Templates

Templates control the visual presentation of your exported documents. They define fonts, colors, page layout, headers, footers, and cover page design — letting you produce polished, consistent output without touching CSS yourself.

Built-in Templates

PaperQuire ships with professionally designed templates ready to use out of the box:

• Default — A clean, minimal layout suitable for general-purpose documents.
• Report — Structured format with a cover page, table of contents, and numbered headings.
• Proposal — Business-oriented design with branded header and executive summary styling.
• Meeting Notes — Compact layout optimized for action items and attendee lists.
• Technical Spec — Monospaced code blocks, diagram support, and specification tables.
• Academic Paper — Double-spaced body, citation-friendly footnotes, and abstract formatting.
• Invoice — Tabular layout with line items, totals, and payment details.
• Resume — Two-column design with contact sidebar and experience timeline.
• Newsletter — Multi-column layout with pull quotes and image placement.
• Presentation Notes — Slide-aware format with speaker notes and key points.

Each template defines its own combination of fonts, colors, layout rules, header/footer content, and cover page design. You can preview any template before applying it.

Applying a Template

To apply a template to your document:

1. Open Document Setup from the toolbar or by pressing Ctrl+, (Cmd+, on macOS).
2. Switch to the Template tab.
3. Click any template card to see a live preview of how your document will look.
4. Click Apply to use the selected template.

Template changes are non-destructive — your Markdown content stays exactly the same. Only the visual styling of the exported output changes. You can switch between templates at any time without losing any content or edits.

Custom Templates

You can create your own templates to match specific branding or formatting requirements. A custom template consists of:

• A CSS file (required) — Defines all visual styling: fonts, colors, spacing, page layout, and print rules.
• A template.json manifest (optional) — Provides metadata such as the template name, description, author, and a path to a thumbnail image.
• Header/footer HTML fragments (optional) — Custom HTML snippets inserted into page headers and footers during PDF generation.

Place your custom templates in the templates directory:

~/.paperquire/templates/

Each template should live in its own subdirectory. For example:

~/.paperquire/templates/
  my-brand/
    style.css
    template.json
    header.html
    footer.html
    thumbnail.png

A minimal template.json looks like this:

{
  "name": "My Brand",
  "description": "Corporate template with company branding",
  "author": "Your Name",
  "thumbnail": "thumbnail.png"
}

Custom templates appear alongside built-in ones in the Template tab and can be applied the same way.

Template CSS Variables

Templates use CSS custom properties (variables) for easy customization. Instead of editing the full stylesheet, you can override these variables to adjust a template's appearance.

To override variables, add a :root block at the top of your template CSS:

:root {
  --font-body: "Georgia", serif;
  --color-primary: #e63946;
  --margin-top: 0.75in;
}

Organization Templates Enterprise

Enterprise users can distribute branded templates across their entire organization. Organization templates are managed centrally by administrators and automatically appear in a dedicated Organization section within the Template tab for all users.

Key benefits of organization templates:

• Ensure brand consistency across all documents produced by your team.
• Centrally update templates — changes propagate to all users automatically.
• Restrict or supplement the available template library for your organization.
• Include pre-configured headers, footers, logos, and legal text.

Contact your administrator for setup and configuration details.