Using the Template Library and Layout Editor

Instead of building your own Word file and uploading it, you can now design the look of your quotes, invoices, and delivery notes right in your browser: start from a ready-made template in the Template Library and adjust it to your branding in the Layout Editor — font, colors, logo, pages, images, custom texts, and which product categories appear where.

The video shows how to build a quote layout from a template, add text, images and category tables with subtotals and check the result in the print preview.

Play video4:30

You’ll find the individual steps written out below as well.

Good to know: In new workspaces the layout editor is the only way: there is no Word upload any more, and the default layouts are the Univents standard layout — the previous Word standard template, rebuilt 1:1 — and are created only in your workspace’s language. The catalog contains all six designs (Klassik plus five catering designs) for quote, invoice, delivery note and credit note. Use the filter above the list to show one document type only. Existing workspaces keep their Word templates.

Add a template and open the editor

1. Open Settings > Templates and pick the Layout template filter chip.
2. In the Template Library section you'll see every available template with a preview image — the classic portrait business letter and the five catering designs (see the next section).
3. Click Use template on the one you want.
4. Univents creates your own copy of that template in your workspace — the original in the library stays untouched and can be reused any time — and opens the copy directly in the Layout Editor.

The new copy isn't assigned to any document yet and doesn't automatically become the default. For how to assign a layout to a document or set it as the default, see How do I create layouts for financial documents?.

The ready-made templates in the library

Every template brings the complete document: address, key facts, cover letter, a free-text slot for the schedule, the items table with category rows, totals, payment terms, a free-text slot for terms and the signature line. Logo and company details in the header and footer bands come from your settings automatically. Photo slots and free texts stay empty until you fill them.

Two notes on the dark header bands of Corporate Clean and Bold Street: your logo is placed there automatically — if it is dark, it disappears on the band. In that case upload a light variant in the Logo section; it replaces the logo from your settings in this layout only. And the header bands are coloured areas among the free elements — you can change their colour there or remove them.

In every template the item names in the table start out in the document’s base font. A separate font just for the table — say a serif for the item name and a small grey description underneath — is set per column under Styling > Column style (see “Styling position tables”).

Some Univents templates ship their own sample photo. When you use such a template, the photo is copied into your copy — here is how to swap it for your own:

• Photo on the sheet (most templates): click the photo, then Replace image in the small bar above it — or double-click the photo. You'll find the same button on the element's card under Free elements on the right. Position, size, effects and layer stay the same. A photo on the Behind the content layer can be clicked directly too.
• Photo as page background: swap it in the Images section with Replace.

Catering templates: real photos and effects

The five catering templates — Editorial Noir, Warm Craft, Corporate Clean, Bold Street, and Swiss Grid — ship with matching photos instead of empty placeholders: the cover photo, banner, or image slot is already filled in when you add the template. Don't like the photo? Click it and swap it for your own with Replace image (as described in the section above; a page-background photo is swapped in the Images section) — the template itself stays untouched.

The templates' look uses the same tools available throughout the Layout Editor: the gradient over the cover photo on Editorial Noir, the duotone image (black and white with yellow) on Bold Street, the black-and-white image on Swiss Grid, the rotated stickers and angled band on Bold Street, and the coloured category bands in the items table plus the labelled side strip on Swiss Grid. All of these are ordinary settings under Effects and Rotation (see "Styling: gradients, border, rotation and effects" above) — you can keep adjusting or remove them anytime after adding the template.

Editing a layout from an open document

You don't have to go to the settings for a design change. Open a quote or an invoice, expand the layout selection and click Edit layout on the layout's card — the same editor opens in a new tab and the document stays open. That lets you compare the change and the result side by side: adjust and save in the editor, then re-render the PDF in the document.

The button is labelled Edit layout as soon as the layout runs on the new print engine (see “Switching to the new print engine” below) — whether or not you have already designed it in the editor. While it still runs on the previous engine, the button reads Edit colors and borders and opens the familiar color settings.

Opening a layout from the templates overview

Under Settings > Templates your layouts sit among all your other templates. Clicking the row takes you straight to where you can edit that layout: if it runs on the new print engine, the layout editor opens. If it still runs on the previous one, layout management opens with the form for colors, borders and the Word template.

Duplicating a layout. In the menu at the right edge of a layout row (Settings > Templates) and in the header of the layout editor you find Duplicate. The copy is named after the original plus “(Kopie)” — if that name is taken, “(Kopie 2)” and so on. It takes over the design and the engine of the original. If you have unsaved changes in the editor, you are asked to save first: the duplicate is made from the last saved state.

