When documents are uploaded to Case Center, they are automatically assigned page numbers by the system. This means you are not required to apply your own page numbering to documents.

If you wish to apply your own page numbers in your document creating software, ensure you place them at the top left or centre of the page. Case Center will use the top and bottom right of the page to apply its autogenerated page number, so do not use the top or bottom right corner for your own pagination. The presiding judicial officer will rely on the Case Center-generated page numbers when reviewing and referring to your document, so it is important that these page numbers are easily visible.

Hyperlinks in documents that point to external websites will remain active after the document is uploaded to Case Center (e.g., linking a factum to caselaw on www.canlii.org). Use the hyperlinking function in your word processing software. These hyperlinks will appear in Case Center with a faint purple box around the text that is hyperlinked, as seen below:

Clicking on an external hyperlink in Case Center will open the link in a new tab on your browser.

Internal hyperlinks (bookmarks) pointing to a place within the same document will remain active after the document is uploaded to Case Center. For example, a table of contents in an abbreviated book of authorities can be linked to each of the authorities within. Use the bookmarking function in your word processing software. These hyperlinks will also appear in Case Center with a faint purple box around the text that is hyperlinked, as seen below:

Clicking on these internal hyperlinks will navigate you to the page the link directs to on the “Review” screen.

*NEW* Bookmarks that exist in PDF documents are now retained and will be navigable in Case Center after upload. To ensure your bookmarks are retained, make sure to follow these steps when uploading:

1. Save your document using the Standard Document Naming Protocol as referenced in the appropriate Practice Direction as the title of your documents.
2. Find your case in Case Center and select Update Case.
3. Select Upload to upload your documents.
4. Select the appropriate bundle for your appearance.
5. Select the appropriate section for your documents.
6. Select the “Upload File(s)” option.
7. Ensure “Import Bookmarks” is checked off (as shown below):

Once you have uploaded your bookmarked PDF, the ‘Review’ page will now display these bookmarks on the lefthand navigation pane in the same level they were formatted in the PDF. Clicking on a bookmark will take the user to the relevant point in the file. Case Center will recognize and display up to four levels of bookmarks from the source PDF.

Once your documents have been accepted for filing and are properly formatted, you can upload them to Case Center. When uploaded, they will automatically be assigned page numbers through Case Center.

Case Center organizes uploaded documents in two ways:

• By bundle – The court event the documents relate to.
• By section – The party uploading the documents or type of document.

When uploading documents:

• You must abide by page limits set out in the rules of court and relevant practice directions
• Make sure your documents are named following the Court’s Standard Document Naming Protocol as referenced in the appropriate Practice Direction. This ensures documents are clearly labelled in the system.
• Prior to uploading, confirm that your materials are not password protected.
• Do not upload any material that is subject to a sealing order. Review the Court’s Practice Directions for more information on how to file these materials.

To upload your documents to Case Center:

1. Locate the case (found on your “View Case List” screen).
2. Select the Update Case button.
3. Select the “Upload” tab found in the case file.
4. Ensure you have selected the correct bundle you want to upload your specific document into. If the incorrect bundle is selected, select “Select Bundle” and choose the appropriate one from the dropdown list.
5. In the “Select Section” field, ensure you select the appropriate section to upload your documents. Select “Upload File(s)”.
6. If your document is a PDF that contains bookmarks, ensure “Import Bookmarks” is checked off.

Important — When uploading a document to Case Center, you must ensure the document is under 500 pages in length. Individual documents that are longer than 500 pages may freeze while scrolling during your hearing. As such, if a document such as a book of authorities is longer than 500 pages, it should be broken down into Book of Authorities Vol. 1 — Respondent Smith — 01-JAN-2021, Book of Authorities Vol. 2 — Respondent Smith — 01-JAN-2021, etc. to remain under the maximum number of pages.

7. To select files, you can either:
   1. Select your documents from your computer and drag them into the box; Or,
   2. Select “Add Files” and select the files you want to add.
   3. You can add multiple documents by either selecting or dragging all the documents you wish to upload into the box.

Tip —You will see each of your documents listed individually. Case Center will upload the documents in the order that they appear in the list. You can change the order of the documents by using your cursor and dragging them into the correct order.

8. Select “Start Upload“. Case Center will perform a virus scan on the document prior to accepting it for upload in the system. Depending on the size of your file, it may take a moment for your documents to appear in the case in Case Center.

Important! Once a document has been uploaded into Case Center, the expectation is that document is before the Court. You must not delete a document after you have uploaded it to Case Center. Case Center will retain a record of documents that have been deleted, and they will appear on the “Review” page as shown below:

When you have multiple documents that have been uploaded to Case Center that you’d like to provide links between, you can use Case Center’s internal hyperlinking feature. This process involves working in the Case Center platform after your documents have been uploaded.

