Concepts and glossary
How the pieces fit
You build a template in the Designer. You check it in as a version, and publish that version: to everyone, to just you, or to a collection. People, scripts and AI then make documents from that one version, using the Viewer, the command line, the Core library or the skill. Each document takes its own field values and data.
For the whole picture, see How it fits together.
Glossary
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Asset | An image, font or file a template uses. Shared assets are public, so anyone can read them and only the owner can change them. |
| Blueprint | A published example template that others can copy as their own starting point. |
| Check in, check out | To change a template you check it out, and nobody else can change it. When you check it in, a version is saved. |
| Collection | A shared space for a team’s templates. Only its members see them. A Publisher creates it and decides who is in it. |
| Data | A list or a record a template reads, such as invoice lines. See Data and fields. |
| Document | What a template makes: a PDF. |
| Editor | A licence for people who build templates. Includes everything a Writer can do. |
| Engine | The part of Paperwork that lays out and writes the document. A template keeps running on the engine release it was published with. See Choose the engine version. |
| Field | A single value that changes each time, such as a date or a customer name. See Data and fields. |
| Layout | The HTML of a template. |
| Personal | A way to publish a template just for yourself, signed in. It is not listed. |
| Portal | A Paperwork site with its own admins and settings. See Portals. |
| Public | A way to publish a template so anyone can use it. It is listed in the published templates. |
| Publish | To make a version the one that people use. You choose where: public, personal or a collection. |
| Publisher | A licence for people who share templates with a team. Includes everything an Editor can do. |
| Reference | The id of a published template: owner:name for a personal one, collection:template for a collection’s. It is what the Viewer and the CLI use to find it. |
| Style | The CSS of a template. |
| Template | A layout, styles, data, fields and assets, held together as one file. |
| Version | A saved state of a template, made when you check it in. The published version is the one people use. |
| Viewer | The part of Paperwork that shows a published template as a document in a web browser. See Paperwork.Viewer. |
| Writer | The licence every account starts with. A Writer fills in templates and builds their own in My templates. |
Next
- Roles and access: what each licence can do.
- Data and fields.
- Portals.