ERA (Electronic Revision and Approval) for Microsoft Word ($149) lets you electronically approve any Word document by signing your name using a normal ballpoint pen and a pressure-sensitive signature pad. From Silanis Technology (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), ERA provides the electronic signature as a visual clue to let oth-ers know that a drawing was approved. AutoCAD, however, does not make the signature part of the drawing, eliminating the threat of someone's copying or altering the signature. ERA can verify a document's integrity by ensuring that it has not changed since a previous approval. Encrypted copy protection shields the signature from tampering.

Phone: (514) 369-4161.

Are you looking for forms, databases, that kind of thing?

If you are, I know of lots of places where you can buy this kind of thing, but it's not cheap, and I doubt if you'll find anything you would be able to use for free or shareware.

There's a lot of work that goes into making this kind of thing, I know because I've done it.

If you don't want to pay for it, I would suggest getting out the books and learning how to do it yourself. But on the other hand, why bother? No one will appreciate the effort you put into trying to make your work better, and they probably want to pay you less (figureing anyone dumb enough to work that hard for nothing will work for anything they're offered).

Your best bet is to just stick to the hand written method and let the secretaries deal with it. That's what they get over paid for and if the company wants it typed let them pay the money for the program (and the computer for that matter) to do it with.