Definition Tracking
Definition Tracking identifies every defined term in the open document and presents them in the plugin sidebar. Instead of scrolling through the document to find where a term is defined, you can view and navigate definitions from a single list.
How definitions are detected
Section titled “How definitions are detected”When you run Checks, SingleDraft analyses the document and identifies defined terms. It recognises a wide range of definition styles used in legal drafting, including inline definitions, abbreviations, table definitions, and listed structures.
Each detected term appears as a definition card in the “Definitions” section of the Checks view.
Definition cards
Section titled “Definition cards”Each card shows:
| Element | Description |
|---|---|
| Title | The defined term itself |
| Occurrence count | How many times the term appears in the document |
| Hover text | A short excerpt from the definition location |
Click a card to expand it. The expanded view displays:
- Definition text — the full paragraph (or paragraphs) where the term is defined, rendered with the document’s formatting.
- Nested defined terms — other defined terms that appear inside the definition text are highlighted (see “Smart connections” below).
- Alerts — any quality checks related to this term (see “Definition checks” below).
- Context — additional context provided by the analysis, when available.
Navigating to a definition
Section titled “Navigating to a definition”When you expand a card, SingleDraft locates the definition in the document. You can click the definition text to scroll your Word view to that location.
On platforms that support text selection, you can also select a defined term directly in the document and SingleDraft will scroll the sidebar to the matching card.
Use the search bar at the top of Checks to filter definitions by name.
Smart connections (nested terms)
Section titled “Smart connections (nested terms)”When a definition paragraph contains other defined terms, those terms are highlighted inside the expanded card. Hover over a highlighted term to see a pop-up preview of its own definition. Click the highlighted term to scroll the sidebar to that term’s card.
This lets you follow chains of related definitions without leaving the sidebar — for example, seeing that the definition of “Net Proceeds” references “Gross Revenue”, then viewing what “Gross Revenue” means.
Definition checks
Section titled “Definition checks”SingleDraft runs quality checks on defined terms and surfaces issues as alerts on the relevant definition card. Each alert has a short label and a longer explanation you can read by expanding the card.
| Check | What it flags |
|---|---|
| Unused definition | A term is defined but never used elsewhere in the document. |
| Duplicate definition | The same term appears to be defined more than once. |
| Capitalisation | Inconsistent capitalisation of a defined term — for example, defining “Agreement” but later writing “agreement”. |
| Definition order | A term is used in the document before the paragraph where it is defined. |
| Definition punctuation | A definition ends with punctuation that is likely unneeded. |
| Definition article | A definition begins with an article (e.g., “the”, “a”) that may not belong in the defined term. |
You can dismiss any alert you do not need. You can also disable an entire check category from the Rules drawer in the Checks header.
Definition comparison
Section titled “Definition comparison”If your organisation connects an internal clause database (see Internal Data Synchronization), a Compare button appears on definition cards whose terms match entries in the database.
Click the button to navigate to the Similar Clauses view, pre-filtered by that defined term. This lets you see how the same term is defined in other documents your firm has stored.
Word forms and declension
Section titled “Word forms and declension”SingleDraft recognises different grammatical forms of the same defined term. For example, if “Contract” is a defined term, the plugin also counts occurrences of “Contracts” and reflects them in the occurrence count.
This is especially relevant for languages with rich morphology (e.g., Czech, Polish, German), where a single noun can appear in many inflected forms.