Taking an existing layout into the editor

If you switched a layout to the new print engine (see below) that you have been maintaining through a Word template so far, the editor tells you on first open: “This layout has no new design yet.” That is correct — until now your styling sits in colors, margins and the Word template, not in a design the editor can work with. You create it right there, with one click:

Take it over from the Word template (recommended). Univents reads this layout’s Word template and builds the editor design from it: header and footer, address, document details, cover letter, item sections and totals — plus the header for the pages after the first, drawn shapes and lines, images that sit side by side in the template, and a table of its own for the optional items. This happens in two steps: clicking Check the Word template first shows you what would be taken over — nothing is saved yet, and your documents keep printing unchanged. Only Take over creates the design. Your Word template stays untouched, and you can switch back to the previous engine at any time.

The check shows a short summary: how many pages and item sections would be created, what comes across one to one, and what would have to be estimated or left out. Typical notes:

• Images come across cropped and at print size: a picture you cropped in Word is taken over as exactly that part, and a photo that was too large to print is reduced to the right resolution instead of being left out.
• A table stays a table. The tables in your template now come along as a grid — the key facts next to the cover letter, the schedule, a contact line, the signature block. Column widths, merged cells, borders, cell colours and padding sit as in the original, placeholders inside the cells stay placeholders, and an image in a cell moves into that same cell. Before, Univents left wide tables out and narrow grids fell apart into single rows.
• Several images in one row stay side by side. When your template has seals, certificates or permits in one row, Univents takes them over as an image row. Before, they were stacked on top of each other and the page broke over because of it.
• Drawn shapes and lines come along. Rectangles and lines from your template become shapes in the layout, in the place they sit in the original — colour bands, rules and box frames no longer have to be rebuilt. A text frame and a slanted shape cannot be taken over; both are listed as a loss in the report.
• The table of optional items becomes a table of its own. Templates that reserve a second table for this are taken over with an Optional table — the optional rows no longer run into the main table.
• A graphic in EMF or WMF format still cannot be taken over — paste it into Word again as a PNG and upload the template once more. A TIFF is converted during the import.
• Paragraph formats, lists and indents of a custom text were lost — the text itself is waiting for you in the editor under Custom texts.

Placeholders that printing resolves are no longer reported as unknown — only names that really nobody knows are, with a note pointing to a typo. The same goes for renamed custom texts: a placeholder you use in the template and named to match in the layout is recognised by Univents. And a long footer text — a full set of bank details or a legal paragraph — no longer aborts the adoption.

Read the notes in peace. Important: as soon as you click Take over, every document using this layout prints with the new design — including automatically sent ones. If you don’t like the summary, click Cancel and everything stays as it was. If the Word template was replaced between checking and taking over, Univents stops and asks you to check it again. If your Word template is essentially one fixed image, Univents says so and deliberately creates nothing — such a layout would be a single image in the editor, with nothing to change. Start from the current design instead.

The individual notes are only available in German; in other languages you see a translated summary per area (for example “Image: 1 not taken over”).

Start from the current design. Univents takes exactly what your documents print today: logo, address, document details, cover letter, items, totals, payment terms with bank details, the signature line if you use one, and the footer — in your colors, font and margins. Your documents keep the same content afterwards, and you adjust the design in the editor step by step.

Creating from a PDF is not offered here: AI creation always adds a new layout with its own Word template and leaves this one as it is. The result can then be taken over the same way. That feature is not available yet.

The way back stays open. Edit colors and margins still takes you to the classic editing form — as long as the layout has no editor design, colors and margins from there keep affecting your documents unchanged. And the engine switch (see below) lets you move the layout back to the previous engine at any time.

Once created, a design stays. A design cannot be removed again in the editor — which is why Univents writes nothing until you click Take over or Use the current design. Simply opening the page or checking the Word template changes nothing.

What you can set in the Layout Editor

The editor shows your document as a sheet in the middle — you work right on it: click an element to select it and open its settings section on the right, double-click to type the heading, the cover letter, the custom texts, the label and value of every row in a field list, the labels of the signature and the category overview and your own text elements directly on the document, a double-click on an empty spot of the sheet adds a new text element there, and drag an image onto the area where you want it (or click the area) — on an empty spot, this creates a new image. Those are the only places you can type — this includes a payment-terms paragraph that has text, for example from an imported Word template: you can edit it like any other text and change its font, size and alignment in the Text section on the right (Reset formatting brings back the default look). The position table and the totals come from the document: which items appear, what they are called and what they cost is maintained in the document, not in the layout. A double-click on a table row therefore opens nothing to type into — you can still click the table to set its styling on the right (see “Styling position tables”). Every change shows up on the sheet instantly. On the right you'll also find all settings at a glance:

• Free elements — place text boxes, images, placeholders and color shapes anywhere on the page, drag and resize them — in front of or behind the content. You can also move and resize the content area itself (cover letter, positions, totals) on the page; if it gets too long, it flows onto the next page as usual. Text boxes accept the same placeholders as a Word template — including the totals ({total_gross}, {VAT_total_7}), the totals per category ({Beer_subtotal_net}) and per "Name for invoice" ({Drinks_subtotal_net_invoice_display}), and the schedule {Event_Schedule}; the complete list is in How do I create layouts for financial documents?. A very long word without spaces wraps at the edge of the text box instead of being cut off.
• Template/Theme — font, colors, page margins (up to 80 mm), portrait or landscape orientation and a watermark (for example “CONFIDENTIAL”) for the whole document. The font list holds 24 families, including Cormorant Garamond, Fraunces, Caveat, Archivo Black, Inter Tight, JetBrains Mono and IBM Plex Sans. Below that you set the page number line at the bottom of every page: your own text with {page} for the current page and {pages} for the total, plus any placeholder — for example {doc_number}, {Date}, Page {page} —, the alignment (left, center, right), the size and the color. Left empty, it stays “Page X of Y” in the center. You only see this line in the PDF, not in the editor preview. With Free text across the full width, free texts run to the right edge of the content area instead of wrapping after 150 mm — you mainly need this for an imported Word template, so lines break as in the original. Paragraph spacing in free text (pt) adds space between two paragraphs of a free text (a blank line in the text); once it is set, a heading at the bottom of a page also stays with its first paragraph. Show total quantity does the maths in the PDF: instead of the chain “0.4 × 70 guests” it prints “28 guests”. The factor stays on the document and still counts for the kitchen; rows with several different units stay unchanged, and the switch only affects layouts on the new engine. Hide page number removes the line completely — the space at the bottom edge is then free for content. Distance from the bottom edge (mm) moves the line up and keeps the same amount free in the text area so nothing slides underneath it; leave it empty to keep the current position.
• Text — appears as soon as you click a text on the sheet: font, size, bold, italic, underline, capitals, colour, background, line height and alignment including justified. For EB Garamond, Spectral, Gelasio, Tinos, Cormorant Garamond and Fraunces, “Italic” prints the true italic cut; for fonts without their own italic cut the note “Italic is simulated for this font” appears under the switch — preview and PDF then show the same slanted regular.
• Logo — upload your own logo and set its position and maximum width. Here you also switch the company name in the letterhead on or off (it only appears while no logo is set) and add an extra line, such as “Catering & event kitchen · Bremen”.
• Pages — which pages your document has, show or hide individual pages, add new pages or duplicate one, and reorder them via drag-and-drop or the arrow buttons. You can also set a page to disappear automatically whenever it would have no content. Per page type you also set the top, right, bottom and left margins individually here (up to 120 mm top/bottom, up to 200 mm left/right) — the flowing content moves right away, and the editor shows the remaining content width. A wide left margin with text boxes set to “Every page” (Free elements section, Repeat group) gives you a side column, as in Swiss Grid.
• Images — add your own images for the cover, page backgrounds, or individual pages, plus an overlay and image effects per background (see “Images & logo”).
• Image row — put several images side by side on the sheet, such as seals, certificates or permits. The Image row button in the element bar adds a row; on its card you choose the file for each image, change the order with Move left and Move right, remove individual images with Remove image, and set Gap (pt), Height (pt) and Alignment (left, centre, right, or spread across the width). Up to eight images fit in one row; if the row ends up wider than the content area, Univents scales it down when printing.
• Free table — a table you fill yourself that has nothing to do with your line items: an overview of key facts, a schedule, a signature block. The Free table button in the element bar adds one; on the grid you click the cell you want to edit. For the structure you add a Row above, a Row below, a Column to the left or a Column to the right and delete them again with Delete row or Delete column; two cells are joined with Merge with right or Merge with below, and Split turns them back into two. In a cell you write text (line breaks are kept in the PDF), insert the same placeholders as in a Word template via Placeholder, and set the background, alignment, font and an image inside the cell. You set the font size of a single cell by clicking the cell and using Size (pt). For the whole table at once there is the Table font size (pt) field: the value applies to every cell without its own size, and Clear brings back the template font. Cells that have their own size ignore the table size — the Remove cell sizes button removes those sizes so the table size applies everywhere. Per table you set the column widths in millimetres, the padding of the cells and, under Grid lines, the colour and width of the lines. If a row or column already holds content, Univents asks before deleting it. If the table is wider than the content area, Univents scales it down when printing.
• Field list — a list of labels and values, for example a “Your event” box with date, time, number of guests and venue. Double-click a label or a value to type right on the sheet; for the value you see the placeholder (such as {event_date}), not the sample value, and the Placeholder button in the bar inserts another one at the cursor. Enter finishes, Shift+Enter adds a line break. Click the list once and the Field list section appears on the right: it shows every row with its label and value as fields, each row with its own Placeholder button, plus the Introduction above the list and the Label width. Add new rows with Add row (or + Row on the list's frame, up to 40 rows); move and remove them in the section or with the small buttons next to the row on the sheet. A row with an empty value is not printed. A freshly added, still empty row therefore shows a grey hint on the sheet (“Double-click to enter the value”) so you can click it right away — the hint is never printed. Rows whose placeholders stay empty in the sample data are listed in the section on the right.
• Signature — change the labels under the two lines (“Place, date”, “Customer signature”) with a double-click on the sheet or in the Signature section on the right. An empty field prints the standard label in the document's language again.
• Category overview — the overview “Total food / Total drinks” adds up the line items per group. In the Category overview section on the right you add groups, name them (or double-click on the sheet), assign categories, reorder them and decide with Show document totals below whether subtotal, tax and total are printed underneath. Groups without revenue are not printed. If a group from a Word template is matched by name, your first selection also takes over the categories with that name — the total loses nothing. A group with content is only removed after you confirm.
• Totals block — besides the divider lines you can change the labels of its rows: “Subtotal (net)”, the tax line, “Total” and “Discount”. The fields are separate for documents with net prices and documents with gross prices, because a gross document states the tax differently (“incl. … VAT” instead of “plus VAT”). For tax and discount Univents adds the rate automatically. So for tax and discount, keep numbers and the % sign out of the label — the editor does not accept such entries. If the layout applies to all document types, your label appears the same on quotes, invoices and credit notes. An empty field prints the standard label in the document's language.
• More switches on the selected element — for the cover letter, whether the document type is shown above it; for the payment terms, whether bank details and the early payment discount line are printed; for a page title, its size and alignment; for a divider line, its colour, width, thickness and alignment; for the address, the sender line, customer number and the customer's VAT ID (as long as the address has no template of its own); for a custom text, Print the label even without text.
• Company footer — click the footer band with Company footer switched on, and the Footer section on the right shows the title and lines of every column as fields (one entry per line, at most six). As long as you change nothing, the columns come from your company data automatically (Settings → Company). With the first change Univents creates your own columns — with placeholders such as {workspace_IBAN} that read from the same company data, so a new address or bank account still reaches the footer; the VAT ID then becomes a line in the first column. If a placeholder stays empty on the document, the footer leaves out its label too (no “IBAN” without an IBAN), and a column without any printed line is left out entirely. Add or remove columns (at most three; a column with content only after you confirm); Restore default brings back the automatic columns. While your own columns apply, the Show bank details switch has no effect. If an invoice layout prints neither your VAT ID nor your tax number, the section points it out — invoices must show one of them.
• Custom texts — the editable text blocks in your layout, with a label and default text, the same as in the existing layout settings. To put an existing custom text on the sheet, click Free text in the element bar: the list shows every custom text not yet on the sheet, with its label and the start of its text. One click places it; below the list you can still add a new one. For a selected custom-text field, choose on the right under Content from which custom text it shows.
• Product category assignment — which product categories print in which section of the document.