We will use the example of linking a page of an affidavit to a factum. Follow these steps:

1. Locate the case (found on your “View Case List” screen).
2. Select Update Case.
3. Select Index.
4. Ensure you are in the correct bundle. Use the Select Bundle button to change the bundle.
5. Find the document you wish to add the hyperlink to and select View. For example, if you would like to link a page from your affidavit to your factum, select your factum from the list.
6. Select the page of the document that you wish to add the hyperlink to using the dropdown menu.
7. Select Hyperlink button at the top of the screen.
8. Use your mouse to select where on the page you would like to apply a link. A pop-up window should appear asking you to confirm you want to add a hyperlink.
9. A new “Edit Hyperlink” pop-up will appear. Ensure the “Hyperlink Type” is set to “Document Page” (this will be selected by default).
10. Enter text in the “Description” field. For example, if you’re linking to the second page of your affidavit, type “Affidavit Page 2”. This description will only appear on this page to assist you in managing your hyperlinks.

11. In the “Section” dropdown menu, choose the section where the document you want to link to is stored. For example, if you are the applicant and your documents have been uploaded under “Applicant Documents,” select that option.

12. In the “Document” dropdown menu, select the specific document you want to link to. For example, if you are in your factum and want to link to a page of your affidavit, choose the document labeled “Affidavit.”
13. In the “Page” dropdown menu, select the page of the document that you want the hyperlink to direct to.
14. Select Save. You will now see a purple “H” on the screen. You can move this using your cursor to ensure the link is not covering any words in your document.
15. When you access this page of your document through the Review screen, the hyperlink will now appear, as shown below:

Tip — You may also want to add a hyperlink back to the originating document. For example, if you linked page 2 of your affidavit to your factum, consider adding a link in your affidavit that points back to the factum. This allows the presiding judicial officer to move easily between both documents.

For hearings or conferences in civil and Divisional Court matters, in accordance with rule 4.05.3(3) of the Rules of Civil Procedure, each party must upload to Case Center a compendium containing key materials that will be referred to in oral argument (e.g., fair extracts of documents, transcripts, previous orders, caselaw, etc.). See the Court’s Consolidated Civil Provincial Practice Direction for more information on this requirement.

For other matters, you may assist the court by creating a document containing an index of the documents that you will be relying on at the hearing with the Case Center-generated page numbers clearly indicated (e.g., A13). If you upload this document to Case Center in advance of the hearing, the judicial officer can refer to it when preparing for the event. Other features in Case Center, such as searching, notetaking, and document sharing, all use the Case Center-generated page numbering, so it is useful to get comfortable with these Case Center-generated page numbers. You will be required to refer to the Case Center-generated page number during your hearing.

When creating your index or compendium, it is important to ensure your document does not include links that lead to an external website or document hosting platform that the presiding judge will not have access to. You can prepare your index or compendium linking directly to Case Center by following these steps:

1. Locate the case (found on your “View Case List” screen).
2. Select Review.
3. Ensure the bundle selected is the correct bundle. If the incorrect bundle is selected, you can select the change button on the left-hand pane of the screen to select the correct bundle.
4. All the documents in the bundle will appear on the left-hand pane of the screen. Select the document you wish to link in your compendium or index.
5. Select View.
6. Select Copy Link. You will see a message that Case Center has copied the link to your computer.
7. Use your word processing software to paste the link where you want it to appear on your index or compendium. This link will be retained after you upload your index or compendium to Case Center.

When uploading to Case Center, your documents should be named and ordered in a way that is consistent with the sequence of documents outlined in any practice directions of the Court. The Superior Court of Justice’s practice directions can be found here: https://ontariocourts.ca/scj/filing-procedures/provincial/

When uploading more than one document at the same time, you can control the order in which those documents appear in Case Center by using your cursor to drag the documents into the appropriate order in the “Select Files” box. This will allow Case Center to upload the documents in that order.  It is recommended to number your documents so that they are better organized for review.

If you want to change the order of your documents after you have uploaded them (i.e., you want your compendium or index to appear as the first document):

1. Locate the case (found on your “View Case List” screen).
2. Select the Update Case button.
3. Select the Sections button.
4. Select the Update All Documents button next to the section where you have uploaded your documents.
5. Click in the Document Number field next to the document you want to change the order of and change the number. Make sure to keep it as a 4-digit number (i.e., 0002), but otherwise change the numbering as you wish.  Case Center will keep the documents in sequential order based on this document number field. There is no “save” button, clicking outside of the “Document Number” field will automatically apply your changes.

