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Working with the chronology

These guides cover the full workspace included in the Pro trial. Compare Free, Starter and Pro for ongoing access; Assist and iPad Companion require Pro.

The chronology is the heart of any matter. Lexware takes on the tedious part — reading through your documents and pulling out the dates — while you stay in charge of what actually goes in.

Suggested dates

Choose Extract dates… from the command palette, select an engine and the document kinds to include, then start the pass. You can also extract dates from an individual document. Results carry their source references and, by default, wait in Review until you accept, edit, merge or reject them.

The built-in rule-based pass runs on this computer. You can instead use a local Ollama model, or choose off-device AI after enabling it for that matter. There's more on this in Where the work happens, below.

You have the final say

You go through each suggested date and either confirm it, tidy it up, or set it aside. That step is deliberate: a date Lexware found is only a suggestion until you, the barrister, stand behind it. The ones you confirm become your chronology; the rest wait in Review or are discarded. A suggested date that belongs to an event already on your chronology can be merged into it rather than creating a twin — the event simply gains the new source — and a merge can be undone if you change your mind. Some documents give their date away in their file name; Lexware reads those as it scans, so a letter named for its date arrives in Review already dated, waiting only on your confirmation.

Already keep a chronology in Excel?

Choose Import chronology and select an Excel workbook (.xlsx, up to 50 MB). Lexware matches common column headings for the date, description, source, paragraph or page, quote and party. Without a header row, it treats the first column as the date.

Each row with a recognisable date becomes a suggestion in Review. Rows without a recognisable date are skipped, and the completion notice reports how many were skipped. Check that notice, then accept the entries you want before they join the chronology. Importing a spreadsheet happens on this computer.

Four ways to look at it

The Chronology section has four tabs — three ways to view what you've confirmed, plus the Review queue:

• Timeline — your chronology laid out along time.
• Table — a plain, sortable list of your entries.
• Calendar — entries placed on a calendar.
• Review — the queue of suggested dates covered above.

The matter's email has a home of its own: the Correspondence section in the sidebar lays it out like an inbox and outbox, so you can narrow things down to the messages between any two people or domains.

Sharing and exporting

Choose Export chronology… to save a Word document, PDF, Excel spreadsheet or Markdown file. The export opens on Current filter; choose Date range or Whole matter if you want a different scope, and check the event count before saving. You can include source references and quotations, group entries, or export key facts only.

Where the work happens

Lexware can find candidate dates in three ways:

• Built-in rule-based pass. This is the usual starting point and runs entirely on this computer.
• Local Ollama. An optional model running on this computer also keeps the material local.
• Off-device AI. Claude, ChatGPT, a remote Ollama endpoint or Ollama Cloud sends document content to the chosen provider. Lexware requires cloud AI consent for the matter and a send confirmation. Claude uses your Claude Code installation and subscription; ChatGPT uses your signed-in Codex CLI.

For a scanned or text-poor PDF, the document inspector can offer Extract dates (Claude reads the full PDF). This sends the complete PDF to Claude, unmasked, after a separate document confirmation. Check that disclosure before proceeding; it is different from extracting dates from the document's text.

For the full picture, see how Lexware looks after your information.