The American Institute of Architects, which has published contract documents since 1888, has released an updated version of its contract document software. The 75 available contracts and administrative forms use a Microsoft Word platform and do not require collaborators to own special software.

Dialog boxes ask a series of questions, and the user's answers automatically fill in blanks and are stored for future documents. Users can edit with familiar Word functions. Other improvements from older AIA versions include a draft watermark that appears on every page of a draft document and an "additions and deletions" report in final documents that captures all changes from standard AIA text. Final documents also can be created and archived as read-only PDFs.

Visit www.aia.org for details and to order.