The editor needs a screen at least 1024 px wide — a computer, or a tablet in landscape. On a phone you get a note with the way back to your layouts instead; your layouts stay unchanged.

Place text at a specific spot

Want to write something anywhere on the sheet without pushing the rest around? Double-click an empty spot on the sheet. A text element appears with its top-left corner at the spot you clicked, and you can start typing right away. The element sits above the content and moves nothing beneath it; to reposition it, just drag it somewhere else. If you click close to the edge of the sheet, the element moves inward just far enough to stay fully on the sheet. If you leave the element without typing anything, it disappears again on its own. To remove an element later, click it and press Delete (or use Delete in the bar on the element). A double-click on an image, on the other hand, does not add a text element — it opens the file picker so you can swap the image.

Two kinds of text differ here:

• Text is the same on every document — for example a fixed note or a line in the page margin. This is what a double-click on an empty spot creates.
• Free text is filled in per document. You add it with the Free text button in the element bar.

To insert text into an existing text at a specific position: the double-click selects the whole text first. Then click once at the spot where you want to insert something (or use the arrow keys) and start typing.

Formatting individual words

A text block does not have to look uniform. If you only want to highlight one word or part of a sentence, double-click into the text and select the part with your mouse — a small toolbar appears right above it with exactly these formats:

• Bold, italic, underline
• Colour
• Font — the same embedded fonts as under Template/Theme
• Font size in pt

One click applies the format, another click removes it again. The rest of the block stays unchanged; the settings on the right in the Text section still apply to the whole block — a selected part only overrides them where you have set something. To clear a format, select the part and click the format again.

• Placeholders stay indivisible. {total_gross}, {Customer_Name} and every other placeholder cannot be cut in the middle: a placeholder takes the formatting of the piece it sits in and is printed as a whole — half bold does not exist.
• Adopted from Word. If your Word template has a word in the middle of a sentence set in bold, it appears exactly like that in the adopted layout. Only these formats are carried over: bold, italic, underline, colour, font and font size — alignment, line height and background stay a matter for the whole block.
• Custom-text fields. The default texts of your custom texts (payment terms, for example) are formatted the same way — in the editor on the custom-text element, in the sidebar under Custom texts. If someone types their own text into that field on a document, it is printed in the font of the block; formatted defaults only apply as long as the document has no value of its own.
• Not possible per word: background colour, links and bullet lists — a background still applies to the whole block, lists and links do not exist at all.

