(ENG) Smart fields

Smart fields are useful when document writers are only allowed to edit certain words, but not the whole text. You can therefore add them in all static texts, editable texts and choice lists. A smart field is a field where you enter a term that appears in several places in the template/document. These are often just short terms or words.

Example:

• Name of smart field: "Year of study". 
• What users enter in the document: the year of study for which the document is used. (e.g. "2020/2021") 
• At each place in the document where the smart field "Study year" is placed, the filled-in study year ("2020/2021") will now automatically appear.  

A certain term (e.g. year of study, name of study programme or number of ECTs) can recur/be used in several places in the document and with the help of the smart fields, writers only need to enter the term once. Subsequently, wherever this smart field is placed in the template, the entered text (in this case, the academic year "2020/2021") will be filled in automatically.

While creating smart fields, you can make use of any help text that can only be seen by the writers. This help text is not visible in the published document. In this help text, you can explain what the authors of the document have to fill in in the smart field. You can make the help text as long as you like.

Adding a smart field is done as follows:

1. Click the smart field icon in the toolbar.

2. Before and while typing a new smart field, already existing smart fields will appear in the menu, as shown in the image below.

3. For a new smart field, you can start by entering the title of the smart field in the empty bar. In this case, we choose "Educational institution" (NL; "Onderwijsinstelling"). Since the smart field does not yet exist, you will be given the option to create a new smart field under "Create new smart field". You do this by clicking on the type of smart field you want to create, in this case it is "Text".

For more information on the special types of smart fields (date, number, email, etc.), read this article.

4.  You can then add a help text here if needed and subsequently click anywhere in the document and the smart field is placed. The help text is only visible to writers and not in the published document. With this help text, you can explain what the writers of the document should enter in the smart field.

The smart field and help text can be changed by clicking on the smart field.

Alternatives to quickly create a smart field

Besides the above method, there are also 2 other ways to quickly create a smart field:

1. Select the word that should become a smart field with your mouse and click on the smart field icon at the top of the navigation bar. The word will immediately change into a smart field.

2. Type the word that should become a smart field between two ring brackets. For example: {{education institution}}.

The word will then automatically change into a smart field.