Introducing Crosswalk® for Microsoft Word®
On Oct. 13, at its national conference in Denver, Colorado, the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) formally launched its first-ever end-user software, Crosswalk® for Microsoft Word.® The product, a user-friendly add-in for Word, promises to make construction planning more accurate, convenient, and efficient.
The product places CSI’s core library of construction standards, MasterFormat,® UniFormat,® and OmniClass® directly into Microsoft Word, allowing users to search numbers and titles across each of these standards, saving them countless hours and avoiding costly inaccuracies.
“Until now, our customers depended on a printed book or a massive PDF to do their project classifications,” explains Hugh Seaton, who has led the design and development of the add-in. “But now, with Crosswalk for Microsoft Word, construction professionals can access CSI standards directly inside their daily workflow.”
Crosswalk has, for years, provided CSI standards and classifications via enterprise-level software integrations. Many architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) professionals are already familiar with Crosswalk because it is the application programming interface (API) that connects their design/planning software with the core CSI library.
However, Crosswalk for Microsoft Word is the first out-of-the-box, turnkey solution that does not require custom development or integrations.
Users simply buy the product license, download the add-in, enter their access key, and the add-in appears every time they open Word, making it easy to find the correct classification and drop it directly into the planning document. It also makes searching partial numbers and titles easy as the search function returns all related terms; the Crosswalk function can also be used to translate a number or title between standards. The tool—the first-time individual end-users can get all three of CSI’s core standards in a single place—will revolutionize how users interact with them.
“We don’t say ‘game-changer’ too often. But this product is going to change the game,” says Mark Dorsey, CEO of CSI. “We’ve been publishing MasterFormat since the late 1960s. Today, it leaps into the future. Crosswalk for Microsoft Word makes our classifications instantly findable and usable. And it’s further proof CSI is laser-focused on identifying what our members need and then creating and delivering it to them.”
With Crosswalk for Microsoft Word, navigating between multiple standards within planning documents streamlines project collaboration and reduces time spent on manually translating project information from MasterFormat to UniFormat, for example. No matter what standard the client, consultant, or team is working with, AEC professionals can rise to any occasion with Crosswalk for Microsoft Word.
It is available for purchase from the Crosswalk website at www.crosswalk.biz/crosswalk-for-microsoft-word. At launch, the product will be available for $495/year for CSI members and $795/year for non-members.
“This is just the beginning,” Dorsey explains. “We’re thrilled to make this product for construction and design professionals. We’re already working to develop other consumer-friendly products, including integrations with other popular productivity software. You’ll be hearing
a lot more about Crosswalk in the coming months
and years.”
