Tutorials

Set up dynamic templates (BETA)

Dynamic templates are great for text-heavy documents like agreements and contracts, where content varies conditionally. Just like standardized templates, dynamic templates can be reused with other Anvil products, such as Etch e-signatures, Workflows, or the PDF Fill endpoint.

In this article, we’ll go over dynamic templates and show you how to set them up in the Document Editor. For information about standardized templates, please see this article instead.

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Getting started

Dynamic templates can be built from scratch with our Document Editor, allowing you to create, edit, and manage your documents directly in Anvil. Just like standardized templates, dynamic templates can be used with our other products to gather data and collect signatures. However, the core difference being that the resulting PDFs seamlessly flow around filled content without any odd gaps or overflows.

Contracts for example may have multiple clauses that are only relevant in specific scenarios. With dynamic templates, you can designate sections of text as clauses. You can then easily enable or disable clauses within Etch packets, Workflows, and documents filled over API, to show or hide them with conditional logic.

Dynamic templates create seamless documents once filled.

Set up a dynamic template

Watch the following video to learn how to set up dynamic templates.

Next steps

Before you start using your dynamic templates with Etch packets, Workflows, or the PDF Fill endpoint, you’ll need to make sure your template is set to your liking. Meaning all text is finalized, font and text styling has been applied, field types and formatting are correct, clauses are placed, etc.

Once your dynamic template is used in an Etch packet or Workflow, you can connect Webform and PDF fields, decide when clauses will or will not appear, and assign signers. However, you will not be able to make further changes to the template itself within your Workflow or Etch packet editors. For example, adding new fields and editing text.

If you need to make any updates to your dynamic template, you’ll need to do so directly from the Document Editor. After publishing your template changes, you’ll then need to update the existing template in your Workflow or Etch packet to the latest version.

Additionally, Document AI does not currently support dynamic templates, so you’ll want to ensure your field names are correct to help speed up downstream Workflow creation.

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