Articles Custom software

Modular content: one approved paragraph, many documents.

Contracts, proposals and manuals repeat the same text. When that text lives in copies, every change is a risk. This is how ParaBlox, the SaaS we built to solve it, works.

Joaquín Martinez HerreraCEO, Brova Digital Group Published Reading time2 min

The cost of copies

The confidentiality clause, the payment terms, the company description. These paragraphs appear in dozens of documents.

When every document holds its own copy, a single change means opening one file after another. Sooner or later, an outdated version reaches a client.

The idea: versioned modules

ParaBlox is a SaaS product from a company based in Melbourne, Australia. We built the complete product from their prototype.

In ParaBlox, each reusable paragraph is a module. Modules live in a library, and every save creates a new version.

ParaBlox library showing the modules, their scope, their version and the number of documents that use them
Each module shows its scope, its version and how many documents use it.

One change, every document

A document can link to a module and receive its updates, or keep its own copy. When you save a module that other documents use, ParaBlox asks how far the change should reach.

ParaBlox dialogue offering to update all documents or only this one
The user decides whether the change applies to every document or to just one.

Variables that keep a module reusable

Variables such as the client’s name or the start date are filled in once per document. They appear in every module that uses them, so the same text works for any client.

ParaBlox variables dialogue with the client’s name, fees and start date
Variables are filled in once per document.
Who can use each module. A module can be local, belong to a department or be shared across the whole workspace. Widening its scope can require approval, so anything the entire company uses goes through a review.

Starting from what already exists

Nobody wants to rewrite their documents by hand. ParaBlox imports Word and PDF files and splits them into modules wherever the headings and topics change.

The file is processed in the browser, and the page size, margins, headers and footers are preserved.

Is this approach right for you?

  • If your team copies and pastes the same paragraphs into many documents.
  • If a legal or commercial change forces you to review files one by one.
  • If you need to know which version of a text each client received.
  • If different departments write documents containing text that another department must approve.
ProjectParaBloxA SaaS for assembling documents from approved content.View the project

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