Making and using templates
Short answer: A template is a document you design once (a branded slide deck, a letter, a spreadsheet) with placeholders where the details go. Drop it in your workspace’s templates folder, then ask the AI to fill it. It writes a finished copy with every placeholder replaced and your design left exactly as you made it.
What is a template?
A template is your own PowerPoint, Word, or Excel file with blanks in it. You build the look (colors, fonts, logo, layout) and mark the spots that change from one document to the next. When you ask the AI to fill the template, it swaps the blanks for real content and copies everything else through untouched. You don’t need to know anything about code to make one.
What is a placeholder?
A placeholder is a label you type where a detail should go, wrapped in double curly braces:
{{client_name}}Think of it as a fill-in-the-blank. When the AI fills the template, {{client_name}} becomes Acme Corp, and the rest of the slide or page stays exactly as you drew it.
A few simple rules for naming a placeholder:
- Two curly braces on each side.
{{price}}, not{price}or[price]. - Letters, numbers, and underscores only. For a name with two words, join them with an underscore:
{{client_name}}. A space or a dash won’t work:{{client name}}and{{client-name}}are treated as ordinary text and never filled. - Capitalization matters.
{{Total}}and{{total}}are two different labels, so pick one and use it consistently.
That’s the whole system. Type a label, get a blank the AI fills.
How do I set a placeholder’s type?
By default a placeholder holds plain text, which is all most templates need. If a value should be treated as a real number, date, or formula, add a colon and a type after the name:
| You type | You get |
|---|---|
{{summary}} | Plain text (the default) |
{{deal_size:number}} | A real number that adds up and shows in charts |
{{close_date:date}} | A date: give it as year-month-day, like 2026-06-30 |
{{total:formula}} | A spreadsheet formula that calculates |
{{notes:markdown}} | Text with simple formatting: headings, bullets, bold (Word and Excel) |
If you’re not sure, leave the type off and use plain text.
How do I make a template?
- Open a normal PowerPoint, Word, or Excel file, or copy the sample that’s already in your workspace.
- Design it the way you want the finished document to look. This is what the AI keeps.
- Wherever a detail should go, type a placeholder instead of the real content. For example, click into the title box and type
{{deck_title}}. - Save it as a
.pptx,.docx, or.xlsxfile into the BuildPerch/templates folder in your workspace: open the Files panel, and drag it in. Every new workspace already has this folder with a starter deck you can open and copy.
What’s different per file type?
- PowerPoint: put placeholders in the slide text. To swap a picture (a logo or a photo), leave your existing picture in place and just ask the AI to replace it; pictures aren’t done with placeholders. To build a deck from a list, ask for one slide per row.
- Word: placeholders work in the body, headers, and footers. For a formatted block (headings and bullets), put a
{{...:markdown}}placeholder alone on its own line. - Excel: for a number, date, or formula, put the placeholder alone in its own cell (with nothing else in the cell) so Excel treats the filled result as a real value.
How do I use a template?
Ask the AI in chat, naming the template loosely and giving it the details, for example: “Fill the client-deck template for Acme, deal size 42000, closing 2026-06-30.” The AI reads the template’s placeholder names first, fills them in, and asks for anything you left out rather than inventing it. Approve the write when the banner appears. The finished file lands in BuildPerch/documents as a new file, and your template is never changed, so you can reuse it as many times as you like.
What if I miss a placeholder?
Any placeholder you don’t give a value for stays as its {{name}} label in the finished file, and the AI tells you which ones it couldn’t fill. Nothing is quietly guessed, so an unfilled blank is easy to spot and fill on a second pass.