Customizing Print Forms Templates

Customizing Print Forms Templates

Overview

Print Form Templates in CustomBooks™ are pre‑designed layouts used to generate standardized printed documents such as invoices, receipts, sales orders, quotes, and other business forms. These templates ensure key information is presented in a professional, organized, and consistent format across all your printed output.

Each form type in CustomBooks™ comes with a default template you can use as‑is, or you can create and modify custom templates to better reflect your business needs and branding.

What You Can Customize

Once you create a custom version of a print form template, you can tailor nearly every element, including:

🛠 Template Structure
  1. Add or remove fields (e.g., customer address, line items, totals).
  2. Reorder fields to optimize layout for readability or compliance.
  3. Insert or update images, such as logos or background graphics.
  4. Add free‑form text, headers, or footers for notes, disclaimers, or branding.
  5. Change formatting, including fonts, colors, alignment, and highlighting.
These customizations help you control what information appears, how it appears, and where it appears, providing greater flexibility than the system defaults.

How Print Form Templates Work

  1. Default and Custom Templates: Every form type has a system default template. Before editing, you must make a copy of the default; the original cannot be changed.
  2. Multiple Templates per Form Type: You can have multiple custom templates for the same form type — useful for tailoring output to different customers, departments, or business scenarios.
  3. Template Selection at Print Time: When printing a document, you choose which available template to use from the print dialog.

Navigation

Get to the Print Form Template Setting in one of the two ways:
1. Navigate to Admin Panel > Print Form Setting.


2. From the Print Preview screen, click Templates > Manage templates.


Editing a Print Form Template

Info
Only certain changes can be made to print forms by default. If full customization of the print forms is desired, you will need to complete the Custom Print Form training course available in the CustomBooks Academy.

1. Create a Custom Template
  1. You cannot edit default templates directly.
  2. Select a default template → Create → Make a Copy → moves it into your Custom Template folder, ready for editing.
2. Open the Custom Template
  1. From the Custom Template list, double‑click to open it in the editor.
3. Edit Template Content
The template editor includes multiple panels and tools:
🧭 Template Editor Interface

1. The buttons on the Action bar takes action on the open template:
  1. Save and Close -  Saves and closes the template.
  2. Show / Hide Settings - Hides or shows the setting sidebar.
  3. Save / Save as... / Save to File - (Save) You can save the template without closing it / (Save As...) You can save the template as a new template / (Save to File) You can save and export the template as a file format such as PDF, Excel, Word format, etc.
  4. Load from File - You can open/load another template with the same template type.
  5. Customize - You may use this button if you want our Customizations team to customize the template for you (paid customization).
2. Edit area tabs:
  1. General - This is where you can edit the Template name; Template name on the Email Subject; Logo choice (either use the default from your Company Info or a custom logo for this print form); Option to print header on all pages; Footer content editor; and Upload your own template background.
  2. Fields - This is where you will get the document data that will be generated on the Header/Footer and Line fields.
  3. Availability - You can select whether the template is available and can be edited by all users or for you only.
3. Template Description - Allows you to enter a description of this template, what is is used for, when it was created, etc. Does not print anywhere.
4. Text formatting - Option to change the Font Style and Size, Color and Highlighting, Text Alignment, ect.
5. Template designer - Text in <[ ]> indicates a placeholder for data that will be place upon print from the document.

Working with Fields

Adding Fields
1. Click the Fields tab.
2. Put your cursor in the template designer area where you would like to place the field.
3. Click back to the field list and double click the field. It will be added to the template.
Removing Fields
1. Highlight the field in the template designer area.
2. Hit the backspace or delete key.
Moving Fields
1. See the section on Adding fields to add the field to the desired location.
2. See the section on Removing fields to remove the field from the old location.
-or-
1. Highlight the field to move and click Crtl-C (Command-C on a Mac) or right-click and choose Copy.
2. Move the cursor to the desired location and click Ctrl-V (Command-V on a Mac) or right-click and choose Paste
Adding Static Text
1. Put your cursor where you want the static text.
2. Type the text in the field labeled Cell in the top near the formatting bar.

Adjusting Column Width and Row Height

To adjust a Column Width:
  1. Right-click on the column you want to adjust the width of.
  2. Select "Column width..." from the options.
  3. Enter your desired width in the Column width field.


To adjust the Row Height:
  1. Right-click on the row you want to adjust the height of.
  2. Select "Row height..." from the options.
  3. Check the Max. row height checkbox, then enter your desired height number in the field.


Previewing & Printing

Once you’ve saved your custom template, you can:
  1. From the list or document view, choose Print.  
  2. Select the Form Type to print.
  3. From the Form Type sub-menu, choose the template you'd like to use for this print. (see figure 1)
  4. The print preview window will appear. (see figure 2)
  5. Click the print icon or the print button to print.



Advanced Customization & Professional Help

  1. For full‑feature customization beyond the built‑in editor (advanced layout, conditional logic, complex HTML), you will need to complete the Advanced Print Form training in the CustomBooks Academy.
  2. Alternatively, you can engage CustomBooks™ Professional Services to design or tailor templates for you.

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