Chancery and Commercial Court Bundle Requirements (Chancery Guide 2022, Commercial Court Guide 11th ed)
These two guides use the same bundle wording. Two rules are unique to them and catch people out. Metadata must be removed — no other regime says so. And where a bundle is split across more than one PDF, pagination begins afresh in each file, which is the precise opposite of the rule everywhere else.
Governing document
Chancery Guide 2022 (Business and Property Courts)
Chancery Division · 2022, incorporating the 5th update (September 2025)
Chancery Guide 2022 (Business and Property Courts) (2022, incorporating the 5th update (September 2025))
Also relevant: The Commercial Court Guide (11th edition) (11th edition, revised July 2023)
Chancery Guide 2022 (Business and Property Courts) (2022, incorporating the 5th update (September 2025))
Also relevant: The Commercial Court Guide (11th edition) (11th edition, revised July 2023)
Checked against the published source on 15 August 2026.
The numbers, in one place
| Page limit | None Neither guide sets a page cap. |
| Resolution | not greater than 300 dpi A ceiling only. |
| Pagination | Restarts afresh in each split file Chancery Guide 2022 ch 21 para 12(j)(ii): where a hearing bundle is split across more than one PDF, "the pagination must begin afresh in each file". The Commercial Court Guide says pagination "should begin afresh at the beginning of each bundle". A second file that starts at page 1 is correct here and wrong in the Administrative Court. |
| Filename must contain | short case name, content indication, bundle number or letter, hearing date (Chancery) |
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Every rule, in the source's own words
Quotations below are verbatim. Where a rule is best practice carried from another regime rather than a requirement of the governing document, it says so in the row.
| Requirement | What the rule actually says | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Combined into one PDF where possible should |
“where possible, the hearing bundles other than the core bundle and the authorities bundle(s) should be combined into one .pdf file, but in larger cases it may be sensible to combine separate categories of bundle into separate .pdf files” | Chancery Guide ch 21 para 12(a) Chancery Guide 2022 (Business and Property Courts) (2022, incorporating the 5th update (September 2025)) |
| Filename: case name, content, bundle letter should |
“the file name for each .pdf file containing or constituting a bundle or bundles should contain the Claim No., a short version of the name of the case, and an indication of the number/letter of the bundle(s), e.g. "Bundle A (CL-2022-000111, Smith v Bloggs)"” The Chancery Guide adds that the filename should end with the hearing date. |
Commercial Court Guide para 7(iii) The Commercial Court Guide (11th edition) (11th edition, revised July 2023) |
| Bookmarks for all significant documents and sections should |
“all significant documents and all sections in electronic bundles should be bookmarked for ease of navigation, with an appropriate description as the bookmark. The bookmark should contain the page number of the document” | Chancery Guide ch 21 para 12(d) Chancery Guide 2022 (Business and Property Courts) (2022, incorporating the 5th update (September 2025)) |
| Bookmark titles carry page numbers should |
“The bookmark should contain the page number of the document” | Chancery Guide ch 21 para 12(d) Chancery Guide 2022 (Business and Property Courts) (2022, incorporating the 5th update (September 2025)) |
| Index hyperlinked if possible should |
“a separate index or table of contents for the hearing bundles should also be provided, if possible hyperlinked to the indexed documents” "If possible" — softer than the Administrative Court's mandatory hyperlinked index. |
Chancery Guide ch 21 para 12(f) Chancery Guide 2022 (Business and Property Courts) (2022, incorporating the 5th update (September 2025)) |
| Pagination corresponds to the PDF pages should |
“the pagination of electronic bundles must correspond to the pages of the .pdf file. … every page in the electronic bundle, including any title page, index or contents page, must be paginated” | Chancery Guide ch 21 para 12(j) Chancery Guide 2022 (Business and Property Courts) (2022, incorporating the 5th update (September 2025)) |
| Split files restart pagination check yourself |
“where the hearing bundle has been split into more than one .pdf file (which should be avoided to the extent possible …), the pagination must begin afresh in each file” Reported, never failed. We are looking at one file and cannot tell whether it is volume one or volume three. |
Chancery Guide ch 21 para 12(j)(ii) Chancery Guide 2022 (Business and Property Courts) (2022, incorporating the 5th update (September 2025)) |
| OCR so the text reads as text should |
“electronic documents, where possible, should be the subject of OCR (optical character recognition) to ensure that the text in the documents can be read as text and the document is word-searchable” | Chancery Guide ch 21 para 13(a) Chancery Guide 2022 (Business and Property Courts) (2022, incorporating the 5th update (September 2025)) |
| Portrait, landscape readable with a 90-degree clockwise rotation should |
“documents should generally appear in portrait mode. Where there are only occasional documents that in the original were in landscape they should be oriented in the bundle in portrait but so as to be capable of being read with a 90-degree rotation clockwise.” | Chancery Guide ch 21 para 13(b) Chancery Guide 2022 (Business and Property Courts) (2022, incorporating the 5th update (September 2025)) |
| Default view 100 per cent should |
“the default view for all pages in electronic bundles should be 100 per cent” | Chancery Guide ch 21 para 13(d) Chancery Guide 2022 (Business and Property Courts) (2022, incorporating the 5th update (September 2025)) |
| Metadata removed should |
“meta data in electronic documents should be removed” The Commercial Court wording is "personal and meta data should be removed". No other regime asks for this. |
Chancery Guide ch 21 para 13(e); Commercial Court Guide para 8(iv) Chancery Guide 2022 (Business and Property Courts) (2022, incorporating the 5th update (September 2025)) |
| Scans not greater than 300 dpi should |
“if practicable scanned document resolution should not be greater than 300 dpi to avoid slow scrolling or rendering” | Chancery Guide ch 21 para 13(f) Chancery Guide 2022 (Business and Property Courts) (2022, incorporating the 5th update (September 2025)) |
| No duplicate documents check yourself |
“no more than one copy of any one document should be included, unless there is good reason for doing otherwise” | Chancery Guide ch 21 para 12(g) Chancery Guide 2022 (Business and Property Courts) (2022, incorporating the 5th update (September 2025)) |
Where this court differs from the others
This is the part that causes wasted work: a bundle built correctly for one court can breach the rules of another. Applying the wrong court's rulebook is the most common way a compliant bundle gets called non-compliant.
