Creating a PDF document template

NOTE: For this example, a free version of an online PDF editor has been used. If there is a corporate or professional edition of a PDF product e.g. Adobe Acrobat, that can also be used.

Regardless of the tool the following rules apply

1. When creating document templates please use a monospaced font. This is required to ensure neat alignment and spacing, especially when a display / document variable is used that contains tables of data. If you use a variable that has multiple lines of data then it is a requirement that a monospaced font be used else it is impossible to align the multiple lines correctly.
   
2. Variables in documents that need to be ignored, example if a calculated form field or a entry field, then make sure the name has the work “IGNORE” in front. The platform will then not try and replace the variable. Example IGNOREname
   
3. If a document template has the same document variable that is used more than once, just add the @ symbol and the next number (in sequence) e.g. AppApplicationName is a variable that is already being used in the document template so if it is going to be used again, the next time it is used it will need to be names AppApplicationName@2. Numbering will continue sequentially:
   
4. The variable "CustomLetterText" can be used to insert data on the fly when creating the manually generating the document. Example adding additional comments

Using PdfEscape:

1. Navigate to the PDFescape Online PDF Editor site https://www.pdfescape.com/windows/

2. Select the Free Online button:

3. Select the option to Create new PDF Document:

4. From the drop-down list, select the number of pages that you would like to create under Page Count and the default document dimension under Page Size before clicking on the Create button:

5. Start creating the document template based on the requirements. NOTE: For this example, a sample of a loan offer will be created.

The top left-hand corner has a series of formatting tools that can be used to create specific items in the document template e.g. images, text, shapes, etc:

6. Add a copy of the logo and place it in the middle of the document template. To do this, click on the button from the formatting tools menu.

7. It will open the Add Image Tool dialog box, so simply click on the Choose file button:

8. It will then provide the browse file option, so you can look for the image that you would like to add (that can be opened by selecting the file and pressing the Open button or by simply double clicking on the file itself):

9. It will display a blank page, but there will be a notification bar at the very top, which outlines that an object needs to be clicked and dragged on to the page:

10. Click on the document where you would like to add the image NOTE: it can be resized by selecting any one of the four corners of the image and can be moved by selecting the middle of the image until you can see the move pointer icon 

11. Click on the button and click on the document as to where you would like to add text NOTE: it will show a blinking cursor where text can be entered:

12. There is a formatting toolbar just above the notification bar that will allow you to change the font type, size, colour and add other features like bold, italics and underline:

13. Start typing in all relevant information that you would like to include in your document template and leave empty spaces where you would like variables to be used:

14. Click on the  button and it will display the default type, which is a Text field NOTE: there are a variety of different options that you can choose from that are available from the drop-down list. Once the correct field type has been created, click on the Select button:

15. Resize and re position the form field accordingly

16. To ensure that the same field size is used (for formatting consistency purposes), right-click on the form field from the previous step above and select the Duplicate menu option:

17. It will show the duplicated object directly underneath the original object which can then be moved to the appropriate position:

18. Once the fields have been created where specific information is required (and will be extracted directly from Clearmatch), the final form will look similar to the one shown below:

19. Right-click on each field and select the Object Properties menu option:

20. Change the name of the form field from [untitiled] to the name of the variable and select the OK button to continue e.g. AppApplicationName is being used so that it will display the name that is recorded on the application:

21. Complete this process for all document variable fields in the template, and finish formatting the document:

22. There is a menu located on the far left of the document that will allow you to complete simple functions based on what is required:

In order to save the document template in PDFEscape (that can be opened at a later stage should you want to make changes to it) select the floppy disk icon

For the purpose of saving this document to use in Clearmatch, select the icon with two arrows pointing downwards  as that will save and download the document NOTE: By default, it will save the PDF document as New_Blank_Document.pdf which can be renamed

23. Create a new document template in Clearmatch (instructions on how to do this can be found here) 

24. When a the document is sent to the customer, it will automatically fill in the document variable fields with details that are taken from Clearmatch:

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