Skip to content

Generate a document from a template

To produce a document from a template, start a session, answer the questions, and select Create. Your answers are saved as you go, so you can do it in one sitting or over several.

Start a session

  1. Select Templates in the action bar to open the Manage templates overlay.
  2. Find the template you want to use in the templates table.
  3. Select the + action on its row.

If you have no unfinished session for that template, the form opens straight away. If you do have one, you are asked what to do with it: Resume your last session picks up where you stopped, Start fresh begins a new set of answers, and Pick from list lets you choose among the sessions you already have.

If the template has been superseded and you start a fresh set of answers, Tiro Pro asks you to confirm before the form opens, and shows you the reason it was superseded. Resuming a session you already started does not. See Supersede a template.

Fill in the form

The session opens as a split screen: a live preview of the document on the left, and the template's form on the right. The preview updates as you answer, and it shows exactly what the finished document will say.

The questions are the ones the template defines, so they differ from template to template. They can include short text, longer passages of text, numbers, tick boxes, lists to choose from, single-choice options, email addresses, dates, currency amounts, and people.

Two things change the shape of the form as you work:

  • Conditional questions. Some questions appear only when your earlier answers make them relevant, and disappear again when they do not.
  • Repeating sections. Where a template expects a list — executors, beneficiaries, properties — you can add and remove entries. Each repeating section has a minimum and a maximum number of entries, so the form will not let you go below or above what the document needs.

People fields

Where a question asks for a person, you add that person and fill in the details the template asks for. The document then uses the right form of their name in the right place: their full name where they are first mentioned, a shorter reference afterwards, and their full details in signature blocks.

You do not have to enter each of those forms separately, and there is no separate preview for each one. Read the preview pane to see how each mention comes out.

Your answers save automatically

Every edit saves on its own as you make it, and a save indicator tells you when it has. There is no Save button to remember.

Close the session and reopen it later, and your answers are restored as you left them.

Create the documents

  1. Select Create.
  2. Tiro Pro checks your answers first. If an answer is missing or does not fit what the question expects, the form takes you to the section that needs attention. Fix it and select Create again.
  3. The Save as window opens. It shows one row for each document the template produces.
  4. For each row, choose New document to create a fresh document, or New version of existing document to add a version to a document you already have.
  5. If the template produces more than one document, each row also has a Produce this document tick box. Untick any output you do not need this time. If you leave one out, a warning tells you so before you continue.
  6. Confirm.

Each requested document is then produced. When it is finished it appears in the Documents produced from selected template region, below the templates table.

Find and download what you produced

Documents produced from a template are no different from documents created through other means in Tiro Pro - they will appear as expected on your Documents tab.

However, when you want to identify all documents created from a particular template (or session), you can do so by selecting a template in the templates table - the region below will then list every document produced from that template, with its title, the date it was created, and its status. Select a single session and the region narrows to the documents that session produced.

Each document has a download action that gives you the latest version. If you need a particular version, expand that document and you will note that each version has its own download action.

Manage your sessions

Selecting a template row also reveals its list of sessions. Each session shows:

  • Label — the session's name, which you can change.
  • Notes — free text you can add and edit.
  • Status — In progress while you are still answering, Submitted once you have generated documents from it.
  • Last edited — when the session last changed.
  • Owner — whose session it is. This appears when you are viewing the team's sessions.

The actions available on each row are:

  • Edit — reopen an in-progress session and carry on.
  • View — open a submitted session, or another team member's session, read-only.
  • Duplicate — create a new session based on this one.
  • Delete — remove the session.

Turn on Hide completed sessions in the toolbar to hide submitted sessions and leave only the work still in progress.