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Hi there,

 

I’ve been playing with Google Docs automations, and I am running into a frustrating problem:

When trying to autopopulate custom fields, custom fields are only visible if the template document is in the root folder of my Google Drive (see last picture).

 

Since I like to stay organized, I store my templates in different subfolders, but when I do that, even when using an extra step to “Find a document”, when I make the “create document” step, no fields are showing up. (See picture)

 

Why do the fields not show up when the template is stored in a sub-folder if I use an extra “find the document” step to find said template? How can I make it work?

 

Thanks in advance,

Charles

 

Hi @Betatree 

Good question.

The issue is likely unrelated to where the GDoc templates is located.

My template fields aren't appearing in Zapier or they all have generic names

This may be due to your template format.
Remove any HTML formatting, and check your template field formatting.

Remove any HTML formatting

If you copy and pasted fields in your template, they may contain HTML formatting. The HTML formatting won't be visible in your Google Doc, but you will need to remove it before using your Doc in Zapier.

There are two ways to delete the HTML in your Google Docs template:

Manually enter the template field

  1. Delete the template field and the text around the template field
  2. Manually type in the template field and the text around it.

Remove formatting

  1. Highlight the template fields.
  2. In the top menu, click Format.
  3. Select Clear formatting.

If you already selected the template in your Zap, click Refresh fields at the bottom of your Google Docs step. This will reload your template and display your template fields.

Check your template field formatting

To correctly format your template fields in Google Docs:

  • Template fields must be wrapped in double curly braces.
  • Remove any spaces.
  • Remove any special characters like punctuation marks.
Example

Here’s an example of a properly formatted template field: {{MyTemplateField}}.

Learn more about how to create and autopopulate a Google Docs template.

Hey there, @Betatree! Thanks for reaching out. I took a quick peek and I might recommend checking out this similar topic:

It appears this may not be possible at the moment with Google’s API but I did go ahead and add your vote as an interested user. If anything changes we’ll shoot you an email! We’ll also keep that main thread updated as well so I might recommend subscribing to it. 

Thanks again and welcome to the Community! 🎉 

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