Design

Template feature

Supported template files and features

Template types

Carbone supports virtually any document as a template. Carbone can also be used to generate emails in HTML, JSON, files for industrial label printers, markdown, and more.

However, some advanced features require specific template files. This table provides a non-exhaustive overview of all supported features by template type.

Carbone also manages more than 160 document conversions (ex., DOCX to PDF). The bottom of the table shows the most commonly used output file type. Here is the complete list of supported output file formats

Input Template Formats XML HTML ODT ODS ODP DOCX XLSX PPTX ODG SVG PDF MD IDML
Community Features
Substitutions
Repetitions
Formatters
Translations
Conditions
Simple math
Enterprise Features
Aggregators
Pictures
Colors
HTML
Charts
Barcodes
Hyperlinks
Forms
Transform
File operations
Signatures
Output File Formats
(see full list)
xml html
pdf
txt
odt
docx
pdf
txt
jpg
png
epub
md
svg
webp
pages
rtf
html
ods
xlsx
csv
pdf
txt
numbers
parquet
json
html
odp
pptx
pdf
jpg
png
svg
webp
odt
docx
pdf
txt
jpg
png
epub
md
svg
webp
pages
rtf
html
ods
xlsx
csv
pdf
txt
numbers
parquet
json
html
odp
pptx
pdf
webp
jpg
png
jpg
png
pdf
webp
pub
cdr
pdf
jpg
png
webp
pdf
docx
odt
pdf
docx
odt
jpg
png
idml

Legend

  • Working
  • Working with some limitation
  • On the roadmap
  • Not available or not supported by the file format itself

It is worth mentioning that Carbone also supports all these features through Microsoft Word, OnlyOffice, LibreOffice or Google Docs:

  • Watermark
  • Header / Footer
  • Pagination, page count, page total
  • Pivot table
  • Bookmark, Cross-reference
  • Page size, page orientation
  • Repeat table header on new page
  • Page break
  • Automatic table resizing
  • Automatic text wrap
  • All font style / color / paragraph size
  • Comments
  • Footnotes
  • Table of Contents

This list is not exhaustive.

If you have questions, reach us on the chat.

XLSX Templates

Carbone v5 has significantly improved support for XLSX templates.

Known Limitations:

  • Sheet names have a maximum limit of 31 characters If Carbone injects data into a sheet name, ensure that the injected string does not exceed 31 characters. If exceeded, Excel will display a warning when opening the generated file: "We found a problem with some content in 'file.xlsx'. Do you want us to try to recover as much as we can? If you trust the source of this workbook, click Yes."

  • Dynamic sheet creation is not yet supported in XLSX templates. As an alternative, use ODS templates and convert them to XLSX with Carbone.

  • For Carbone v4 users: Add the prerelease tag to your template to access the latest features and bug fixes for XLSX templates.

PPTX Templates

Known Limitations:

  • Dynamic slide creation is not yet supported in PPTX. As an alternative, use ODP templates and convert them to PPTX with Carbone.

  • In presentations, images and shapes are positioned absolutely. So, if you create a loop, new elements will overlap. Use the formatter :transform to move items along the X or Y axis in a loop. See a real example here.