Template designer

The template designer builds a template the way you build a page: drag a heading, a table of details, a table of line items, a picture or a QR code onto the page, and pick the fields that go in them. When you publish, AutomaDoc turns the design into an ordinary Word template, so generation, PDF, attachments, webhooks and approvals all work exactly as they do with a template you uploaded.

Open the designer

From a Base template: in the AutomaDoc extension, open the template’s settings and click Design in browser. The designer opens in a new window in the Company Portal, with your table’s fields already loaded. If a record is selected in the Base when you click, it is used for Preview with real data.

From an approval template: in the Company Portal, open Approvals, choose the template, and click Design visually next to the template file. The approval form’s fields are read from Lark every time you open the designer.

You need editor access to the Base for a Base template, and to be a Lark app admin for an approval template, the same rights as uploading a template file.

Start a design

The first time, choose how to start:

From your fields: every field laid out in tables, each list (linked records, an approval’s detail table) as a line-item table. The same starting point as Auto Generate in the extension (Generate starter template for an approval), but as blocks you can rearrange.
Blank page: start from nothing.
A layout: an invoice, a quotation, a delivery note or an approval form. The fields are left open for you to choose; the designer shows each one as an amber Choose field until you do.

Build the page

The window has three parts: blocks and fields on the left, the page in the middle, and the properties of whatever you selected on the right. On a small screen the side panels open from the buttons at the ends of the toolbar.

Block	What it does
Heading	A title, in three sizes.
Text	Paragraphs with fields in them.
Details table	Labels and values in rows, one or two pairs to a row: the usual top of a form.
Line items	A table with one row for each item of a list, with an optional total row.
List	The values of a multi-value field (linked records, a multi-select) as bullets, one per line, or on one line with a separator.
Picture	A picture from an attachment field, fitted into a box you size in millimetres.
QR code, Barcode	A code made from a field’s value.
Stamp	Your company chop or seal, floating over the page wherever you drag it.
Signature	A box where someone signs, used by e-signature. Offered on a Base template that makes one document per record.
Columns	Two or three columns side by side, each holding its own blocks.
Condition	Blocks that print only when a field has a value, or a particular value.
Divider, Spacer, Page break	A line, empty space, or a new page.

Drag a block onto the page, or click it to add it below the selected block. Drag the handle at the left of a block to move it.

Fields in text

Click on the page and type. Insert field in the toolbar (or a field in the Fields tab) puts a field where the cursor is, as a blue chip. Click a chip to choose how it prints: as a number with decimals, a currency, a percentage, a date in a format you pick, in upper or lower case, and what to print if it is empty. These are the same filters you can type in Word.

Line items and totals

Choose the list in the properties panel; the first columns are filled in for you. For each column choose the field, the heading, the width and the alignment, and tick Add up this column in the total row to total it. You can also show only some rows, sort them, and limit how many are printed. The total then adds up exactly the rows the table prints.

Tables repeat their header row at the top of every page they run onto; turn Repeat the header row on every page off if you do not want that.

Lists and stamps

A List prints the values of a field that holds several: pick the field and, for linked records, which of their fields to print. Choose Bullets, Lines or One line (with the separator you type), and Each value once to drop repeats.

A Stamp is a fixed picture (a company chop, a seal, a “Paid” mark) printed on every document. Choose a PNG or JPEG picture (a PNG with a transparent background looks best), then drag it on the page to where it should sit: over a signature line, say. It floats over the text and takes no room of its own; turn on Behind the text to put it underneath instead.

Hide when empty

Headings, text, pictures, line-item tables and lists can be left out of a document when their field is empty: turn on Hide when empty. A text block is hidden when the first field in it is empty: a “Notes: …” line disappears when there are no notes, and a table of items disappears when there are none. It cannot be used on a block inside a condition.

A table whose rows are all left out by Only some rows still prints its header row: hiding looks at the whole list, not at the rows that pass the filter.

Header, footer and page

The header and footer at the top and bottom of the page repeat on every page; they take text, pictures, columns and dividers, and the toolbar offers a page number and page count while you edit them. Click an empty part of the page for the page settings: paper size, orientation, margins, font, text size and an accent color used for headings and table headers.

Keyboard

Keys	Does
Tab, ↑, ↓	Move between blocks
Enter / Esc	Go into a block to edit it / back out to the block
Alt + ↑ / ↓	Move the selected block up or down, into and out of columns and conditions
Delete	Delete the selected block
Ctrl + D	Duplicate the selected block
Ctrl + Z, Ctrl + Shift + Z	Undo, redo
Ctrl + B, I, U	Bold, italic, underline

Save and publish

Your design is saved as you work. It does not change the template until you click Publish: until then, documents are still generated from the current file.

Publish turns the design into the template’s Word file. If something is not finished (a field not chosen, a table with no list), Publish stays unavailable and the button beside it says how many things to fix; click it, then click each one to go to its block. For an approval template, publishing replaces the file, so the template goes back to Draft until you generate a test document and go live again, as with any new file.

A design is always a Word template. If the template is currently an Excel or PowerPoint file, the designer says so, and Publish asks before it replaces that file with a Word one. Documents made from the template are then Word files (or PDF), no longer Excel or PowerPoint.

Preview with real data generates one document from the published template and opens it: from the selected record for a Base template, or from a recent request you pick for an approval template. It is a test: nothing is written back to the record (no attachment, no status field), no webhook is called, and an approval preview is never sent to anyone. The first 20 tests each day (previews and approval tests together) are free; after that a preview counts as one document, and the designer says so. A free preview has a large PREVIEW · AutomaDoc watermark across every page, so generate the document itself for a clean copy. With Pro a preview always costs nothing, and so does a Base template’s preview by someone with a seat. A Base template’s preview is for its owner or an app admin, since it reads the record with the owner’s access.

Finishing in Word

The designer covers the common business form. What it cannot express (text boxes, merged cells, a page in a different orientation) you finish in Word: publish, click Download .docx, edit, and upload the file as usual.

After that, the designer tells you the template file was changed outside it. You can keep designing from your last design, but publishing again replaces the uploaded file, including your Word edits.