|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. Supreme Court | 25 | 99.6% | 88.3% |
| Federal courts of appeals | 14 | 98.9% | 89.6% |
| Federal district courts | 9 | 100% | 89.6% |
| State supreme courts | 31 | 97.3% | 76.7% |
| State appellate courts | 8 | 97.5% | 72.9% |
| State trial courts | 2 | 93.5% | 86.0% |
| Trial motions on pleading paper | 3 | 99.2% | 87.6% |
| Pro se briefs | 3 | 85.3% | 89.7% |
| Scanned briefs, on-device OCR (separate pass) | 7 | 92.2% | 77.2% |
| All scored documents | 105 | 98.5% | 83.7% |
State-court page lists are exact less often, mainly because of Id. and short forms credited to the wrong case, citations split across a page break, and official state citation styles and reporter variants (for example Wn.2d and Wash.2d). Those are exactly the entries to check on the review screen.
Unusual layouts it handles
- Pleading paper: the line numbers down the left margin (California and other trial courts) are ignored, not read as citations or page numbers.
- Court e-filing stamps: the “Case: 23-1234 Document: 45 Page: 12 Filed: …” header added by CM/ECF and state e-filing systems is ignored.
- Running headers and footers: repeated footer text is ignored, and page numbers printed inside a footer are still read.
- Roman-numeral front matter: cover, tables and statements numbered i, ii, iii, then the argument from 1.
- Numbering from the cover: briefs that count the cover as page 1 keep their printed numbers.
- Appendices and addenda: the app finds where the body of the brief ends; you can correct the page range if it guessed wrong.
Honest limits
- Handwriting is not read.
- Two-page-spread scans (old scans with two brief pages on one image) are not supported. Re-scan one page per image.
- Heavily garbled existing OCR layers: some scanned PDFs carry a poor text layer from an old scanner. If the review screen shows nonsense, a clean export or a fresh scan gives better results.
- Illinois Points and Authorities is organised under each argument heading. BriefAuthority produces a standard alphabetical table by category (the Illinois preset sets the heading); build the per-argument section from it by hand. See Illinois points and authorities.
- Other Authorities (books, law review articles, websites) are detected less reliably than cases, statutes and rules. Add any missing ones on the review screen.
- Word for Mac cannot update TA fields. On a Mac, use the PDF path, or add the final PDF to the .docx to get the finished table written into the Word file.
- It is not a citator. It lists the authorities that are in your brief; it does not check whether they are good law or correctly cited.
- State-court briefs: in the benchmark, page lists matched counsel's exactly for 73–77% of cases in state supreme and appellate courts, against about 89–90% in federal courts. Review short forms and Id. entries with extra care.
Frequently asked
Does BriefAuthority work with my brief?
Yes, if it is a PDF (with a text layer or scanned) or a Word .docx. Google Docs, Pages and LibreOffice briefs work after you export them to PDF or .docx. It does not read handwriting or two-page-spread scans.
Can it make a table of authorities from a scanned PDF?
Yes. Image-only pages are read with on-device OCR (Tesseract compiled to WebAssembly) in your browser, about 1–1.5 seconds per page. Nothing is uploaded. For a partly scanned PDF, the app offers OCR for just the image pages.
Does it work with Word documents?
Yes, with .docx files. It writes Word's own TA field codes and a TOA field after the TABLE OF AUTHORITIES heading, so Word for Windows builds and updates the table. Add the final PDF of the same brief and it can instead write the finished table into the .docx under the TABLE OF AUTHORITIES heading, with page numbers from the PDF, which works in Word for Mac, Pages and Google Docs. Older .doc files must be saved as .docx first.
What about Google Docs, Pages or LibreOffice?
Export the brief to PDF (or .docx) and drop that file in. The PDF gives you page numbers exactly as filed.
Does it recognise California and New York citation styles?
Yes. It recognises California official style such as “(2002) 29 Cal.4th 53” and “Code Civ. Proc., § 425.16”, New York official style such as “CPLR 3211”, “Penal Law § 125.25” and NY3d, and period-free citations such as “470 US 856”.
Which courts have presets?
Twenty-six: the Supreme Court, a generic federal appeals preset, each of the 13 federal courts of appeals, California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey, Arizona, Oregon, and a generic preset. Each sets the table heading and whether passim is allowed.
Does it work on a Mac, and does it cost anything?
It works in any modern browser on a Mac or Windows (verified in Chrome and Safari). It is free and needs no account or install.
Sources
- Microsoft Support: Create a table of authoritiessupport.microsoft.com
- Fed. R. App. P. 28: Briefs (Cornell LII)law.cornell.edu
- Supreme Court of the United States: Rules and guidancesupremecourt.gov
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