Standard Template Concepts

A standard template produces its PDF with the JustOn PDF service. The document structure and layout are defined by a Liquid file attached to the template record, written in the Liquid template language. The template record supplies the texts, the formatting settings and the email contents.

For information on the difference to classic templates and a feature comparison, see Working With Templates.

Related information:

Configuring Standard Templates
Working With Liquid Code
Configuring Template Details

Document Model

With standard templates, structure and styling live in the Liquid file, whereas texts and some metadata come from in the template record:

• Structure – which tables exist, their columns and rows, sections, subtotals, page layout, and the page counter – is defined by the Liquid file, which iterates over the invoice data and lays everything out itself.
• Styling is defined by the Liquid file (its markup and CSS), plus the optional Custom CSS field.
• Only text – localized labels and free-text blocks – along with locale/format settings and a few feature gates are mapped from the template record.

Practical consequence: to change the invoice layout, tables, columns or look, you edit the Liquid file, not the template record's structure fields. Template fields that drive the classic (Visualforce) PDF have no effect here – they are hidden on the template record.

For a field-by-field overview of which Template fields are read when creating the PDF and which are ignored, see Standard Template Field Usage.

PDF/A Output

Every standard template PDF is a PDF/A-3B document (ISO 19005-3), produced automatically with no extra configuration. This means:

• the document is self-contained – all fonts are embedded,
• it declares an sRGB output intent, and
• it carries PDF/A identification metadata.

PDF/A is an ISO-standardized format for the long-term archiving of electronic documents, which makes the output suitable for compliant long-term storage.

PDF/A-3 is also the mandatory container for ZUGFeRD/Factur-X hybrid e-invoices. A ZUGFeRD e-invoice therefore requires a standard template – this is a hard prerequisite.

Language Variants

Localization does not happen in the Liquid file. All language variants share the same file. What differs is the template record, which carries the language, the locale and the translated labels.

Creating a template through the New button on the Templates tab and selecting a language populates all of these for you. For the complete set of values, see Language-Specific Values.

One Liquid file covers one kind of document: Invoice Template covers invoices, credits, cancellations, pro forma and deposit invoices.

PDF Renderer Versions

JustOn Billing & Invoice Management selects the PDF rendering approach per template, using the PDF Renderer field on the template record:

Templates created through the New button use v3.

The earlier v2 engine remains available for specific use cases that have not been ported yet, most notably Swiss QR-bill invoices as well as dunning reminders and account statements.

Limitations

Be aware of the following restrictions:

• No external resources will be loaded (like image URLs).
• To embed assets (images, fonts etc.), you have to use data URIs. The assets must be encoded as base64 strings. For details, see Embedding Assets.

• By default, backgrounds are not rendered. To control this behavior, use specific CSS styles per element:

  -webkit-print-color-adjust: exact;
  

• No scripts can be run.

• The following tags are allowed: a, abbr, acronym, address, area, article, aside, b, base, basefont, bdi, bdo, big, blockquote, body, br, button, canvas, caption, center, cite, code, col, colgroup, data, datalist, dd, del, details, dfn, dialog, dir, div, dl, dt, em, fieldset, figcaption, figure, font, footer, form, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, head, header, hr, html, i, img, input, ins, kbd, label, legend, li, link, main, map, mark, meta, meter, nav, noframes, noscript, ol, optgroup, option, output, p, param, picture, pre, progress, q, rp, rt, ruby, s, samp, section, select, small, source, span, strike, strong, style, sub, summary, sup, svg, table, tbody, td, template, textarea, tfoot, th, thead, time, title, tr, track, tt, u, ul, var, wbr.
• Consequently, the following tags are not allowed: applet, audio, embed, frame, frameset, iframe, object, script, video.

The rendering engine adds further CSS and font restrictions:

On the other hand, several print-oriented features are supported, including @page rules (size, orientation, margins), page-break-*, page numbering via counter(page)/counter(pages), repeating table headers (<thead>), footnotes (float: footnote), inline SVG, CSS transforms, border-radius, box-sizing, and right-to-left/bidirectional text.

Template Variation and Data Origin

JustOn Billing & Invoice Management attaches a default Liquid file to standard templates for invoices (including progress, partial, pro forma and deposit invoices), credits and cancellations. For dunning reminders and account statements as well as for Swiss QR-code invoices, there are Liquid files that work with the rendering engine v2.

In the simplest approach (no locale-specific variation, etc.), you have one template record to which is attached the corresponding Liquid file, as well as are associated the template detail records to cover your use cases. Now depending on the use case, JustOn Billing & Invoice Management uses the template record, the Liquid file attachment or the associated template detail to produce the PDF file and the email.

Example use cases

Your business may, however, need to cover more complex scenarios, like multiple locales, different customer groups, etc. In this case, you duplicate this structure: You create a second (third, etc.) template record intended for the specific purpose, and attach the corresponding specific Liquid template files and associate the relevant template detail records.

Email Contents

In addition to the fields that are printed to the PDF, the invoice template also includes texts for the email that JustOn can send to distribute the produced invoice files (see Emailing Invoices). These fields include: