Help guides

Templates

A template is a document you send often, set up once: its fields placed, each signer’s role set, and variables for the details that change each time, such as a name, an address or a price. Sending it then takes a couple of clicks.

Templates come with every plan. Free includes 2 templates, archived ones included; Solo, Team and Scale have no limit. Everyone in a workspace shares its templates. On Solo and up, a template made from a Word file keeps its Word file, so its wording can be edited in the browser: see Word templates.

New to templates? Templates and the document editor, start to finish walks through the whole journey, from choosing where to start to sending.

Create a template

1. Open Templates and choose + New template. Name it, and choose Create & edit.
2. Details & documents. Add a description if you like, the envelope subject and message your signers will see, and the documents: upload them, choose + Add blank document, or, on Solo and up, choose Write a document to write one in the browser. A PDF or a picture becomes fixed pages; on Solo and up a Word file stays a Word file (below), and on Free it’s converted to a PDF. Choose Next: Recipients.
3. Recipients & variables. Add a recipient slot for each person who signs or is copied in. For each, choose the role (see Recipient roles), and give it a Role label such as “Tenant” or “Employee”. A default name and email are optional: leave them blank to fill in each time. Tick Optional for someone you include only some of the time. Then add the template’s variables (below), and, on Solo and up, its deadline, reminders and completion email. Choose Next: Place fields.
4. Place fields for each slot, as you would for an envelope. A PDF with form fields of its own can bring them in with Import form fields. A Word document’s fields come from its wording, so they’re set up here but placed with Edit wording.
5. Choose Save & activate. The template moves to Active, ready to use.

Save on any step keeps your work; until it’s activated, a template waits under Drafts. To be activated, a template needs a document, someone who signs, and a Signature or Approve / Decline field for each person who signs.

Other ways to start one

• From an envelope you’ve already set up: open it under Send & Sign and choose Save as template.
• On Solo and up, from the Template library: starting templates with fields already placed. Each is a Word document, so you can change its wording with Edit wording: its details are variables, and some of its clauses are optional, for you to keep or leave out each time you use it. A note in square brackets at the top says it’s a starting template, not legal advice: delete it before you send. Until you do, Use template and the envelope remind you. Wording that a regulation sets word for word, such as a warning a state requires in a waiver, is locked, so it can’t be typed over. Each template’s card says where its words came from, its content date and what it isn’t suitable for, with Report a problem to tell us about one. A template adapted from someone else’s material credits each source in their own words, with links to the source and its licence. Where the law sets the form to use, such as a residential tenancy agreement, the library has a card for the regulator’s own form instead of a template: Open the form opens the regulator’s page in a new tab and nothing is copied into your workspace. The card’s last line says what to do with the form: usually, upload it completed to send it for signing; for some, such as a statement you give an employee or a declaration signed while a witness watches, it says what’s different. The first time you take a template, tick I understand under the notice at the top of the library: they’re general starting drafts, not legal advice, and you check and change the wording before you use it. Choose Start session or Save as template: either way it becomes one of your templates. On the Free plan the library says it’s on Solo and up, with a link to the plans.
• Duplicate a template to make a variation of it, or Combine templates to make one from several, with slots of the same role and role label merged. The combined template starts as a draft. A combined template is a new one, so combining is on Solo and up: on Free, the 2 being combined already fill the allowance.

Variables

A variable is a placeholder in three pairs of braces, such as {{{tenant_name}}}, filled in each time the template is used. Its name can have the letters A to Z, numbers and underscores, with no spaces, up to 50 characters. In a PDF template, a placeholder with no variable of the same name stays on the page as typed, and nothing warns you, so check the names match. A Word template warns, and can’t be activated until they do.

1. Write the placeholder where the detail goes: in the document’s own text before you upload it, or in the subject, the message, a slot’s default name or email, a field’s label or a field’s default value.
2. Under Template variables, choose + Add variable and give it the same name.
3. Choose its type, and whether it must be filled in. Give it a default value if most sends use the same one.

Rich text, images and tables go on a line of their own in the document: put their placeholder on a line by itself.

In a PDF template, a picture goes at its placeholder, at most 8.5 cm wide and a third of the page tall, and is never made bigger. Nothing moves to make room, so leave space under it. A table that doesn’t fit goes on to pages added at the end of the document, with its headings again and a line saying where it continues, up to 2,000 rows and 100 added pages.

How values fit in a PDF template

In a PDF template, a value is written on top of a fixed page, so it has only the room its placeholder had. (In a Word template the sentence makes room: see Word templates.)

