Become a document master – Editor tips & tricks

Become a document master – Editor tips & tricks

Here are some of our favorite tips for working efficiently with the PandaDoc editor to create professional documents and templates. Note: these are for editable documents, not uploaded (static) documents.

Working with images:

Visually-appealing proposals stand out and capture your audience’s attention. Our brains are wired to find images more stimulating, easier to comprehend, more persuasive, and easier to recall than text. People recall 10% of what the hear, 20% of what they read, and 80% of what the see and do

To maximize the impact of your proposal and make a lasting impression, we recommend incorporating visual elements in your proposals whenever possible. Here are a few tips for working with images in PandaDoc:

  1. Adjust the size of your images. 
  2. Use tables to position images and text together.
  3. Create clickable images.

Adjusting image sizes

Adjust image sizes to ensure your content is lined up and looking polished.

To resize an image, start with a text block or a table and click the image icon to add your image. Click on the image and drag the bottom-right corner to adjust the size and click the settings icon to adjust alignment.

For design pros: you can stretch an image to the full width of the page using custom CSS. Step-by-step instructions here: Help Center: Stretch image to the page width.

Using “invisible” tables to format

Use tables (with hidden headers and borders) to format information and images so your documents look great and are easy to digest.

Tables are great for working with multiple columns of text and/or images. Using the table block, position text and images in your desired layout. Drag columns to adjust their width and using spacing to adjust vertical alignment. Once that’s set, you can remove the table headers as well as vertical and horizontal borders.

Inserting hyperlinks

Use clickable images to link to your website, product description pages, etc. without taking up additional real estate in the proposal.

To insert a hyperlink, click on the image (it must be in a text block or table) and click on the Settings gear icon. Enter the URL and select “open in a new window” to ensure it pops out into a new window rather than replacing the document.

Typing and editing:

Whether you’re creating a document from scratch or editing an existing one, here are a few editor tricks to save you from extra keystrokes an unnecessary frustration:

Recovering deleted blocks 

If you accidentally deleted some text just hit the undo button. If you deleted an entire block, that’s okay too — you can click the trash can icon to view and restore deleted blocks (or click “… More” and “Deleted Blocks.” Deleted blocks will remain stored for 7 days.

Copy/pasting without the funky formatting

If you’re copying text into your document, you’ll want to clear formatting before pasting it into PandaDoc. To do this, first, paste your text into a basic text editor (Notepad or Notes) to clear formatting, then copy it into PandaDoc. For Macs, you can use the shortcut Command+Option+Shift+V.

Duplicating and reusing saved blocks

Preserve formatting and save time by duplicating blocks or saving them to the content library.

To quickly build out a document and ensure formatting is consistent, use the “duplicate block” function. If you created something you’ll want to use again in another document or template, just add it to the Content Library. If you want to save multiple blocks or an entire page to the content library, make sure you start with the top block then, when you’re saving subsequent blocks, select the “add to existing content library” option.  

Keeping field sizes consistent

To keep your documents looking polished and professional, ensure that your fields are consistently sized. Before you spend precious time adjusting all of your field sizes one-by-one, know this: if you add a field and adjust the size, the next time you add a field it will match the one you just created. You can also use the “duplicate” function for fields to ensure an exact match.

Previewing the PDF

Before hitting “send,” think about all the ways your document might be viewed. 

Use the print preview function to check where page breaks are to ensure your document will look great if your recipients decide to download the PDF or print it out. Go to “… More” and click “Print” to open up the PDF preview (don’t worry, it won’t print automatically).

Using external files

Add external files to build documents quickly or attach additional information without lengthening the document.

Using the attachment block, you can create a hybrid editable/non-editable document by embedding static PDF files in your editable template or document. This comes in handy if you need to add something (like your Terms & Conditions) quickly and only have the Word or PDF version available or if you are working with a document that has been redlined and needs to be uploaded and sent out for signature. This offers you the best of both worlds since you can prepare a cover page, use tokens to autofill information, and prepare the signature section ahead of time. 

If you’d like to include extra information without adding pages to your proposal, just use the “Attached files” function. 

Any files you attach will be available for the viewer to download when they open the document in PandaDoc:

Collect files from your recipients

If you need to collect files from your recipients, you can use the Upload Field and assign it to them and take care of it all within PandaDoc. For example: if you’re a web designer and you send out a proposal for building a custom website, you can include an upload field so they can give you their brand assets or any other files you need to get started.


That’s it for now, folks! Go put these formatting tricks to use to optimize your documents and save time doing it. 🙂


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