Your first document

This walks the whole loop once: make a template, put a variable in it, give it some test data, and download the finished PDF. A short letter is the right thing to start with, because you can get through it in a few minutes and everything you learn applies to the complicated ones.

Create the template

From Templates, choose New template. In the New template dialog, give it a name (a leave approval letter, say) and a short description, then choose Create. Papers creates the template and opens the editor.

The name is the only thing you have to fill in. You can rename it later from the editor by clicking the name at the top left.

Write the wording

Type the letter as you would in any word processor. Put in the parts that never change: your greeting, the body, your sign-off.

Leave gaps where the details go. Write the sentence in full first and go back for the variables. It reads better that way, and you will spot the ones you missed.

Add a variable

Put your cursor where the employee's name belongs and choose Insert variable from the toolbar (the { } button).

In Field expression, type the path to the value in your data using dots: employee.fullName. Choose Insert.

A grey chip appears in the text. That chip is the variable. It stays a chip while you are editing and becomes the real value when the document is produced.

Do the same for the dates. For those, set Format to Date (long) so 2026-09-14 comes out as a date a person can read rather than as the raw value.

Give it test data

Open Sample Data from the top right of the editor. This pane is where you keep samples of the data the template will really receive, saved with the template so you can come back to them.

Choose the + button (Add test data). In the Add Test Data dialog, give the sample a Name, such as "Five days in September", and paste the data as JSON into JSON Data:

{
  "employee": { "fullName": "Farouk Adams" },
  "leave": { "days": 5, "from": "2026-09-14", "to": "2026-09-18" }
}

Choose Add. The sample is selected in the dropdown at the top of the pane, and the pane shows its data. Add as many samples as you like and switch between them from that dropdown. Manage is where you edit or delete them.

The paths in the JSON have to match what you typed in Field expression. employee.fullName here means a key called employee holding a key called fullName.

See it filled in

Switch the view with the button at the top right, before Page Setup. It shows an eye in Document view and </> in Construct view. Document view resolves every variable against your test data, so you see the letter as the employee will. Construct view puts the chips back so you can see which parts are variables.

Flip between the two while you build. Construct view is for editing, document view is for checking.

Download the PDF

With test data selected, the download button at the bottom of the Sample Data pane becomes active. It reads Download as PDF the first time. Use the arrow beside it for Word Document, HTML, Plain Text or Markdown. The button remembers the format you used last, so next time it might read Download as Word Document instead.

The button stays greyed out until test data is selected, because Papers has nothing to fill the variables with until then.

Publish it

Downloading a draft is fine for checking your work. Before anything else uses the template, choose Publish. That freezes the current state as a version, and the pill next to the button then shows which version is published.

Publishing matters more than it looks: a document sent for signature or made by mail merge always uses a published version, never your working draft. See versions and publishing.

Where to go next

Repeating rows, like the lines on an invoice, are the next thing most people need: repeating sections.

For a document that has to look right on a page (margins, page size, a running header) see formatting and page layout and headers and footers.