Index links
| Family (PD27A) | Index entries must be "added to" the indexed document. Hyperlinking is best practice carried from other regimes, not an express PD27A requirement. |
| Administrative Court, King's Bench (10.21) | Hyperlinked index is mandatory. |
| Court of Appeal | Hyperlinks OR bookmarks, "as appropriate". |
| Chancery, Commercial | Hyperlinked "if possible". |
| SEND Tribunal | Hyperlinks "ideally". |
| Employment Tribunal | Index hyperlinked at the front, OR supplied as a separate PDF. |
Pagination
| Financial remedy | Arabic, continuous, and the computer numbering must match the PDF page labels. |
| Family, not financial remedy | Bates numbering: A1, A2 … B1, B2 … by section. |
| Employment Tribunal, SEND Tribunal | Sequential Arabic from 1. Sections must NOT be separately numbered. |
| Chancery, Commercial | Where a bundle is split across files, pagination begins afresh in each file. |
| Administrative Court, King's Bench | First page of the PDF is page 1, index pages included. |
Bookmark density
| Everywhere except the Employment Tribunal | All significant documents and all sections. |
| Employment Tribunal | Significant documents only — "Do not bookmark every single document". |
Resolution
| Nearly all of the regimes on this page | Not greater than 300 dpi — a ceiling only. |
| Administrative Court, King's Bench (10.21) | About 200 to 300 dpi — a floor as well as a ceiling. |
Page and size caps
| Family, financial remedy | 350 pages, court permission to exceed. In financial remedy, position statements and composite documents do not count towards it. |
| Court of Appeal | 350 pages on the supplementary bundle; 50MB split threshold. |
| Administrative Court, criminal | 20mb, with a core bundle above it. Core bundle required over 400 pages (PD 54A 16). |
| SEND Tribunal | Core bundle 100 pages; EHC plan part 150; further caps by appeal type. |
| Chancery, Commercial, King's Bench | No page cap. |
What actually happened when bundles went wrong
Go Capital Ltd v Phull [2020] EWHC 1235 (Ch) — Judicial criticism of the bundle
The defect list that still gets cited: no selectable text, no bookmarks, multiple competing page numbers, missing pages, and two indexes that were not hyperlinked.
Being straight about this: No reported case imposes wasted costs solely for bundle defects. The only money outcome we can point to is Y v X (Costs) [2026] EWFC 35 (B), where bundle preparation fees were disallowed. None of these outcomes is a fine. Courts do not fine parties for bundle format. Every case above pre-dates the Practice Direction 27A that came into force on 2 March 2026. As at 15 August 2026 there is no reported judgment under the new PD27A. The underlying duties are materially similar, but nobody can yet cite a decision on the new wording.
What we cannot tell you
- No Civil Procedure Rule anywhere mandates bookmarks, OCR or hyperlinks in an electronic civil bundle. Those requirements come from judicial guidance and court guides, which a judge may vary in your case.
- The enacted PD27A says index entries must be "added to" the indexed document, not "hyperlinked to". We treat hyperlinking as best practice for family bundles and label it as such. Published commentary usually says "hyperlinked" because it is quoting the 2021 guidance, which no longer applies to family proceedings.
- PD27A 4.8 promises further HMCTS guidance on bundles. As at 15 August 2026 it has not been published.
- The 50MB figure in the Court of Appeal and King's Bench guides descends from the revoked PD 51O. Treat it as guide-level practice, not law. CPR PD 5C sets a 100MB electronic filing cap and carves bundles out of the pilot.
- Employment Tribunal Presidential Guidance is something a tribunal must have regard to. It does not bind in the way a practice direction does.
- This tool checks the format of a PDF. It cannot tell you whether a document belongs in the bundle, whether a bookmark description is good enough, or whether your case is ready. Those are judgement calls and we report them as such.
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Other courts
FamilyFPR Practice Direction 27AFinancial remedyFPR Practice Direction 27AAdministrative CourtAdministrative CourtCourt of AppealCourt of Appeal (Civil Division) Guide 2025King's BenchThe King's Bench Guide 2025Employment TribunalPresidential GuidanceSEND TribunalPractice Direction No 1 of 2025CriminalCriminal Practice Directions 2023, Part 12General civilGeneral guidance on electronic court bundles
This is a format check against published court rules. It is not legal advice, it does not tell you whether your case is ready, and no outcome is guaranteed. The rules are subject to any direction a judge gives in your own case. Rules and guides are updated by the courts without notice; this page records the position as at 15 August 2026 and links to every source so you can check it yourself.