Aligning and fine-tuning elements

For the fine work on a layout — say you want a logo, a photo or a text box exactly centered — every free element's card (section Free elements) offers these tools:

• Align — six buttons place the element left, horizontally centered or right, and top, vertically centered or bottom. With Reference you choose whether that refers to the whole sheet or only to the content area (the text area inside the page margins). For a text box whose height grows with its text, only "top" is available.
• Arrow keys — an element selected on the sheet moves by 1 mm with the arrow keys, by 5 mm with Shift held down. The X, Y, W and H fields still take exact millimeter values.
• Fit image — for an image element you decide whether the whole picture stays visible ("Fit") or covers the area completely and gets cropped at the edges ("Fill").
• Duplicate element — need the same element again (a second shape, another photo, an identically formatted text box)? Click the duplicate icon in the small bar above the selected element, or press ⌘D (Mac) / Ctrl+D (Windows). The copy sits slightly offset next to the original, keeps its layer, formatting, image and all settings, and is selected right away — drag it straight into place. The same button is available on the element's card in the Free elements section. ⌘D always acts on the selected element — and even with nothing selected, the shortcut no longer opens your browser's bookmark dialog. Blocks such as the position table, the cover letter or the totals cannot be duplicated: their number and order come from the document, so a second copy would have no data behind it. The editor tells you so with a short note.
• Copy an element and paste it onto another page — for the same styling somewhere else: click the element on the sheet, then click Copy on its card in the Free elements section, or press ⌘C (Mac) / Ctrl+C (Windows). The editor confirms with “Copied”. Now scroll to where the copy should go and click Paste in the element bar at the top, or press ⌘V / Ctrl+V. The copy lands on the page you are currently looking at — you do not have to click the target page first — sits slightly offset just like a duplicate, and is selected right away. For a custom-text box the copy shows the same document field as the original; in the document editor it stays a single input. Copying works for text, images and shapes from the element bar — blocks from the template (position table, cover letter, totals) cannot be copied, and the Paste button stays greyed out until you have copied something.
• New elements land on the page you are looking at — text, image, shape, free text, tables and image row from the element bar are placed on the page that is currently in view. If you selected something on a page that is still clearly visible, the new element goes there. So you don't have to click the right page first — just scroll to it.
• Drag an element to another page — drag a free element (such as a photo) across the page boundary onto another sheet. The target sheet gets a coloured frame while you drag; when you let go, the element sits exactly where you dropped it and stays selected. Undo (⌘Z or Ctrl+Z) brings it back to its old spot in one step. Drop it between two sheets or next to the sheet and it stays on its page, moved to its edge — it does not disappear. Elements with Repeat set to All pages or From page 2 belong to their page and don't change it; switch to Page 1 only first. If the target sheet already holds 60 elements, the element also stays where it was, and the editor tells you why.
• Repeat — sets which printed pages an element sits on: Page 1 only (the usual case), All pages or From page 2. The choice takes effect as soon as the content runs onto more than one printed page. From page 2 is the header the first page does not carry — in Word, the header of the following pages when the first page is different; the element appears from the document’s first page break onwards.

Images that sit in the text flow — the photo on a cover page, for example — are edited by clicking them on the sheet: the Image on the page section appears on the right with alignment (left, center, right), width and height in millimeters, "Fit image" and a white passe-partout frame. If the width exceeds the content area, the editor points it out — in print the whole page would be scaled down otherwise.

Click Check print PDF any time to generate the final PDF with sample data — that's also where you see the exact page breaks the sheet in the editor only hints at with a line. This works even if you haven't created a real quote or invoice in your workspace yet.

Styling: gradients, border, rotation and effects

A free element's card is split into four groups: Geometry (position, size, rotation, align), Style, Effects and Layer. What an element cannot do, the card does not show — an image has no fill, a text only rotation and opacity.

Style (rectangle). Under Fill choose Solid or Gradient. A gradient has two to four colour stops with colour, position in percent and its own opacity — “black → transparent” is one click on one of the three presets (black, white, accent colour); the angle sets the direction (180° runs top to bottom, 0° bottom to top). Add a border (colour, width in pt, solid, dashed or dotted), a corner radius in millimetres and a slant at the top or bottom (positive values pull the right edge down). Border and corner radius are not available while a slant is set — the card says so right there. A rectangle can be as low as 0.3 mm: that makes it a hairline. With the mouse the size still snaps to whole millimetres; type the finer value into the H field.