In a PDF template, rich text wraps to fit the width from its placeholder to the right margin. It has the room down the page to the next line of text or field below its placeholder, or to the bottom margin; one too long for that stops Create envelope (and that row of a bulk send), saying how many of its lines fit, before anything is made. Leave room under a rich-text placeholder for what it may hold.

In a PDF template, a text value is written where its placeholder is, in the same size, and nothing after it on the line moves to make room. So it has the space up to the next word on that line, or to the right margin. A value too long for that is written smaller to fit, down to about 70% of the size; one that still doesn’t fit stops Create envelope (and that row of a bulk send), saying which value and where, before anything is made. Put a placeholder for something that can be long, such as a name, an address or a fee, at the end of its line.

A value prints in a plain sans-serif font, in black, and in bold only if its line is bold, whatever the template’s own font, colour or italics. The right and bottom margins here are about 1.3 cm from the edge of the page.

In a PDF template, each placeholder is taken out of the page as its value is written in, so the signed copy doesn’t carry it. A few templates, made by programs that write their text in the PDF format’s built-in fonts (most often bold or italic Times), have their placeholders covered with white instead: the placeholder stays in the file’s text under its value, where copying or searching the text can find it. There’s no difference you can see or print, and nothing to do.

Rarely, a PDF names a font for its text without including it or saying how wide its letters are, so SignSwifly can’t tell where a placeholder in that font sits on its line: it says so under the document when you add the PDF, and Create envelope and bulk sends stop before anything is made, naming the placeholder, until you save the document as a PDF again (for example, print it to PDF) and add that copy in place of the old one.

Names in any language print as typed. A text value in the letters of Western European languages, accents and all (O’Brien, Zoë, Müller), prints exactly as it always has, in the same font and size, so a template that worked before fills the same. A value with any other letter (Παπάς, Иванов, 王小明, 김민준) prints as typed, the whole value in the same fonts as the fields and the certificate of a signed document, and the 70% rule measures it in those fonts. Their figures are a little wider, so a value like that can need a little more room. The exceptions are emoji and a few scripts there’s no font for yet, such as Myanmar, Khmer, Lao and Tibetan: each of those characters prints as its code, such as [U+1F600]. Rich text and tables in a PDF template still print only the letters of Western European languages: other letters are left out.

Word templates: edit the wording in the browser

On Solo and up, a Word file (.docx, .doc or .rtf) added to a template stays a Word file. Its wording can be changed in the browser, details are written into its sentences, and clauses can be made optional. Everyone in the workspace can edit it; the file as it was uploaded is kept until you choose Use as fixed PDF. A Word file is added as a fixed PDF instead, and the page says why, if it has text in a script SignSwifly can’t yet draw from a Word file, is past the document editor’s limits, or can’t be set up for editing. On the Free plan, a Word file added to a template is converted to a PDF, as on every plan before, and the Word items below show a padlock.

Edit wording

1. On the template’s Details & documents step, a Word document shows a Word badge. Open its menu and choose Edit wording; or choose Write a document to start a new, empty one. The document editor opens. It works much as Word does: headings, bold, italic and underline, lists, tables, pictures, headers and footers, and page numbers. See The document editor for how it works, and what it can’t keep from some Word files.
2. The template’s tools come first on its toolbar. Insert variable puts one of the template’s variables at the cursor as its placeholder, for example {{{employer_name}}}, kept together as one piece: its letters can’t be typed over, but it can be deleted whole. New variable makes one first. Signer field puts a signature, initials, date, name, text, tick box or other field for a signer at the cursor; Signature block puts a line to sign on, with “Signed by” and the signer’s role label, and the date, under it. Select some wording and choose Make optional to make it an optional clause: a phrase, whole paragraphs or a table cell, in the document or in its header or footer (not in a footnote or a text box). Whole paragraphs take in everything in them, a picture or a text box too. The dialog shows where the clause will start and end, by the first few words of each and their numbers, so you can see before you go on whether your selection runs into the next heading. With whole paragraphs, the heading just above them is offered too, never ticked: tick it if what you selected is all the wording under that heading, so a clause left out doesn’t leave its heading behind. Leave it unticked if the heading also covers wording you didn’t select. A heading here is a line in one of Word’s Heading styles, or a short line in bold. It isn’t offered when a picture or a text box sits between it and your selection, or in the heading’s own line. Undo takes the clause out of the wording again, and a clause you made new for it comes off the template too, unless you’ve saved it; then it goes at your next save. It stays while the template has another Word document that may use it. Redo puts both back.
3. Choose Save. Each field moves with its words, so changing a sentence never leaves a signature box floating. If someone else saved the wording while you had it open, your save is refused and says who; download yours as Word to keep it. A save that would take out a whole table, picture, text box, chart, footnote or the like asks first; changing the words never does. An optional clause on the template that no document’s wording has is listed under Worth a look after a save, on Place fields and when you activate the template, since the switch senders see for it would change nothing: make some wording optional with it, or remove it on the Recipients & variables step.

The document’s menu also offers Download Word (.docx), a Download PDF preview of how it will look with every clause in and the placeholders as typed, Go back to the uploaded file, which puts back the file as it was first uploaded, and Use as fixed PDF, which turns it into fixed pages for good: its fields stay where they are, as ordinary fields, and the Word file and the uploaded original are deleted. It can’t be done while the wording has optional clauses, or while a drop-down from a tag has no options yet.

Typing a field tag in Word yourself

A field can also be typed into the wording in Word before you upload, as a tag in two pairs of square brackets: [[Signature:employee]], [[Initials:employee]], [[DateSigned:employee]] or [[Text:employee]]. The word after the colon is the signer’s tag key, shown on their card on the Recipients & variables step once the template has a Word document (made from their label: “Employee” becomes employee, a second “Employee” employee_2). A key doesn’t change once given, and a label can’t be changed: to change one, remove the signer and add them again, which takes their tags out of the wording and gives them a key from the new label. So set the labels before you write the tags. Each tag becomes a field for that signer when the document is uploaded, and the tag itself disappears from the page.

Any kind of field can be a tag, such as [[SignerName:employee]], [[Checkbox:employee:agree]], or a radio button as [[Radio:employee:group:value]]. A second field of the same kind for the same signer needs a name of its own, such as [[Signature:employee:2]]. Tags go in the body of the document, not in a header, footer, text box or note.

Where the field lands: its box sits on the tag, with its bottom-left corner on the tag’s, and grows upwards from the tag’s line. A signature box is about three lines of text tall, so a tag typed on its own line straight under a heading covers the heading. Leave two or three empty lines above a Signature tag, or put the tag on the signing line itself; Signature block in the editor leaves exactly that room, with “Signed by” and the signer’s role label, and the date, under the line. A date or text box is about two lines tall and needs one empty line above it. To move a field from a tag, move its tag in Edit wording: the field follows it. When a field’s box covers other words, the Place fields step says so, and how to give it room.

When a Word template is used

• Values are written into the sentences at their full size: a long company name wraps onto the next line instead of being shrunk, and tables run across pages with their heading row repeated. The 70% rule above is for PDF templates only.
• In Use template, each optional clause is a switch, set to its default. A clause switched off disappears from the document, and numbered clauses close up. In a bulk send, a clause is a column answered yes or no; through the API, it’s a variable answered yes or no.
• A signer whose only signature is in a clause that’s left out has nowhere to sign, so the envelope isn’t made, and the message says which clause. Give them a signature outside the clause, or include it.
• The envelope keeps the filled Word file, so Edit wording works on the draft before it’s sent.
• A value that looks like a field tag or a placeholder is refused for a Word document, so wording can’t be smuggled in through a form.
• A Word template can’t yet take a value in Arabic, Hindi, Thai or another script SignSwifly can’t draw from a Word file: Create envelope stops and says which value.

Changing a template’s wording after a bulk send has started stops the rows still to go, and the message says to start a new bulk send for them. A workspace that moves to Free can still use its Word templates. Editing their wording, downloading the Word file, Go back to the uploaded file and Use as fixed PDF need Solo.

Use a template

1. Open Templates, find it under Active, and choose Use template.
2. Fill in the details for this send, and each person’s name and email. For an optional slot, tick Leave this one out if you don’t need it.
3. Choose Create envelope. The envelope opens with everything in place: check it, and send it as in Send your first document.

Each use makes a new envelope, so on the Free plan it counts towards your 3 envelopes a month when it’s sent, and once those 3 are sent, Use template waits until the allowance starts again on the 1st (10 or 11 am Sydney time), unless the workspace has single envelopes to send on. It also waits while the workspace holds 3 unsent drafts, archived ones included: send or delete one to make room. Changing a template later doesn’t change envelopes already made from it.

On Team and up, Bulk send sends a template to a list of people from a spreadsheet, each with an envelope of their own. See Bulk send.

Keep the list tidy

• Edit changes a template. Archive takes it out of use, and Restore brings it back.
• A draft or an archived template can be deleted. Envelopes already sent from it aren’t affected.
• On Free, the 2 templates include archived ones. Archiving a template doesn’t make room for another, but deleting one does. To delete an active template, archive it first.
• Restore always works, on every plan. An archived template already counts, so bringing it back adds nothing.

If your plan changes

Moving to Free keeps every template you have, archived ones included, and you can still use them all. With 2 or more, you can’t add another until you delete enough to make room, or upgrade.