Digicon CMS replacement

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Author Message Phil Kabza Senior Member Username: phil_kabza Post Number: 776 Registered: 12-2002 Posted on Tuesday, October 31, 2023 - 09:37 am:    We are looking for a Canada NBS specification document to emulate the MSWord output format for a client. Does anyone have same they can share? Phil Kabza FCSI CCS AIA SpecGuy Specifications Consultants www.SpecGuy.com phil@specguy.com Loretta Sheridan Senior Member Username: leshrdn Post Number: 106 Registered: 11-2021 Posted on Thursday, November 02, 2023 - 07:19 am:    If you have a Canada NMS spec, and styles are assigned to the text, you can redefine or reassign the styles to match the MasterSpec. I have Canada NMS specs, but unfortunately, all the text is assigned the "Normal" style, and it is set up om the Canada NMS format. From experience, it can be slow going assigning styles where none have been assigned. But I have done it for c**p I receive from consultants. (I can do it in about five minutes to ten for an average length spec section.) I can send you what I have. But it won't save you any time. BTW, I downloaded them in early 2022. Loretta Sheridan Senior Member Username: leshrdn Post Number: 107 Registered: 11-2021 Posted on Thursday, November 02, 2023 - 08:24 am:    Just for kicks and giggles, I checked out and timed assigning styles to the NMS specs I have, and it takes a little longer than what I am used to -- five to twenty minutes per section. (More complicated sections would take more time.) FWIW, I can send you the four sections I tested myself with. These are the ones, with the time it took to covert in parentheses: Alternates (5 min), Flush Wood Doors (15 min), Resilient Tile Floors (20 min), and Fire Protection Specialties (5 min) I also remembered that VisiSpecs has NMS specs. They have styles assigned to the text which makes formating / redefining styles much easier. Phil Kabza Senior Member Username: phil_kabza Post Number: 779 Registered: 12-2002 Posted on Friday, November 03, 2023 - 02:57 pm:    The is the "other" Canadian specification: Purchased from the Watsons at Digicon a while back. Used to be called Canadian Master Specification. Quite good - similar to SpecText here (Which Wayne Watson had a hand in way back). I don't know anyone using this since the British NBS bought it and moved in into the cloud, so I don't know what its Word output looks like now. https://www.thenbs.ca/ Phil Kabza FCSI CCS AIA SpecGuy Specifications Consultants www.SpecGuy.com phil@specguy.com Loretta Sheridan Senior Member Username: leshrdn Post Number: 108 Registered: 11-2021 Posted on Saturday, November 04, 2023 - 08:17 am:    I checked out NBS earlier this year, but for the American specifications, but I did take a look at the Canadian specs while I was in there. It's Word output looks the same, and it has styles assigned, though I forget the styles' names. FWIW, my recollection is that NBS Chorus isn't that bad a price -- especially compared to SpecLink -- and it is pretty easy to learn. Editing in the cloud all looks like the British formatting, but when it gets exported to Word or PDF, it gets exported with a template that applies the appropriate styles. Seamus McGrady (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Friday, November 10, 2023 - 09:46 am:    Hello Phil, NMS is free with VisiSpecs and as Loretta mentioned they are all formatted such that you can apply your other specs to that format or change NMS to be your format. Not sure what happened with CMS. If you need the Uniformat NMS or French version, those are also included with VisiSpecs. Let me know if you need further info. smcgrady@chalklineinc.com Phil Kabza Senior Member Username: phil_kabza Post Number: 781 Registered: 12-2002 Posted on Wednesday, November 15, 2023 - 09:27 am:    Thank you Seamus. I found NMS free online, compliments of the Canadian Federal Government. https://nrc.canada.ca/en/certifications-evaluations-standards/canadian-national-master-construction-specification/extranet/register First glance indicates it is a quality professionally written library. Includes Uniformat. Access requires some patience with the site's poor navigation. Phil Kabza FCSI CCS AIA SpecGuy Specifications Consultants www.SpecGuy.com phil@specguy.com David Watson (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Wednesday, December 13, 2023 - 01:14 pm:    Hi Phil, My ears burned when I saw 'Digicon' mentioned in this thread. Digicon became NBS in 2017, so you can contact myself for anything related to Digicon. To summarize the situation with Word: - NBS does not 'sell' Word docs, but we make them available to Chorus subscribers who want them. The 'format' of those Word docs matches the old Digicon styling. - NMS is available free from NRC, but as some have noted, the file formatting is not friendly for editing. - As Phil noted, NBS also sells CMS (Wayne Watson's spec), but only in NBS Chorus. - NBS are not the only publisher of NMS as noted by Seamus. I can't speak to the other publisher formatting. - Loretta is right on! NBS Chorus uses custom styling templates to format the output however you like. I hope this clarifies things. Good luck everyone!