Adding, modifying, and deleting PDF templates

Any PDF document in Scoro - a quote, invoice, bill, work report, or other - can be fully customized and made to look exactly how you'd like it to. This way, whenever you send out a document from your site, it looks professional and includes all the necessary data by default.

Navigate to Settings > Site settings > PDF templates to access all your templates. Click the Create template button to create a new template.

 To modify an existing template, click on its name, then click the Modify button to open the template modify view.

1. Using standard designs

To simplify your customization process, we've added standard designs for most template types (quote, purchase order, invoice, and others) that you can use when creating a new template.

After clicking the Create template button, choose the template type first. Then, click the Choose design button and select any template from our library.

Each document type has different designs available. For example, quote template designs include a terms and conditions block, which you can easily update with your own text.

After selecting a standard template design, the template sections are filled with the default information; however, you can customize all sections to create the desired look for your PDF.

2. Customizing template sections

Any PDF template has five sections, all of which can be fully customized in the template modify view:

• Settings
• Header
• Main content
• Price calculation table
• Footer 

You can add text, dynamic fields, and other elements in each section as needed.

Dynamic fields are placeholders that automatically populate specific information when a document is created from the template. When inserted in the template, these fields have a [a] tag in front and a [/a] tag at the end. The text between the tags is the field name, which is replaced with the corresponding dynamic values when using the template. 

You can also add a condition for your dynamic field that determines when the dynamic value is shown on the document created from the template. On the template, a dynamic field with a condition starts with [a][if] and ends with [/a][/if].

If you need to preview the changes you've made at any point, click Save and check if everything looks as needed.

For example, in our quote template, the price calculation table header has no background color, and we want to check if adding a purple background will look good. 

2.1. Settings

In the settings tab, you modify the template and file names, font type, page margins, and other general adjustments.

Add a template name that sets it apart from other templates, especially if you have multiple templates for the same template type (e.g., different quote templates).

For the file name, use regular text, dynamic fields, or a combination of both. Use the suggested dynamic fields or add ones from the other template sections.

The Use toggle lets you create the template for internal use only to prevent it from being used externally.

If you have set up a Customer portal for your Scoro site, you can create PDF templates to use when portal users open documents (quotes, invoices, orders). Disable this toggle for a template if you're using it for the customer portal. You can set the template as the default one for the relevant document type under Site settings > Customer portal > Settings.

Enable the internal use toggle if you don't want the portal users to use the template for document viewing in the Customer portal, as well as signal for the team not to use the template for exporting or sending out documents.

This section allows you to set the company logo width. The logo on your PDFs is the same as the one you've set under Settings > Site settings > Company data and logo, but you can adjust the width of the PDF while modifying the template. To ensure the best quality for your logo, use the .svg file format.

You can also select the font and set the font size for your template here. 

Our PDF template generator supports custom CSS styling, which lets you add custom fonts, watermarks, background images, and other details to your PDF templates. The Using CSS styling section provides more information on that.

2.2. Header

The header is the very top part of the document. You may create separate headers for the first page and all the following pages to display different information.

We recommend adding essential information about your company and the client details on the first page header to ensure that each section has enough space to display all the information. 

You can always add any other information needed - use the drop-downs to insert the available dynamic fields or click the Add button to create your own.

We recommend displaying the company's logo in the header on the following pages. To do this, click where you want to insert the logo in the On following pages box, then select Logo in the dynamic field drop-down or enter [a]logo[/a] in the editor.

2.3. Main content

This section contains the main part of your document that typically displays the price calculation table or other custom tables containing important information, such as signatures or custom comments. Add relevant dynamic fields if needed. 

The price calculation table is configured in a separate section.

2.4. Price calculation table

An important part of the template is the price calculation table displaying the products and their prices. A wide selection of fields is available for use in the various parts of the table—drag in the fields you need and remove those you don't.

Adjust the column width percentage to display the information properly and ensure the total table width is 100%; otherwise, your table may not fit in the document. We recommend reserving at least 30% width for the Product description column, as it usually takes up the most space in this table.

You may add field titles if you want to display different titles on the PDF instead of the default ones.

Fields used in the total block of the table can be added, removed, and renamed. If you're using line-based discounts on tax rates, we recommend using the Sum of line discounts and Tax rate breakdown fields.

2.5. Footer

The footer is the bottom part of your PDF document. Like in previous sections, you can add dynamic fields here if needed. Usually, the company address and bank details are added here, but feel free to add any related information.

