Printouts and exports management
Within your subscription, there is a wide variety of order prints and exports available in the system, such as a shipping list, order card, label, product catalog, sales report, CSV order export, buyer email export, and the like. The print templates you currently have created in the system are available in the order list when you click on the printer icon.
However, there are many more pre-made prints available. You can manage them in the Orders → Printouts and exports section. From this tab, you can also create entirely new printouts and exports. The ones you choose will be accessible from the order list.
In the Orders → Printouts and exports section, you will find two tables:
- Used printouts and exports – the table contains all the printouts and exports that you can use from the order list. It includes default prints, prints created by you, and subscribed prints (additional prints chosen from the second table). You can adjust the settings for each print and sort this list as you wish. All the prints from this table are accessible in the Orders → Order list section under the Printouts and exports button.
- Available printouts and exports – the table contains the printouts/exports that are additionally available in the system. These can be printouts prepared by BaseLinker administrators or printouts created and shared by other users. You can also share your created prints with others – to do this, contact our support through the contact form (Help and Support). You can use each of these prints (as they were created or edit them freely). To do this, click the Subscribe button. This moves the selected print from the available list to the used list of printouts, allowing you to use it from the order list.
Creating custom printouts and exports
The green +New printout/export button above the tables allows you to create a new custom printout/export. There are various file formats available and a comprehensive editor for print content. The editor enables you to create virtually any printout. For instance, you can create an XML file export for any external program, print a warranty card, or design your own invoice template. This way, you can independently prepare integration with a courier or a program that BaseLinker doesn’t natively support. You just need to create an export in a format supported by that particular program.
Next to each printout/export, there is a Duplicate button that lets you create a copy you can edit. It creates a copy of the selected printout. The copy is immediately added to the list of used printouts, and you can edit it fully. This allows you to make your own modifications to existing printouts, such as shipping lists or labels. You can freely adjust text size and colors, add your logo, or insert additional order information wherever you need it on the print.
Sections
The printouts generator is based on a section system.
Each section has its own large text field in the form (for the section code) and a list of tags that can be used within it. Each section contains a description of a different order element. In separate sections, you fill in the code executed for example for order products and shipments in the order.
ROOT
Sections are nested within each other. The main section [ROOT] is executed only once and surrounds the entire document. It can contain print headers or CSS styles, for example.
From this section, you can call the [ORDER] section to insert information about orders.
ORDER
The [ORDER] section will be executed multiple times, once for each order for which the printout/export is being created (each time with information about a different order).
In the order section, you can use the [ORDER_ITEMS] section – this way, information about order items will be embedded in that place in the print.
ORDER_ITEMS
The code contained in the [ORDER_ITEMS] section will execute in each order as many times as the order has products. Here you can construct a table row with the name, price, and selected product information using appropriate tags.
Other sections related to orders work similarly.
Custom invoice template
An alternative invoice printout can be applied instead of the default one used in Base. Your custom invoice printout must make use of sections related to invoices. We recommend using the Alternative invoice printout as a template, which is available in the list of available printouts and exports. Duplicate this printout and edit it to suit your needs. After configuring your custom invoice template, you can set it as the default printout for a selected series of invoice numbering in the Orders → Invoices → Settings → Edit → Printout template.
Exporting to HTML allows you to generate any HTML code with order information. This type of printout can be used, for example, when creating highly advanced printouts if the desired appearance cannot be achieved in PDF format. PDF printouts are generated from basic styling tags and HTML code. However, converting HTML code to PDF doesn’t support advanced HTML tags such as absolute positions of the <div> tag. We recommend basing the print template structure on tables (<table>). In printouts, you can use the <STYLE> section to describe CSS classes. We recommend duplicating one of the existing printouts in the system (e.g., order card) to see what the HTML code looks like and which tags are used. The easiest way to create a new printout is by editing one of the existing printouts. If the HTML tags supported in PDF aren’t sufficient to create your desired printout, you can use HTML export, which already supports all possible HTML5 options.
You can print PDF files using Base Printer, while for HTML printouts, you need to use printing in your web browser.
PDF printouts generated from HTML code allow the use of the following fonts: and additionally special fonts: PDF printouts default to using the Verdana font. However, you can specify a different font in the HTML code. Note that Verdana loads the fastest, and PDF files generated only with this font will have the smallest size. Each use of a different font in the printout, as well as the use of bold or italicized text, significantly increases the PDF file size and generation time (additional fonts must be embedded in the PDF file structure). PDF prints support a limited number of HTML tags, but sufficient for creating basic exports. Below are examples of the most popular HTML tags available for use in PDF prints. Links are also supported, but without the ability to modify style on hover. <a href=”https://example.com”>Link example</a> Images from URL links are also supported with height and width adjustment. <img src=”https://example-photo.png” style=”width: 150px; height: 100px;”> In tables, you can use the following parameters: In PDF prints, only some basic CSS style elements are supported. Only background color is available: background-color Supported borders: you can also format the color and width of the border. If you need to use a barcode on a PDF or HTML printout, you can utilize a specially prepared barcode generator. https://panel.baselinker.com/printouts/barcode.php?code=CODE&type=TYPE&w=WIDTH&h=HEIGHT The above link, placed within an <img> tag, will display the barcode. Generating HTML printouts
Generating PDF printouts
PDF – available fonts:
HTML elements
Text elements
Links
Lists
Images
Tables
CSS elements
Text formatting
font-family: limited to basic fonts: Arial, Calibri, Courier, Times New Roman, Verdana;font-size: expressed in points, pixels, or em;color: standard color names, HEX and RGB values;font-weight: bold or normal.font-style: italic, normal.text-decoration: underline, line-through, none.text-align: left, center, right, justify.Background
Borders
Barcodes
Parameters: