Choose the right view of the chronology
The timeline in the linear, relative or table view that suits the task, with display settings set.
Screenshots are taken from the app on every release. Updated 2 November 2026.
Read the transcript
You have built the chronology of the dispute. Now it has to work for someone who was not in the documents with you.
In the Linear view, the events follow each other in date order, evenly spaced, so you can walk the client through what happened.
Switch to Relative, and each event sits at its date on a scale. The reader sees how close together things happened, and where nothing did.
Swimlanes give each party a lane of its own: the claimant above the date line, the respondent and the court below it.
When it is ready, click Export, choose PDF, and pick the layout. A relative timeline suits a client meeting.
Tick the events that belong in this version, check the preview, and click Download. One timeline, with a version for every reader.
The whole case on one page, for the client, counsel or the court.
The same chronology gets read, checked and analysed in different ways over the life of a dispute. Reading the story before a client call is not the same job as checking 300 dates against the bundle, or working out how long the other side sat on a notice. Each task has a view that suits it.
The question that decides it: are you reading the story, looking at the timing, or checking the detail?
Switch the view
Open the timeline. The switcher at the top of the timeline has three views: Linear, Relative and Table.
Choose Linear to read the chronology as a story. The events follow each other in date order, evenly spaced, so a dense week and a quiet year take up the same room. This is the view for walking someone through what happened.
Choose Relative to see the timing. Each event sits at its date on a scale, so the reader sees how close together things happened and where nothing did. Swimlanes and the zoom between years and hours are in this view; see see the timing of the dispute and show each party's side in swimlanes.
Choose Table to check and correct. Each event is a row, with its dates, title, description, notes, documents, people and tags in columns, so you can go through the chronology line by line and change many events at once.
The view only changes how the events are drawn. The events themselves stay as they are, and a filter you have set stays on when you switch.
Which view for which task
| The task | View |
|---|---|
| Reading the chronology before a meeting or a hearing | Linear |
| Telling the story to a client or to counsel on screen | Linear |
| Showing delay, gaps, or what happened in the same week | Relative |
| Setting out each party's events side by side | Relative, with swimlanes |
| Checking dates and titles against the documents | Table |
| Adding tags, people or documents to many events | Table |
Set the display
Click Settings (the cog in the toolbar). What you can change depends on the view you are in.
- Compact mode (linear and relative views) shows each event as a short card with its title and tags, and leaves the description, people and documents off the card. Hover over the information icon on a card to read the whole event. Use it when the chronology is long and you need to see more of it at once. A PDF export follows this setting.
- Show grid (relative view) shows or hides the background grid. Keep it while arranging the chronology, or switch it off for a client call or hearing. The grid stays out of PDF exports and snippets.
- Swimlane borders (relative view) sets the outline of every lane to No border, Solid, Dashed, Dotted or Double. No border keeps the coloured bands. The chosen border also appears in a relative PDF; see show each party's side in swimlanes.
- Collapse timeline (linear view) brings events that share a date together at one point on the line, so a day with five letters takes one place instead of five. Switch it off again with Expand timeline.
- Placement of events (relative view) puts the event cards Above or Below the date line, or lets Juristic choose with Auto.
- Row colours (table view) colours each row in its event's background and text colours, so colour-coded events stand out in the table too.
- Use Date format to choose the format the reader expects, and Date font size to make the dates readable on screen. Point at each drop-down to see its label. The size is not used in the table view.
- Bold dates, the B button beside Date font size, makes every event's date bold in the linear and relative views. Use it when the dates need to stand out during a presentation; click it again to turn it off. It is disabled in the table view.
Collapse, placement, date format, date size, bold dates, grid visibility and swimlane borders are saved with the timeline, so they change it for everyone who opens it. People already viewing it see bold date, grid and border changes live. Only people who can edit the timeline can change these settings.
Tips from practice
- The timeline remembers your view. It opens in the view you chose last in this browser. Until you have chosen one, it opens in your firm's default view, which your admins set; see give timelines the firm's look.
- Check in the table, present in the timeline. Correct dates and titles in Table, then switch back to Linear or Relative to see the result. Nothing is lost between views.
- The view does not decide the export. When you export, you choose the layout again, so you can work in the table and still send a linear or relative PDF; see present the case chronology.
Next: tag events by issue, so you can see which events go to which part of the case.