Rotation. Rotate text, images and rectangles via the round handle above the selection frame or via the Rotation field (−180° to 180°). With Shift held down the handle snaps in 15° steps, Alt + left/right arrow rotates by 1°. The selection frame rotates along; Align, guides and dragging the handles work on the unrotated box — the card points that out. An element set to Every page (Repeat group) appears rotated the same way on every page.

Effects. The Opacity slider applies to images, rectangles and text; at 0 % the card says “Element is invisible”, and you can still select it. The blend mode (normal, multiply, screen, overlay, colour) lets a rectangle merge with what lies beneath it in the same layer — it never blends with an element of the other layer or with the page background. If nothing lies beneath it in the same layer, the blend mode is greyed out. Image effects (grayscale, brightness, contrast, sepia) sit collapsed under an image's effects; the Duotone button turns the image to grayscale and places a rectangle in the accent colour with blend mode “multiply” exactly on top — both stay individually editable. An image can also carry a border and a corner radius. Reset effects removes every effect of an element at once without touching position, text or image.

Layer. Next to Front and Back there are Bring forward and Send backward (keys ] and [): they change the order within the layer, i.e. which of several overlapping shapes sits on top. At the start and end of the order the respective button is greyed out.

Styling position tables

Click a position table on the sheet and the Line-item table section appears on the right. It keeps the two things apart: which items appear in the table comes from the document — here you set which categories the table shows, its heading and its look. Below it — under Styling — you set the look of this one table: fills for the column header, category band and rows, text colour, line colour and width, whether the column header is in capitals, the font size of column header and category band, and under Columns the heading and the width in millimetres per column (the "Item" column takes the remaining width).

On the sheet, every table shows sample rows for the categories assigned to it. A table with no category assigned yet shows the line “Table name: no items” instead — it stays visible and clickable so you can assign categories at any time. This line does not appear in the printed document; an empty table is simply left out there. The same applies to pages set to “hide when empty”: in the editor they stay visible and carry a band at the top saying the document would hide them with this sample data.

If you want to change the size of a table, there are three places:

• Font size of the item rows — it follows the document's font size under Template/theme > Font size (pt) and is always 1 pt smaller. The Text section that appears when you click the table heading applies to that heading only.
• Width of the table — it always fills the page's content frame. Change it in the Free elements section via the Content frame (flowing text) card (field W for the width) or by dragging the frame's side handles on the sheet. This applies to everything that flows on that page.
• Column widths — under Styling > Columns, per column in millimetres.

Column style and leader. Under Styling > Column style pick a column — name, description, unit, price, VAT or total — and set its font, size, bold, italic, underline, capitals, colour and line height; “description” is the line under the item name. That gives you a menu look: item name in a serif, description small and grey. A column the current document does not print (say the price on a delivery note) stays selectable and carries the note “Does not print in this document”. Leader draws a dotted or solid line from the item name to the next printed column — if the price column is hidden, it ends at the unit column. Row spacing in millimetres gives every row more air; subtotals and category bands are unaffected.

The table's height follows the printed items. If a page overflows as a result, the table breaks onto the next sheet in print — the editor flags this in advance as "1 sheet overflows".

Moving and removing blocks

Everything that sits in the text flow of a page is a block: the cover letter, the recipient address, the document details, the field list, an image row, an items table, a free table, a free text box or a heading. You arrange blocks right on the sheet:

• Removing. Click the block so its frame appears — the buttons for it sit in the bar on the frame. On most blocks the button is called Remove block; on an items table it is called Remove table, because only the table leaves the layout there and your items themselves stay (they end up in another table). The Delete key does the same on the selected block. Only the General table asks first — without it, items no other table picks up have nowhere to go. Blocks that carry required details (recipient address, document details, totals) ask first as well — the Delete key opens the same confirmation there. Every other block disappears straight away. Undo brings every removed block back — including one you removed a while ago, as long as you have not saved since.
• Moving. On the frame you swap the block with its direct neighbour on the same page using Move up and Move down. On the first block of a page “Move up” is greyed out, on the last one “Move down” — there is no target there, and the editor does not offer a button that does nothing. The block stays selected while it moves, so you can shift it several steps in one go.

Blocks stay on their page: a block does not move to the end of the previous page or to the start of the next one. And a block takes its content with it — if you move the items table, its look and its categories stay the same.

Free elements (images, shapes, text boxes) sit at a fixed spot independent of the text flow and do not have these frame buttons. You move them as usual with the mouse or the arrow keys and remove them with the Delete key or with the delete button in the element's bar.

Aligning the recipient block. When you select the recipient block, the side panel shows Block alignment with Left, Center and Right. This aligns the whole address block on the page and takes effect when the recipient stands alone in its row — not next to the document data block. Text → Alignment, by contrast, only aligns the text inside the block.

Thin orange line across the page. In the editor it marks where the content runs over onto another page (“runs past a page in print”). It is only a guide and is not printed.

