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Smart Objects are items on the canvas whose value is dynamically linked to a Form or a Datasource.
Forms are automatically displayed in the Editor to your customers if you have one or more Smart Texts enabled.

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How to create a Smart Text

  • Create a Text Object and edit the text value to what you want. eg hello@company.com
  • Select the Text and go to the Object tabs. Enable the Smart Text switch. Your Text has become a Smart Object and will appear in a Form on the left panel when your customers are editing the Design.
  • To provide additional details, you can give the Text a title Email. You do this on the Object panel as well.

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Create a Smart Text using multiple variables

The simple Smart text you created earlier allowed you to create only one editable variable, which is an email. Using curly braces {variable}, you can combine one or more variables into a single multi line Text field. Think of an Address or user details. It has the a name, email, phone number with extension and address. These can be combined in a single text field but editable individually in the form.
Consider the above as the full text you typed into a multi line textbox.
This is how it will appear in the form: Let us dissect the values by following each sets of curly braces (opening and closing).
  • {Name:Jane Doe}: The first item before a colon : is treated as the title while the text that follows is treated as the default value. Here, the title is Name, and the default value is Jane Doe.
  • {Email}: This is treated as the Title with no default text value.
  • {!*Phone:: 081444 2822} {*Ext:: 02}:
    • The ! means that line is required and must be supplied by the customer.
    • The * before a Title implies that though the Phone and Ext are titles, they should be included in the final text content, so they have dual use. A title, and as part of the final text on canvas.
    • The double colon :: implies that the first colon is a separator while the second one should be included in the final text value. So you have Phone: 081444 2822 Ext: 02 as the final text; replacing the numbers with whatever your customer provides.
  • The Address line spans 3 rows and should be treated as a single Title, Value pair. With this, a multi line textbox is provided for the user to type into. If they omit line 2 of the address, the text shifts up.

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Smart Text Summary

Only the first colon separates the title from the default — a default may itself contain colons: {Time:: 9:00} shows a field titled Time with the default 9:00, printed as Time: 9:00.

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Typed fields

For real form controls — email or phone inputs, dropdowns, length limits — add a pipe | after the title, followed by comma-separated attributes:
A token whose | section names one of the attributes below is a typed field — a | used as plain text (with no attribute after it) keeps its normal meaning. The form renders a matching input: select becomes a dropdown of the options (separated by ;), email / tel / number set the input type (with the right on-screen keyboard on mobile), max caps the text length, and multiline / lines render a sized textarea. The legacy ! and * prefixes remain valid on a typed title — {!Email | type: email} is both required and an email input. Legacy and typed tokens can be mixed freely in one text object.
In the new (printfx) editor, form values are additionally keyed by the field title rather than the raw token — so editing a default or an attribute later no longer disconnects values customers already saved.