Quoted structures

A quoted structure is the element you insert in Lawmaker to contain inserted or substituted provisions when you are creating a textual amendment in a Bill or SI, or creating a parliamentary amendment.

A quoted structure can contain any kind of provision and will normally appeared indented on the page and surrounded by quote marks. In the Editor a quoted structure will be shown with a dotted line around it to distinguish from other provisions.

(They’re called “quoted structures” because element used in Akoma Ntoso to hold structured content that is being quoted in some way from another document. They are similar to what, in the existing SI template, were called “long quotes”.)

If you are creating a textual amendment in a Bill or SI that only inserts or substitutes a single word or a phrase then you should use a quoted text element instead - see Quoted Text.

How to insert a quoted structure

Use any of the following methods:
- right-click in the Editor and select Insert quoted structure
- from the Insert menu in the toolbar, select Insert quoted structure
- use keyboard shortcut CTRL+q
Select a starting element and adjust any other settings in the dialogue box.
Click Insert.

Lawmaker will insert a quoted structure containing the selected starting element on a new line below the provision your cursor is in,.

If the starting element has a number, then the number will be left empty (but parentheses will still be present if the element number would normally have them) and it will be locked (see Locking and unlocking numbers). You can manually add a number to the first element and subsequent elements will be numbered accordingly.

Setting the properties of a quoted structure

When you insert a quoted structure you can set various properties of the the quoted structure. Some of these can be updated after the quoted structure is inserted by right-clicking within the quoted structure and selecting Update quoted structure properties (You can also do the same using the Insert menu in the toolbar.)

Document type

(Can’t be changed after quoted structure is inserted.)

Selecting the document type determines how the contents of the quoted structure will be formatted and what starting elements are available.

By default, the document type will be the Act type that corresponds to the document you are editing (e.g. an Act of the Scottish Parliament if you are editing a Scottish Bill, or a UKPGA if you are editing an amendment list for the Commons or the Lords)..

The possible types are:

Act of the Scottish Parliament (asp)
United Kingdom Public General Act (ukpga)
UK Statutory Instrument
Scottish Statutory Instrument
EU Regulation, EU Directive or EU Decision

If you select a different document type, the PDF will render the elements in the appropriate styles for the target document, except in relation to font style an size which will match the main document.

That means if you include an asp quoted structure in a UK Bill, or a ukpga quoted structure in a Scottish Bill, there may be some presentational differences in the content of the quoted structure when you generate a PDF. If you want the contents of the quoted structure to look exactly like other provisions in the Bill then set the document type to the Act type that corresponds to the Bill.

Starting element

(Can’t be changed after quoted structure is inserted.)

The list of possible starting elements is determined by the document type. The list include all possible elements in the main body and in schedules - there are separate options for grouping elements in the body and schedule (e.g. “Part” and “Sch Part”).

Indent level

All provisions in a quoted structure are, by default, indented compared to how they would be if they appeared directly in the document.

The Indent level option allows you to alter that indent.

Indent level -1 removes the normal indent that is applied to provisions within a quoted structure.

Indent levels 1 and above add additional indent beyond the deafult indent.

See Cases where you may need to adjust the indent level of a quoted structure or use adjacent quoted structures for more on when and how to use this feature.

Start quote and end quote

If a quoted structure is to be surrounded by quote marks, you should select them here.

By default, a quoted structure will be set to have double inverted commas “ and “ except in the case of a Scottish Parliament amendment which uses < and >.

In the Editor, the quote marks will be shown outside the box around the quoted structure content but in the PDF they will be displayed correctly.

Following text

Enter here any text that you want to appear directly after the closing quote mark. This will usually be punctuation and/or a conjunction, e.g. “;” or “, and”.

Inserting a quoted structure immediately after another quoted structure

To insert a quoted structure immediately after another quoted structure either:

right-click in the Editor within the existing quoted structure and select Insert adjacent quoted structure, or
From the Insert menu on the toolbar, select Insert adjacent quoted structure.

See Cases where you may need to adjust the indent level of a quoted structure or use adjacent quoted structures for more on when and how to use this feature.

Nested quoted structures

It is possible to insert a quoted structure within an existing quoted structure. Just place your cursor within the existing quoted structure and follow the instructions above to insert a new quoted structure.

Tables in quoted structures

You can insert a table as a starting element by selecting “table” as the starting element. This will take you to the “Insert table” dialogue box allowing you to specify the type of table/table row that you want to insert. If you just want to insert a single row of a table then insert a table with only 1 row and no table number, caption or header - see Inserting and managing tables.

Moving existing provisions in and out of quoted structures

See Moving elements in or out of Quoted Structures for help with this.