Bates Stamping in the NextGen Experience

Bates stamping in the NextGen experience covers both bulk stamping of an entire production folder and stamping individual documents, with real-time job tracking and significantly faster processing than Legacy. This article walks through setting up an endorsement template, running a bulk Bates stamping job, tracking and troubleshooting that job, and stamping individual documents.

In this article:

• Step 1: Create an endorsement template
• Step 2: Bulk Bates stamp a folder (Number and Endorse)
• Step 3: Track your stamping job
• Step 4: Review the Completed Jobs table
• Handling documents that error during stamping
• Verify and move forward
• Document-level Bates stamping
• Why it's faster

Step 1: Create an endorsement template

Before you can Bates stamp a production, you need an endorsement template. Endorsement templates define your Bates numbering format, any additional endorsements you want stamped on every page, and which file types should receive a placeholder image instead of a native stamp.

1. Go to Settings > Export / Exchange.
2. Click Create New (or select an existing template to edit it).
3. Name your template. For example, if you're producing on behalf of Nextpoint, you might name it "Nextpoint Production."
4. Set your numbering pattern:
   • Prefix — for example, NEXTPOINT.
     • Include any separator after your prefix — an underscore, hyphen or spaces to separate the prefix from the number.
   • Starting number — include any leading zeros. For example, 0000001 means the first page of the first document stamped will be NEXTPOINT_0000001.
   • A preview of the resulting stamp displays as you enter these values.

5. Set your numbering exceptions. These are the file types that should receive a single numbered native placeholder (referencing the original document) instead of a stamp on every page.
   • Enter the file extension with a leading period — for example, .xlsx.
   • Use a wildcard to cover related variations at once — for example, .xls* covers .xls, .xlsm, and .xlsx; .ppt* covers .ppt and .pptx.
   • Every new template defaults to the most common placeholder file types: spreadsheet files (.xls*, .csv*) and PowerPoint files (.ppt*) — these are typically easier to review in their native format.
   • Any document that has no associated image automatically receives a native placeholder as well, regardless of this list.

6. Set your endorsement placement. Choose where the Bates stamp appears on the page — right (default), center, or left — always at the bottom of the page. Many users place Bates numbers on the right and reserve the left side for a confidentiality stamp (see Confidentiality Coding for that setup), but you can place them however your case requires.
   • Use the Preview tab to see the stamp text, sizing, and placement before applying it to an actual document.

7. Optional: add additional endorsements. If every stamped page needs to carry something beyond the Bates number — such as a case number or "Subject to Protective Order" — add up to 4 additional endorsement lines. These are used less frequently but apply to every page that receives a Bates stamp.
8. Click Save.

Step 2: Bulk Bates stamp a folder (Number and Endorse)

Before you start a bulk Bates stamping job, make sure:

• Your review is complete.
• Your production folder is finalized — full family coding, privilege checks, and any other QC steps are done.
• You're ready to treat this as your final set of documents for this production.

To start the job:

1. Go to your folder of documents:
   1. Discovery: Review tab.
   2. Litigation: Documents tab.
2. Next to the folder you want to stamp, click the 3-dot menu and select Number & Endorse.

3. Review any warnings before proceeding. You may see:
   1. Mailbox archive warning — if your folder contains mailbox archives, we flag them. Most users remove these from a production since everything relevant should already have been extracted during processing, and the archive itself typically shouldn't be referenced in the production. 
      • As a safeguard, documents like these still receive a non-image placeholder if you proceed — and non-image placeholders do not export the native file alongside them, unlike the native placeholders defined in your endorsement template (numbering exceptions), which do include the native file if your export is configured to include natives.
   2. Already-stamped documents warning — if any documents in the folder already carry endorsements (for example, from a prior production, or a folder that wasn't excluded from your search), you'll see a warning so you can remove them before stamping.
   3. Zero-page documents warning — documents with no image pages will receive a native placeholder, consistent with how numbering exceptions work in your template.

