EFS-ABX Made Easy?

EFS-ABX is the Patent Application specification authoring component of the EFS software suite from the USPTO. According to their website, EFS-ABX allows the user to author electronic (XML and PDF) versions of specifications in "an easy to use Microsoft Word template." However, according to a posting to the EFS discussion list allegedly by Daima T. Phipps, "the best way to author an ABX specification is to follow these steps:

1. Create your Word document.
2. Remove any unnecessary formatting such as automatic paragraph or
   claim numbering by converting to text (this may be done in a number of ways)
3. Ensure headings are formatted alike.
4. Ensure paragraphs are formatted alike.
5. Make images of tables with merged cells and remove them from the
   Word document.
6. Save your Word document stripped of these formatting issues.
7. Launch ABX.
8. Click the Import Word button (open file image with a D above it).
9. Apply the main document sections; Description, Claims, Abstract, and Drawings (when applicable).
10. Go through to each heading in the document and Format as Heading
    from the Description tools.
11. Insert table images when applicable. (multiple images may be inserted all at once - great time saver but double check the order in which they appear).
12. Go through and apply paragraph and claim numbers to the rest of the specification.
13. Attach drawings using the Drawing tools. (here too multiple images may be inserted at once, but double check the order in which they appear, may be better to insert one at a time.)
14. Save specification.
15. Export.

As long as you apply section headings first, then format existing headings you should not run into problems with validation, therefore that step can be skipped. Remember that a paragraph must appear after a heading and that you cannot start a bullet or numbered list directly after a heading. To help alleviate problems with how the sections separate, insert an extra paragraph return (or two) between sections."

Thanks Daima, I think.