Guide
Saved recipes
Save blocks you reuse — a signature, an address pair, a legal note — and insert an independent copy into any template in your workspace.
What a recipe is
A recipe is a set of ordinary blocks you saved under a name. Inserting it puts a copy of those blocks into the template you are editing: they select, edit, move and delete exactly like blocks you placed by hand, and one undo removes the whole insert.
A copy is not linked to its recipe. Changing or deleting the recipe later never changes a template where a copy was already inserted, and editing a copy never changes the recipe.
Recipes belong to your team: anyone in the team who edits templates can insert them into any template. People who manage the whole workspace see every team's recipes.
Saving a recipe
- One block: right-click it (or use ⋮ on its bar) and choose Save as recipe…. A container — a Row, a Stack — is saved with everything inside it.
- Several blocks: select them, open Search blocks, and under My recipes choose Save selection as a recipe….
The dialog says what it will save ("One Row holding 4 blocks.") and what the blocks depend on: the fields they read, the lists they repeat over, the translated texts and the pictures they use. Give it a name — names are unique in the workspace — and, if you like, a description.
What is saved: the blocks with their frames, spacing, conditions and field references, plus the named text styles and shared widths they use. What is not: the template's sample data and translations, and the pictures themselves — a recipe points at pictures already uploaded to your workspace. A picture embedded in the template itself, rather than stored with your workspace's pictures, cannot travel with a recipe: the dialog says so, and choosing the image from your pictures fixes it.
While a recipe uses a picture, deleting that picture from the media settings names the recipe first. If you delete it anyway, the recipe inserts a placeholder in its place.
Inserting a recipe
Open Search blocks — the Search button at the top of the block palette, or Search blocks… in any + Add block menu — and pick a recipe under My recipes. Typing searches recipe names and descriptions too.
Before anything is inserted, the dialog shows:
- Inserts into — from the palette, where the palette's "Adding to:" line says (below the selected block, when one is selected); from a + menu, the column or container that menu belongs to.
- Before you insert — anything the recipe needs that this template does not have: a field with no sample value (it prints empty until your data provides it), a list with no sample rows, a translated text this template does not define, a picture this workspace does not hold (it shows a placeholder until you choose an image).
- It brings — the text styles and shared widths that come with it. Where this template already has a style of the same name, the inserted text uses this template's style, so it takes this template's look.
If the place you chose cannot take the recipe — a ruled form cannot go inside another ruled form, for instance — the dialog says why and Insert stays off.
After inserting, the block's side panel says Copied from recipe "Signature" (not linked), with the date it was inserted. If the recipe is renamed, the line shows the new name; if it is deleted, the line says the recipe is no longer in your library. The copy itself never changes.
Renaming and deleting
Under My recipes, choose Manage recipes…. Rename changes only the recipe's name. Delete asks first. Deleting a recipe needs a team manager; if you cannot, the dialog says so.
Limits
- A recipe can be up to 256 KB — large tables of text may not fit; save a smaller part.
- Recipes are workspace data: they are not part of a template's export, and the generation API does not reach them.
- A recipe saved before an update that changed the template format is refused on insert, and the dialog says so. Rebuild the blocks and save them as a recipe again.
Recipe, text style, or copy and paste?
| You want to reuse… | Use… |
|---|---|
| The look of text — size, colour, weight | A text style, which also keeps blocks in step |
| A finished piece of a document — a signature block, an address pair, a legal note — in other templates | A recipe |
| A block inside the same template | Copy and paste, or Duplicate |
A recipe is a copy, not a link: it never updates the blocks you inserted earlier.
A worked example: a signature block
- Build the signature once: a Row with two columns, each a Line above a small Text with a name and "Date".
- Right-click the Row and choose Save as recipe…; name it "Signature, two parties".
- In any other template, open Search blocks, look under My recipes and insert it. The dialog tells you if the new template lacks a field or picture it needs.
If something looks wrong
- The recipe's Insert button is off. The place you chose cannot take it (a ruled form inside a ruled form, for example); the dialog says why.
- Fields print empty after inserting. The new template has no sample value for the fields the recipe reads; add the data in Manage data.
- A picture shows a placeholder. A recipe stores a link to a picture in your workspace, not the picture. Choose it again from your pictures.
- I cannot delete a recipe. Deleting needs a team Manager or above.
- My recipe is not in another workspace. Recipes belong to your workspace and your team.