It also includes placeholders where Form entry answers will go.
Want to jump straight into the deep end? Take a look at our “kitchen sink” template file attached at the bottom of this article.
Adding a Template to a Form
- Identify the Form requiring a custom output template.
If you don’t already have a form, you can quickly create it using the Form Screen Designer. - Create a new or use an existing Word file.
If you already have Word files you’ve been printing to use as data capture Forms, these can easily be reused as a template. - Go through your Word template and insert placeholders wherever you want the system to insert answers from data entries of your chosen Form.
Placeholders are entered using the unique data name of the Form field, wrapped in curly braces – e.g. {{dataname}}So, for example, if your Form has a field with the data name of “LastName”, then you can instruct the system to inject the answer for this field wherever the placeholder {{LastName}} appears. The system will honor any formatting (font, color, highlighting, size, etc.) you apply to the placeholder and apply it to the answer value inserted. - Once you have inserted all the placeholders needed, upload the Word template file to your Form screen.
There are two places where you can add a template to a Form:
- Form Level
If you add a template at this level, you are instructing the system to use this template as the default whenever a PDF is generated.
Upload your template using the “Word Template” field in your Form’s Settings page.
- Connector Level
This template is specific to one or more Connectors but should not be used as a default. Upload your template using the “add data template” link on the appropriate Connectors in your Form’s Connectors page.
Uploading a template also makes new export options available in the Data area.
Testing Your Templates
Find a data entry from the form whose data you would like to output in a template. Hover over that row and click the Export Data option to generate a file output.
A pop-up will allow you to select a built-in or custom template associated with the form.
Troubleshooting / Common Issues
In this section, we will try to provide solutions and workarounds for known issues you may encounter when working with Word templates.
Unable to open generated .docx file output
If your generated docx output does not open in Word and gives errors such as “unreadable content” or “file is corrupt and cannot be opened“, the issue is likely the .docx template used in your Word data template.
It usually means that your Word document is linked under the hood to an inaccessible .docx file (usually located on your PC or a network drive).
Because this linked .docx file is not available to the Appenate platform when it generates the file output, the system throws this error to alert you of the missing data.
To fix this issue, you must clear the .docx template of your Word file. This will let the Word file default to the standard “Normal” .docx template.
Follow the steps below to clear the problem .docx template:
- In MS Word, display the Developer tab in the Word ribbon and navigate to the Developer tab.
- Click the Document Template tool. Word displays the Templates and Add-Ins dialog box.
- Clear any text found in the Document Template field (even if it says “Normal”).
- Click OK to reset the Word doc to have no required/attached .docx.
- Close the dialog and save your Word template.
Merging Tables Vertically
If you’re attempting to use a template that has table cells merged vertically, please note that this can cause “null ref” errors when our platform tries to use that template to render your data output. The only solution in this instance is to redesign your template so that it does not make use of any vertically merged table cells.
Output from the template results in a very large file
When exporting data entries that result in very large PDF outputs, check the following:
- Ensure that your Word doc does not embed all fonts within the document. In Microsoft Word, do the following: Go to File > Options > Save > (Uncheck) Embed fonts in the file
- Ensure that the “High-Resolution Images” option is not checked in your form or connector settings.
- Ensure that the data entry you are exporting does not have excessive images.
Example Template – “Kitchen Sink”
If you’re the kind of person who likes to jump straight into the deep end, then take a look at the attached docx file below 
This is a “kitchen sink” example of most of our functionality for Word data templates.
We strongly suggest you read the other topics in this section to understand how the functionality in the example template works.