Removing a table's lines

On a free table there are two ways to take lines away — they deliberately do not do the same thing:

• Grid off only switches off the grid Univents itself draws around the table. Individual cell borders are unaffected.
• Remove all lines also takes away every cell border. Those are exactly what tables copied from Word bring along: there, every cell has its own outline, and it stayed in place with “Grid off”. The button only appears when there is something to remove, and you can take it back with Undo.

Afterwards, Grid on draws a uniform grid across the whole table again.

Undo and redo

Press ⌘Z (Mac) or Ctrl+Z (Windows), or click the Undo arrow in the top bar, to take back your last change; ⇧⌘Z or Ctrl+Y, or Redo, brings it back. The editor remembers the last 100 steps; one drag with the mouse, one slider or one typed word counts as one step. While the cursor is in a text field, ⌘Z only applies to what you typed there. Saving does not clear these steps. Your logo and the defaults of your custom texts (label and default text) are saved right away and therefore cannot be undone.

Reset to template original, a state loaded from the History and a restored draft can be undone the same way. If you undo something after saving, the editor shows unsaved changes again. Reloading the page or opening another layout starts the editor without any remembered steps.

Save and reset

Changes in the editor only take effect once you click Save. Until you save, the editor shows a notice about unsaved changes, and leaving the editor asks you to confirm first.

To discard all of your own changes, click Reset to template original — the editor resets your layout to the state it had when you added it from the library.

Bringing back older states. What you saved in an earlier session is out of reach for Undo. The history (see below) is the way back there: load an earlier saved state and save it again.

Is someone else editing the same layout? If another person saves the same layout in the meantime, you'll see the message "Someone else has since changed this layout" when you try to save. Your own changes aren't lost — they stay in the editor until you actively reload or save again.

Crashed? Your unsaved state is still there

While you work, Univents quietly keeps your state in your browser every few seconds — even before you save. If the tab crashes, the power goes out or you reload the page by accident, a notice appears at the very top the next time you open the editor: "Unsaved changes from 2:32 PM".

• Restore brings your state back onto the sheet. It is not saved yet — look it over and then click Save yourself.
• Discard throws it away; the last saved state stays.

If someone else saved the same layout in the meantime, the notice says so. You may still restore — Univents will ask again when you save.

Two things are worth knowing: the state lives only in this browser on this device. It is not there on another computer or in another browser, and a private window or clearing your browser data removes it. And it belongs to you: if several people share a computer, each of them is offered their own state.

History: bringing back an earlier state

The History button at the top of the editor shows the last ten saved states of this layout — with time, person and size.

1. Click History.
2. Find the state you want in the list.
3. Click Load into editor.

The state appears on the sheet and you can review it calmly. It is only saved once you click "Save" — until then you can load a different state or leave the page at any time.

A new entry is created every time you save something that actually changes the design. That means a slip is no longer a loss: if you clicked Reset to template original by accident and then saved, you can bring the previous state back from the history.

Images & logo

Logo and images support the PNG, JPG, and WebP formats. Uploaded images are automatically resized to fit. SVG files are not supported. Page backgrounds are kept sharp up to 2,000 px on the long edge; logos and all other images are still reduced to the smaller size. For A4, export your background as PNG or JPG with at least 2,000 px height — anything smaller looks visibly soft in the PDF. And details such as the company address or bank details belong in the footer columns as real text: inside the image they are blurry and cannot be selected.

Drag and drop an image. Drag an image file from your computer onto an existing image on the sheet (including a background photo) and it replaces that image. Drag it onto an empty spot on a sheet and a new image element appears right there — on that sheet, centred under the mouse. To set a page background that has no photo yet, use Upload under Images. The same formats and the same automatic resizing apply as when uploading via the button; if the image was resized, the editor tells you. To remove a freshly dropped image, use Undo twice: first the photo, then the empty image area.

How large can a layout get? At the top of the editor, next to the Save button, you can see how much space the images in your layout take up altogether — for example “Images 2.0 MB of 11.4 MB”. The layout prints up to this limit; as it gets close, the indicator changes color. Saving works even for a booklet with many photos.

What counts: every photo costs its file size, once per place it sits — the same photo on five pages counts five times. A background you set under Images on the page type (“Background page type …”) counts only once, no matter how many pages show it. Color areas, lines and texts from the free elements cost practically nothing — a background built from areas and shapes is therefore always lighter than the same motif as an image.

Overlay above the page background. Under every background in the Images section — on a page type as well as on a single page — Add overlay places a gradient or a colour area between photo and content: the same three presets (black, white, accent colour → transparent), the same gradient editor with angle and colour stops as on a rectangle, plus its own opacity. That keeps white text readable on a light photo without editing the image first; Remove overlay takes it away again. Below it sit image effects for the background itself — grayscale, brightness, contrast, sepia. The photo stays stored unchanged; every effect only applies at print time and costs no space.

Why can't I issue my document?

