Frequently Asked Questions

SimpleAddins is a UK software company that makes professional add-ins for Microsoft Word. Our two current add-ins — Working Document Helper and Template Helper — are designed for professionals who work with complex or sensitive documents and need efficient, private tools. Both add-ins run entirely within Word on your own device: no document content is ever uploaded anywhere.

No. You do not need to create a SimpleAddins account to use the Free tier of either add-in. You will need a Microsoft account to install the add-ins from Microsoft AppSource, but that is a standard Microsoft requirement for all AppSource add-ins.

It reads the formatting in your Word document — bold, italic, underline, strikethrough — and automatically applies colour-coded highlighting and font colours following the standard SEND tribunal working document key. What would take hours of manual formatting review is done in seconds. The Pro version also lets you produce a clean, finalised document by automatically accepting agreed changes.

Yes. You can remove all existing colour coding using the "Remove Colour" function before re-applying. This ensures a consistent result regardless of any manual formatting that was applied previously.

The Clean function processes a working document to produce a finalised version. It identifies all underlined text (agreed content under the tribunal key), removes agreed deletions (underlined strikethrough text), and strips the underline from agreed insertions — leaving a clean document showing only what has been agreed. It is a Pro feature because it represents the most consequential operation in the workflow.

Currently, no. The add-in is only available on Microsoft AppSource in the United Kingdom. This reflects the add-in's focus on UK SEND tribunal proceedings, which use a UK-specific document format and legal process.

Any Word document that uses bracketed placeholder fields — for example [Client Name: ], [Date of hearing: ] — can be scanned by Template Helper. This includes standard letter templates, legal document templates, HR templates, care plan templates, and any other form-style document.

Find & Replace requires you to know exactly what text to search for and replaces one field at a time. Template Helper scans your entire document, identifies every placeholder automatically, groups identical fields (so you only type a value once), and lets you fill everything through a single guided interface before writing all values back in one step.

Normalise CAPS converts text that has been entered in ALL CAPITALS into standard title-case or sentence-case capitalisation. This is useful when filling template fields with data copied from systems — such as case management databases — that store names or addresses in all-caps format. Instead of manually retyping, Normalise CAPS cleans the text automatically.

Template Helper includes an Undo function. Immediately after applying changes, you can revert to the previous state. Standard Word undo (Ctrl+Z) also works. As an additional precaution, it is good practice to save a copy of your document before applying changes.

See Pricing page.

a 14 day free trial is available on both add-ins

Subscriptions are purchased through Microsoft AppSource using your Microsoft account. Payment processing is handled by Stripe on behalf of Simple Addins Ltd. You will not be asked for payment details on this website directly. Your card details are stored securely by Stripe and are not held by SimpleAddins.

Currently, each subscription is associated with the individual Microsoft account used to install the add-in. For team, department, or organisation-wide licensing, please contact us.

No. The add-in processes documents locally within your instance of Microsoft Word. No document content is transmitted to SimpleAddins or any third-party server. Your document activity is not visible to us. What your employer or IT department can see depends on your organisation's own IT monitoring policies — but the add-in itself introduces no additional data exposure.

Yes. Because document content never leaves your device during add-in operation, using Working Document Helper or Template Helper does not create any data transfer risk for confidential documents. See our Privacy Explained page for a full plain-English breakdown.

Both add-ins are built on Microsoft's Office Add-ins platform, which supports Word on Windows and macOS when using Microsoft 365. Compatibility with perpetual licence versions of Word (2019, 2021) depends on which version of the Office Add-ins API those versions support. If you are unsure, the Free tier can be installed at no cost to test compatibility in your environment. See the Compatibility page for full details.