4. Large-job notice. For larger stamping jobs, you'll see a heads-up that the job may take several minutes, along with an option to confirm you understand and want to proceed.
   1. Typical throughput averages around 1,600 pages per minute across job sizes — roughly 2x faster than Legacy, and even up to 4x faster on larger jobs. Smaller jobs run slower per-page since processing resources need to ramp up; longer jobs speed up over their run.
5. Choose your endorsement template (the one you created in Step 1).
6. Verify the starting number to assign to the first document. This is just the next numeric value — leading zeros and formatting are handled by your template.
7. Confirm your endorsement placement (shown for reference, based on your template).
8. Click Endorse.

Step 3: Track your stamping job

Go to Data > Other Processes (Litigation: More > Data > Other Processes). This page tracks Bates stamp jobs, stamp removals, and bulk confidentiality designations together, so a Bates job may appear alongside other job types if you're running more than one over time. Only one job runs at a time, and exports and additional endorsements stay unavailable while a job is in progress.

While a job is running, the in-progress job card shows:

• Job type (Bates stamp) and the endorsement template used
• A progress bar and running count of documents stamped (X of Y)
• The folder being stamped
• How long ago the job started, and which user started it

The page updates automatically every 15 seconds as the job progresses.

Step 4: Review the Completed Jobs table

When your job finishes, you'll get an email confirming completion, and the job moves into the Completed Jobs table on the same Data > Other Processes page.

For a Bates stamping job, each row shows:

This table is a useful record as your case moves forward — it gives you a clear history of what was stamped, when, by whom, and whether anything needs a second look.

Handling documents that error during stamping

Most stamping jobs complete cleanly.  When documents do error, it's typically due to underlying issues with the source PDF: intrinsic rotations, unusually large or complex drawings, layers, or forms.

If you see a Complete with errors status:

1. Review the flagged documents for any common trend.
2. Try Regenerate Searchable PDF at the document-level for the affected documents (especially for a small number of errors), then re-stamp the folder. Only the previously-errored documents will be re-stamped — the rest of the folder is untouched.
   • Bates numbers are still assigned to documents that errored during stamping, even though the visual stamp didn't apply. Re-stamping after regenerating the PDF uses the numbers already assigned, so you won't lose your sequencing or have to unstamp and restart.
3. If you need help, contact support@nextpoint.com. Common paths from here include pulling the affected documents into a supplemental folder while you export the rest of the production, or working with the support team to resolve the documents before exporting.

Verify and move forward

Once stamping completes:

• Spot-check a few documents that were expected to receive native placeholders (for example, Excel or PowerPoint files) to confirm everything applied as expected.
• From here, you can move on to exporting your production — see Setting Up Export Templates — or apply confidentiality designations to some or all of the same documents — see Confidentiality Coding in the NextGen Experience.

Document-level Bates stamping

Bulk stamping covers most productions, but you can also Bates stamp an individual document — available in both the NextGen experience and Legacy. This is used less often, typically when a document was supplemented or changed after the original production and needs its own Bates number.

1. Open the document, click the 3-dot menu in the top right, and select Edit Numbering Pattern.
2. Enter the number you want assigned, including your entire stamp format (for example, NEXTPOINT_0012345).
3. Choose your options:
   • Also Endorse — stamps the number visually onto the page(s). If left unchecked, the number is assigned (searchable) but not visually stamped.  Useful if you just need the document to carry a Bates number for reference without altering the image, such as a document a producing party supplemented without a load file.
   • Apply to All Valid Pages — stamps every page of the document. If unchecked, only the current/first page is stamped.
4. Click Save.

The stamp applies (with a quick refresh), and at the document level it always appears in the bottom-right corner, regardless of the placement configured in your endorsement template.

Why it's faster

The NextGen experience is built for speed and visibility. Compared to Legacy's roughly 900 pages per minute, NextGen averages around 1,600 pages per minute and can reach up to 2,500 pages per minute — commonly 2x faster, and up to 3–4x on larger jobs. Combined with real-time job tracking under Data > Other Processes, you get both a faster production and a clear, ongoing record of exactly what was stamped, when, and by whom.