A document (quote, invoice, delivery note or credit note) can't be issued or sent if the selected layout wouldn't print one or more of the document's line items — for example because the layout has no area for "other"/unassigned positions, or because the document's line-item table is missing from the selected layout. Univents shows you a clear error message when this happens.

Here's how to fix it:

1. Open the affected layout in the Layout Editor under Settings > Templates (filter chip Layout template).
2. In the Product category assignment section, check whether there's an area for "other"/unassigned product categories and whether every category you need is assigned to one.
3. Alternatively, choose a different layout for the affected document that covers all its positions.

Switching to the new print engine

Univents currently prints your documents in two ways: with the previous engine and with a new one that renders noticeably faster. Both run side by side, and you decide per layout which one is used.

Every layout carries a badge telling you which engine it prints with today: PREVIOUS ENGINE or NEW ENGINE. You'll find it in two places — in the layout row under Settings → Templates (filter chip Layout template), and directly on the layout card inside a document. Both lead to the same switch.

To switch a layout over:

1. Click the badge. It opens a panel showing the current state.
2. Click Switch to the new engine.
3. The check runs by itself. Univents takes the latest document on this layout that has a finished PDF (issued and sent documents first) and prints it once with each engine. What is compared is the content: amounts, quantities, percentages, dates, the document number and every word of three characters or more. If everything on today’s document is also in the new PDF, the switch is done in a single click.
4. If something is missing, you decide. The panel names the contents that would no longer appear in the new PDF, with a tick box underneath. The switch only goes through once the box is ticked — otherwise everything stays as it is. Take your time over the list: if a position, a subtotal or a text is missing, there is almost always something left to fix in the layout before switching.
5. With no document that has a finished PDF there is nothing to compare. Univents tells you so and you can switch anyway — you can run the check once the first document has printed. If the document used for the comparison was changed after its PDF was created, the panel says so: missing content may then also be your own changes.
6. The same panel then carries Create the design in the editor. The link takes you where you either take the design over from your Word template or start from the current design (see “Taking an existing layout into the editor” above). If the layout already has a design, the link reads Edit design.

The check compares the text layer of your document, not the look. It reports content that is missing from the new PDF — extra content is allowed and not an error. It does not tell you whether colours, spacing and page breaks sit exactly as before.

These are two separate steps: until you create a design, your documents keep printing unchanged — with the colors, margins and Word template the layout already has. The check changes nothing: it prints the last document twice without replacing it.

Switching applies to the whole layout, so to every document that uses it — not only the one you have open. The panel says so as well, because you can reach the switch from inside a single document.

You can switch back at any time. Your Word template and your styling stay untouched — only the engine that prints future documents changes. Back to the previous engine is a single click and no check; only the way forward is checked.

PDFs that already exist stay as they are. The new engine only takes effect the next time a document is rendered — for a document you have already sent, that means re-rendering it can make it look different from the version your customer received.

Layouts for Function Sheets

The same layout technique exists for Function Sheets. You’ll find them under Settings → Templates: filter by Layout template there, open a layout and switch to the Function sheets tab in the layout manager. There you create layouts (complete or blank), start from the four examples Overall, Kitchen, Service and Logistics, rename, duplicate, set a default layout and delete; if a layout is still in use, you pick a replacement first. The editor is the same; Function Sheets have their own blocks (key facts, contributors, schedule, shifts, bookings with selectable columns, diet & allergies, floor plan, standard texts). Details in Function Sheet Layouts.

Related articles

• How do I create layouts for financial documents? — design layouts with your own Word template and placeholders, including the full placeholder reference.
• Create & use financial document templates — save a complete document, including its line items, as a reusable template.
• Function Sheet Layouts — layouts for Function Sheets, also per department.

Frequently asked questions

Does adjusting a template change the original in the Template Library? No. "Use template" creates your own copy in your workspace. The original stays unchanged for you and every other workspace, and can be reused as many times as you like.

How do I change the rows in the “Your event” box (date, guests, venue …)? That box is a field list. Double-click the label or the value you want to change right on the sheet and start typing — for the value you see the placeholder, such as {event_date}. New rows, the order of the rows and rows that are currently not printed because their value is empty are on the right in the Field list section once you click the list.

Can I try out several templates? Yes. You can add several templates as your own copies and adjust them in parallel. You only decide which one you actually use when you assign a layout to a document.

Can I still upload my own Word template? Yes, in an existing workspace. Newly registered workspaces no longer have a template upload — there, all layouts come from the Layout Editor or the template catalogue. The existing management under "My Layouts" is unchanged and works exactly as before. For a layout you design in the Layout Editor, you store the template via Upload template on the layout card — the layout form names that route as well. When you create the language variant, upload the template there again.

I can't add a template or open the editor — what now? The Template Library, the Layout Editor and the print engine switch are available to every workspace. To add templates and edit layouts, though, you need permission to edit settings. If you don't have it, ask the owner or an admin of your workspace.