Electronic How To

CM/ECF Help Desk:
Phone: (866) 236-5100 or (509) 458-3410
Email: ecfinfo@waed.uscourts.gov

Beginning January 25, 2021 the Eastern District of Washington will upgrade to the NextGen CM/ECF system that will examine PDF files prior to filing them to a case within the system. It is imperative that attorneys begin to follow the guidelines listed below to ensure that documents they are filing in ECF are not rejected by the system.

PDFs with the following content WILL BE REJECTED:

Does not comply with PDF format standards
Contains JavaScript
Encrypted or password-protected
Contains scripts which can launch an external application
Contains internal attachments
Contains audio and video content
Created with Mac OS X using a fillable form in the Safari browser
Created with Mac OS X using MS Word and selecting the option, “Best for printing”

PDFs with the following content WILL BE ACCEPTED:

Contains hyperlinks to external web sites
Meets the PDF-A standard
Contains optical character recognition (OCR) meta-data
Comprised of scanned documents
Created with Mac OS X using a fillable form in the Chrome browser
Created with Mac OS X using MS Word and selecting the option, “Best for Electronic Distribution”

***The simplest way to address most PDF upload rejections is to flatten the PDF and then upload it into CM/ECF.*** Those steps are as follows:

Open your PDF in Adobe Acrobat or another tool.
Print the PDF file to your PDF printer (File>Print>select Adobe PDF or another PDF printer listed in the drop-down list).
Save the printed PDF and upload into CM/ECF.

Electronic filing modules, guides, references and resources can be found below.

Attorney Guide to Opening a Civil Case

Attorney's Guide to Opening a Civil Case

Electronic Filing References

ECF Administrative Procedures Updated March 13, 2023

Electronic Case Filing User Manual Updated April 16, 2021

ECF Checklist

Electronic Case File Access and Privacy

Civil Case Opening Checklist (PDF)

Entering Party Names (PDF)

Creating Cross-Document Hyperlinks

Redacting Documents