Text Placeholders: The Underrated Automation
Manually adjusting recurring text blocks takes more time than necessary. With text placeholders, variable elements in standard texts can be filled automatically – a simple feature with great impact.
Time Spent on Recurring Texts
Many companies maintain standard texts in Word documents or text block collections. With each use, variable parts must be manually adjusted: project name, date, quantity, technical details.
Additionally, there's the susceptibility to errors: forgotten adjustments, incorrect data, or inconsistent formulations. Text placeholders automate these adjustments and ensure consistent, error-free documents.
How Text Placeholders Work
Text placeholders are variable elements in square brackets that are automatically prompted when inserted. Example: "Consultation on [Topic] on [Date]" becomes an individual item with two simple inputs.
The system recognizes identical placeholders and only prompts for them once. With "[Project] - Phase 1" and "Completion [Project]", the project name is entered only once and automatically inserted in both places.
Practical Example: Travel Costs
A particularly clever use case: For catalog items with the unit "km" or "mi" and two placeholders, the system automatically recognizes travel costs. Item: "Travel from [Start] to [Destination]".
The system suggests your company address as the start and the customer address as the destination. The distance is automatically calculated, entered as quantity, and multiplied by the mileage rate. Manual route calculation is completely eliminated.
Additional Use Cases
Project descriptions particularly benefit from placeholders: "Website development for [Customer] with [Number] subpages, [CMS-System]" ensures complete, structured descriptions without forgotten details.
Placeholders also prove useful for technical services: "Installation [Product] Version [Version] on [System]" or "Maintenance [Device] Serial Number [SN] on [Date]" standardize documentation.
Integration into Workflow
Placeholders work optimally in the product catalog. Items created once with placeholders serve as templates for all future documents. Input is done through a clear dialog window with tab navigation between fields.
When converting existing items to catalog entries, the system automatically recognizes variable elements and suggests them as placeholders. This creates intelligent templates almost by themselves.
Advanced Options
The placeholder documentation shows further possibilities: nested placeholders, default values, and context-dependent suggestions. With the right strategy, the effort for standard items is significantly reduced.
For professional proposals, placeholders are particularly valuable: individual service descriptions are created quickly and error-free from proven templates.
Conclusion
Text placeholders are a simple feature with great benefit. They standardize recurring texts while personalizing them at the same time. Setup is simple, time savings are noticeable. An underestimated tool for more efficient document creation.