3. Useful formatting tips

Our PDF template generator offers a rich selection of customization options, allowing you to customize your PDFs to the finest detail. While we can't cover all the settings and their combinations, below are a few formatting tips that may be useful when perfecting your templates.

Adding multiple dynamic fields and other elements may require sufficient spacing or particular alignment for a balanced look. We recommend using tables and inserting the different content bits and fields in the table cells.

To adjust the cell width, right-click on the cell, then click Cell > Cell properties and adjust the width.

The total table width can be adjusted by clicking the Table properties button. For the best look, we recommend keeping a 100% table width.

By default, the borders of the tables in the template aren't visible. To add a frame to the table, click the Table properties button in the table toolbar and increase the border width; for example, 2 pixels.

Add the New page dynamic field if you wish to add a page break.

If you need multiple variations of the same PDF template, you can create and modify one template and then duplicate it (if permitted by administrator). To do so, click on the template name in the template list, then click the Duplicate button. Modify the template as needed and click Save.

If your site has several languages enabled, you can generate PDFs in different languages. Select the necessary language from the dropdown when generating the PDF in the document view (e.g., while viewing a quote).

If your site has several languages enabled and you generate PDFs in different languages, all dynamic fields will appear in the right language as selected (e.g., the dynamic fields on a quote in German will also be in German). However, any regular text entered in the template sections won't be translated.

If custom translations are needed, please get in touch with our Support team.

4. Using CSS styling

CSS is a language used in web development to describe how certain elements should be displayed. It enables you to fine-tune the appearance of your documents with custom fonts, spacing, layout, backgrounds, watermarks, etc. 

Our PDF documents are generated from regular HTML and CSS - this means that general styling can be done by just using element selectors like <body>, <h1>, <td>, etc. Adding class attributes to elements will make them easier to target with CSS. Note that some documents may already have default styling and inline CSS styles - use !important with your declarations or make your declarations more specific to override something that's already declared.

While CSS styling adds a lot of flexibility to document designs, things may break when adding the code incorrectly. Preview your PDF and test your styling modifications by viewing the actual code sent to the PDF generator:

• Open any PDF document from your Scoro site
• Add &html=1 at the end of the URL - e.g., https://yoursite.scoro.com/quotes/print/1/?plang=eng&pdf_template=1&html=1.

4.1. Adding a background color or image

Any part of your document can have a background color or image as the background. To add a background to the whole document, use the <body> element selector.

In the example below, we've also defined the background image size to control how it fits into the page. Using vh (viewport height) or vw (viewport width) resizes the image based on the page size while auto retains the image's aspect ratio.

body {
  background: url(your_image_url) !important;
  background-size: auto 100vh !important;
} 

4.2. Selecting custom fonts

You can import as many custom fonts as you like and use different fonts in various places in your PDFs. Since custom fonts need to be declared, make sure your CSS code starts with the @font-face rule declaration or @import if you're importing your fonts from libraries like the Google Fonts library.

The example below shows how the code would look when importing fonts from the Google Fonts library. We're also using the <body> selector to apply this font family to all texts.

@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Shadows+Into+Light');

body {
  font-family: "Shadows Into Light" !important;
}

4.3. Adding a watermark

Another useful styling option is a watermark - some text or a visual, typically used to indicate the document's authenticity, protect it against unauthorized distribution, or simply for aesthetic value. You can add a watermark element to your document content and style it with CSS, or just use a CSS pseudo-element like ::after. 

The code would look something like the example below. Here, the watermark's content is regular text with some simple styling added. The fixed position places the watermark relative to the page and repeats it on all pages. The top, bottom, and transform coordinates shift and place the element at the center of the page. Translate rotates the element by shifting it on the vertical and horizontal axes.

body::after {
  content: "Confidential";
  font-size: 50pt;
  color: red;
  opacity: 0.3;
  position: fixed;
  top: 50%;
  left: 50%;
  transform: translate(-50%, -50%) rotate(30deg);

}

5. Deleting a template

If you've set up a Customer portal for your Scoro site, before deleting any template double-check if it is set as the default template under Site settings > Customer portal > Settings. If it is, make sure to set another template as the default one before deleting your template; otherwise, your portal users won't be able to view those documents.

To delete a template, click Modify to enter the modifying view. There, click Delete and confirm your choice to delete it.