---
source: https://carbone.io/documentation/design/substitutions/the-basics.html
title: "Learn how to use a simple Carbone placeholder tag"
description: "Learn how to use a simple Carbone placeholder tag"
generated_at: "2026-07-13"
---

# The basics

Learn how to use a simple Carbone placeholder tag  
COMMUNITY FEATURE Available for:  
✓ Carbone Cloud  
✓ Carbone On-premise  
✓ Embedded Carbone JS   v1.0+ 

> ℹ️ **Note:** Each part of the documentation shows exactly what happens if you send **Data** (JSON Object) and a **Template** (handmade docx, odt, ...) to Carbone.

## Basic

Carbone tags are placeholders `{d.}` within the template, then they are replaced with data from your JSON dataset. The value can be a string, a number, or a date.

```cdata
{
  "firstname": "John",
  "lastname": "Doe"
}
```

```ctemplate
Hello {d.firstname} {d.lastname} !
```

```cresult
Hello John Doe !
```

## Accessing sub-objects

If a dataset contains sub-objects, Carbone can access them using the Dot Notation to go deeper in the object tree.

```cdata
{
  "firstname": "John",
  "type": {
    "id": 1,
    "name": "human"
  }
}
```

```ctemplate
{d.firstname} is a {d.type.name}
```

```cresult
John is a human
```

## Accessing arrays

When data is an array of objects, you can access directly each object using the **reserved word `i`**, which represents the ith item of the array. Carbone uses zero-based arrays:

-   The first item of an array is `[i=0]` or `[0]`.
-   The second item of an array is `[i=1]` or `[1]`

An array is reachable using the Square Bracket Notation `[]`.

```cdata
[
  { "movie": "Inception" },
  { "movie": "Matrix" },
  { "movie": "Back to the future" }
]
```

```ctemplate
Preferred movie are {d[i=1].movie} and {d[2].movie}
```

```cresult
Preferred movie are Matrix and Back to the future
```

Get inspired by one of our real-life examples: [Menu](/examples/menu/index.md) or [Planning](/examples/planification-simple/index.md)

## Parent properties

Access properties of the parent object with two points `..` (or more)

```cdata
{
  "country": "France",
  "movie": {
    "name": "Inception", 
    "sub": {
      "a" : "test"
    }
  }
}
```

```ctemplate
{d.movie.sub..name}
{d.movie.sub...country}
```

```cresult
Inception
France
```

## Related topics

- [Array search](/documentation/design/substitutions/array-search.md)
- [Aliases](/documentation/design/substitutions/aliases.md)