Import Word (DOC) Templates Into S-Docs

Note: Refer to this documentation for the DOCX feature. The below solution is relevant for non-DOCX formatted documents.

Using The "Paste From Word" Button

You can import existing Word (DOC) templates into S-Docs by leveraging the Paste From Word button in the S-Docs template editor.

The process is simple:

1. Open your existing template in Microsoft Word.

2. Select everything in your document in Microsoft Word (Ctrl+A) and copy the contents to your clipboard (Ctrl+C).

3. In your S-Docs template, click the Paste from Word button.

4. Paste the contents of your clipboard into the dialog box that appears, then click OK.

5. Click Save in the S-Docs template editor to save your new template.

At this point, you will need to place merged fields, related lists, etc. in the appropriate locations of your new S-Docs template if you did not include them within your Word document.

Troubleshooting

If your word document has lots of complex formatting, this may not carry over perfectly into the S-Docs template editor, even if you use the Paste From Word option. Here are a few considerations to take into account.

Headers & Footers

If your Word document has headers and footers, you will need to copy these separately and paste them into the corresponding header and footer tabs in the S-Docs template editor (you can use the Paste From Word button in these tabs as well).

Checkboxes

Depending on how your checkboxes were formatted in Word, they may show up as red flag anchors within the S-Docs template editor, or they may not show up at all.

In this case, you will need to remove the original checkboxes in the template editor and replace them with one of three methods for displaying checkboxes within S-Docs templates.

Images

If your Word document has images, they will not transfer to the S-Docs template editor properly. If you word document looked like this:

The image will not appear in the template editor, and the source will look something like this:

To make your images display properly, you will need to replace the image source code with image code that S-Docs accepts. Using CTRL + F and searching for "<img" in the template source will help you find all instances of images in your template so that you can replace them.

Windowtext

Templates pasted from word often use windowtext to reference color, which will not work if your template output is something other than DOC (such as PDF).

It's recommended to run a find & replace for any instances of windowtext to the desired color. For example, the above example could be changed to:

border: 1.0pt solid black;

Endif

If your template contains Endif tags like this:

You need to remove them. You may need to make adjustments after this based on the contents of the template.

Fonts

If your template output is PDF, fonts carried over from your Word template will default to Times New Roman when the document is generated if they are not supported by PDFs. Make sure to change the fonts used in your document to ones that are supported by PDFs. Keep in mind that sizes vary between fonts, and you may need to adjust the font size when converting your font to one that is PDF-supported.

Table text fonts will usually be defined in <span> tags at the table cell level when copied over, meaning the source of your template will look something like this:

As you can see, the font style is repeated for each table cell. When replacing these fonts with PDF-supported fonts, it is recommended to move the font definition to the <table> tag level, rather than repeat it for each table cell.

Column Alignment

Table column alignment will occasionally shift when complex tables are copied from Word documents. You can use the template source to adjust this alignment. Keep in mind that table columns may look aligned in the template editor, but not in the output document. It is recommended to generate a preview document to ensure that your table columns are properly aligned.

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