If you want to change the name of a document after you have uploaded it to Case Center (i.e., you realize your document does not follow the proper naming protocol):

1. Locate the case (found on your “View Case List” screen).
2. Select the Update Case button.
3. Select the Sections button.
4. Select the Update All Documents button next to the section where you have uploaded your documents.
5. Click in the Document Title filed next to the document you want to change the name of and type in the new name. There is no “save” button, clicking outside of the “Document Number” field will automatically apply your changes.

   Tip – If your document was not uploaded using the court’s naming protocol, you may notice that the date in the Document Date field does not match the date the document was accepted for filing. You can type into the Document Date field to input the correct date.

Below is an example of how a respondent in an appeal may name their documents in Case Center:

1. Factum – Respondent Smith – 01-JAN-2021
2. Responding Record — Respondent Smith – 01-JAN-2021
3. Oral Argument Compendium – Respondent Smith – 01-JAN-2021
4. Transcript Brief – Respondent Smith – 01-JAN-2021
5. Exhibit Book – Respondent Smith – 01-JAN-2021
6. Financial Statement 13.1 – Applicant Smith – 01-JAN-2021

Important! You can only change the order or rename documents that you have uploaded to Case Center yourself.

Case Center will support the upload of videos directly into the platform. .MPG and .MP4 file extensions are the best supported video formats but other common formats will also upload and play. Case Center has its own video player so the file can be played directly through Case Center without downloading. The maximum size of a video file that Case Center will accept is 2 gigabytes.

To upload a video to Case Center:

1. Locate the case (found on your “View Case List” screen).
2. Select the Update Case
3. Select the “Upload” tab found in the case file.
4. Ensure the bundle selected is the correct bundle you want to upload your specific document into. If the incorrect bundle is selected, select “Select Bundle” and choose the appropriate one from the dropdown list.
5. In the “Select Section” field, ensure you select the appropriate section to upload your video.
6. Select “Upload File(s)”.
7. You can either:
   1. Drag the video from your computer into the box. Or,
   2. Select “Add Files” and select the video you wish to upload.
   3. You can add multiple videos by selecting or dragging all the documents you wish to upload into the box.
8. Select “Start Upload”. Case Center will perform a virus scan on the video prior to accepting it for upload in the system. Depending on the size of your file, it may take a moment for your video to appear in the case in Case Center.

Your case will have a separate Orders and Endorsements bundle that you are provided access to. This allows the judicial officer to see the order history rather than having to search through each event bundle.

Orders and endorsements will be uploaded to Case Center by court staff once they are released. However, there may be older cases that initiated before Case Center was implemented in which a previously issued order or endorsement does not appear. Parties are asked to upload copies of orders and endorsements into this bundle if they have not already been uploaded so that they can be accessed for upcoming events. This should include any order that remains in effect as well as any relevant endorsements, including endorsements that were made before electronic files were available to the Court.

Orders and endorsements must be uploaded following a different naming protocol than other documents. The order or endorsement must be clearly identified, such as:

1. Order – DC-20-00123456-0000 – Justice XYZ – 10-DEC-2021
2. Endorsement – FS-23-123245678-0000 – Justice ABC – 04-MAR-2022

It is important that the date field follows the above format, or the document will display the date of the upload rather than the date it was signed.

Prior to each hearing, parties are to upload into the hearing sub-bundle a completed Participant Information form. Where possible, the moving party for the event is asked to coordinate with other parties to complete one form for the hearing.

In criminal matters, each party may upload their own form. The participant information form must also be saved using the court’s document naming convention (e.g., Participant Information – All Parties – 01-JUN-2021 or Participant Information – Applicant Smith – 01-JUN-2021).

Parties are expected to submit draft orders and forms with fillable fields in accordance with the Court’s Practice Directions. Parties may wish to upload a draft order to Case Center so that it is accessible to the presiding judicial officer.

Judicial officers can download and amend draft orders or other documents to help prepare their orders. You should therefore upload draft orders with your materials so the judicial officer can access it directly through Case Center. You can also upload documents with fillable fields, such as the Trial Management Plan under Rule 76. Draft orders and forms with fillable fields should be uploaded in Word format (.doc or .docx) so that the judicial officer can easily access and provide the appropriate authorization on it.

Make sure you remove any “Protect Document” permissions from your Word document before uploading to Case Center! Documents uploaded with protection enabled can not be properly accessed in Case Center.

IMPORTANT: The above does not apply to the Superior Court of Justice’s Pre-Trial Conference form for Criminal matters. For information pertaining to that specific fillable form, see Criminal Judicial Pre-Trials.