Court Legal Transcript Template

Question

I'm trying to reproduce a court transcript. I find no packages or other examples that perform this exactly. Has anyone worked on this?

A visual example of how these transcripts look is attached.

• There should be continuous numbered lines with a vertical rule.
• New speakers are indented and in all caps.

Would be great if there was some code so that you could just write \speaker{Admiral Smith} and have the formatting performed automatically.

As you can see, I'm having trouble here:

    \documentclass[hidelinks, 12pt]{article} % Uses 10pt

    \newcommand{\Title}{\textbf{Title}}    

    \usepackage{dashrule}

    \usepackage{color,graphicx, url}

    \usepackage{wallpaper}
    \usepackage{soul}
    \usepackage{pifont}

    \usepackage{fontspec}
    \usepackage{xunicode} 

    %%%%%%% FONTS

    \setmainfont[Mapping=tex-text]{Courier} 
    \newfontfamily\headerfont{Courier}

    %%%% Geometry

    \usepackage{geometry}
    \geometry{
    letterpaper, 
    top=.7in,
    left=1in,
    right=1in,
    bottom=1in,
    }

    \begin{document}
    \rule[\dimexpr \topskip-\textheight]{1pt}{\textheight}\hfill
    \thispagestyle{empty}

    THE PRESIDENT: Hello Admiral! How's the steam today?

    ADMIRAL SMITH: ... Uh, yes sir. We're really loving the steam 
    today.


    \end{document}

Answer 1

More macros can be added, depending on the needs:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{geometry,eso-pic,fancyhdr}
\geometry{
  paper = letterpaper, 
  hmargin = 1.5in,
  vmargin = 1in
}
\usepackage[pagewise]{lineno}
\linenumbers % Add line numbers to document
\setlength{\linenumbersep}{1in}% Move line numbers away from text
\renewcommand{\linenumberfont}{\normalsize\ttfamily}

% Add rules to outside of text block
\AddToShipoutPictureBG{%
  \AtTextLowerLeft{%
    % Left rule
    \makebox[0pt][r]{\rule[-.5\paperheight]{.4pt}{2\paperheight}\hspace{0.8in}}%
  }%
  \AtTextLowerLeft{%
    % Right rule
    \hspace*{\textwidth}%
    \makebox[0pt][l]{\hspace{0.4in}\rule[-.5\paperheight]{.4pt}{2\paperheight}}%
  }%
}

\fancyhf{}% Clear header/footer
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}% Remove header rule
% \renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt}% Remove footer rule (default)
\fancyfoot[R]{\ttfamily\thepage}
\pagestyle{fancy}

\AtBeginDocument{%
  \ttfamily
  \thispagestyle{fancy}
  \raggedright
  \setlength{\parindent}{15pt}
  \setlength{\parskip}{\smallskipamount}
}
\newcommand{\speaker}[1]{%
  \par\MakeUppercase{#1}:~\ignorespaces
}

\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}

\speaker{The President}
Hello Admiral! How's the steam today?

\speaker{Admiral Smith}
\ldots Uh, yes sir. We're really loving the steam today.

\lipsum[1-2]

\speaker{Harry Potter}
\lipsum[3-7]

\end{document}

Answer 2

Here's an other approach, with a different focus.

1. Key is using macros (\newcommand) to abbreviate the people, roles etc. involved. I could have reused Werner's \speaker solution, but this way it's simple enough. Kindly watch the local overwrite of \parindent in \dscr. If you need actions before or after the text, replace by a \newenvironment.

% ~~~ macros ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
\newcommand\crt[1]{THE COURT:\ #1}
\newcommand\dfa[1]{DEFENDANT ALLEN:\ #1}
\newcommand\aln[1]{MR. ALLEN:\ #1}
\newcommand\dscr[1]{{\parindent0pt[#1]}}

2. The font size may or may not be correct with the route chosen.

3. Font of linenumbers needed a slight adjustment wrt. Werner's solution:

\renewcommand{\linenumberfont}{\normalfont}

4. To check correctness of pagewise numbering, which seem to depend on the previous \renewcommand, I copied some text for the second page.

5. The rest, global layout, headers and footers, vertical rules are already addressed either by the OP or by Werner's answer. So I dropped those to better show the new aspect of using abbreviations.

\documentclass[12pt]{article}

% ~~~ COURIER ~~~~~~~~~~~~
\usepackage{courier}
\renewcommand{\rmdefault}{\ttdefault}

% ~~~ line numbers ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
%     adapted from Werners answer https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/461446/245790
\usepackage[pagewise]{lineno}
\linenumbers % Add line numbers to document
\setlength{\linenumbersep}{1in}% Move line numbers away from text
\renewcommand{\linenumberfont}{\normalfont}

% ~~~ macros ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
\newcommand\crt[1]{THE COURT:\ #1}
\newcommand\dfa[1]{DEFENDANT ALLEN:\ #1}
\newcommand\aln[1]{MR. ALLEN:\ #1}
\newcommand\dscr[1]{{\parindent0pt[#1]}}

% ~~~ layout ~~~
\parindent24pt%         hanging indent
\linespread{2.33}%      factor for line separations

% ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
\begin{document}
    \dscr{The Court advises defendant reagarding representation by the public defender on defendant's oral motion to fire his assigned \dots}

    \crt{Okay. Mr.-Mr. Allen?}
        
    \dfa{Right.}

    \crt{I believe that-Ibelieve your cas is going to be \dots
    
    Okay. Do you understand that?}
    
    \aln{Yes. Uh-}
    
    \crt{Okay. I tell you if you needed to tell me something, I want-I'll let you come up here to the podium so you \dots}

    \dscr{The defendant approached the podium.}
    
    \newpage%   just for checking purposes
    
    \crt{Okay. Mr.-Mr. Allen?}
        
    \dfa{Right.}

    \crt{I believe that-Ibelieve your cas is going to be \dots
    
    Okay. Do you understand that?}
    
    \aln{Yes. Uh-}
    
    \crt{Okay. I tell you if you needed to tell me something, I want \dots}

    \dscr{The defendant approached the podium.} 
    
\end{document}