As I normally do each year, I did a major review of my customized templates. Traditionally, I would compare my custom templates to the TaxCycle templates and make changes to mine to put in the new features and changes I liked. Last year I used Snippets for Heading, Closing and Salutations.
This year I realized that it was way more efficient to reverse that procedure. I copied my customized sections into Snippets, then cloned the TaxCycle template and revised it to insert or replace sections as applicable. It worked great and I think will be much less work going forward. This worked particularly well with the Client letter.
This leads me to my suggestion. It would be awesome if the TaxCycle client letter template, and maybe some of the other templates, was actually made up of many linked Snippets as you are already doing with the {{> QCSummary }}. So the RRSP section would be its own Snippet, etc. That way if someone wanted to customize the RRSP section they could just clone that Snippet and change the Snippet link description in the master template. In my opinion it would save a bunch of time trying to find where the applicable insertion point is and making sure that you are not breaking conditions when you do insert a Snippet. I think it would be much easier to manage as it would greatly reduce the length of the master template.
I like the use of snippets as well just because the client letter is so long. I find it easier to concentrate on one item at a time. I imagine it’s just a matter of individual preference, though.
I also love snippets, but I seem to have rogue blank lines/breaks appearing underneath snippets when entered under the letter! I thought it was just for tables/columns, in that there needed to be a line under the table/column for some reason that I couldn’t delete, but it happened today with an all-text snippet! There is no line spacing between the snippet code and the block of text that follows, but 3 lines show in the preview! I set all line spacing to zero for those sections, and checked I hadn’t accidentally hit Enter a few times in the actual snippet but I can’t for the life of me work out how to remove them!
Do any of you fellow snippet lovers have any suggestions as to what I’m missing? I like the idea of multiple snippets to make up a letter as well, but not if it results in lots of line breaks…
Those extra lines under the snippets have always been there, I just try and allow for them. For a while I thought I could use snippets instead of long winded conditions in the middle of a sentence (think {{>s}} for a plural but it always would put a return and a line after the snippet.
Last year, or maybe the year before, I sent the custom Header snippet to TaxCycle Support they did send it back “fixed” but I really saw no change.
I found the solution to the extra lines in the snippets!
At the beginning of each snippet right click, select paragraph, and change the “Spacing” “Before:” to 0pt
Then at the end of each snippet, do the same, but change the “Spacing” “After:” to 0pt
Even if the beginning and ending lines are {{code}} this still works. Also make sure you take out any spare lines within the snippet (after the words and before the last code, or after the last code).
Thanks, I’m about 1/2 way though the CLetter changing it all to snippets, and it seems to work. You have to take out any and all extra lines in the snippets. And as always: ymmv.
Hi everyone. I just wanted to say that I’ve been really quiet on this thread, but that I’m listening. We’ve been talking lately about this very thing, so I’m interested in your concerns and solutions. Thanks.
I’ve tried Jeanette’s solution but it didn’t change my two or three snippets where these phantom lines show up. I’ve gone through to make sure I don’t have any extra lines. What I do find is that there is normally a space or two on these empty lines that show up. I’m not sure where they come from as there don’t appear to be any empty lines with spaces in my snippet templates.
That’s disappointing. I didn’t post about it until I’d tried it a dozen times or so. There is always one line after the snippet, but I haven’t gotten two lines or more since I started changing the spacing to zero. Maybe try changing the spacing of the paragraphs before and after your snippet to also have the spacing of zero?
So the paragraph after your snippet would have 0pt for the spacing before and vice versa?
Yes, I made sure the first and last paragraphs have the 0 space before and after. I’m happy your’s is working. I play around with mine every now and then and will sort it out sometime. Thanks for your efforts!
Have gone to a partial use of snippets in my client letter. Please find attached my templates, but note that some of them are still a bit of work in progress. Am finding that whenever something is set for indent, that often creates a blank line. Am also finding that some of these settings are not staying, for some reason…
I’ve downloaded a couple of your templates, Bert, and have copied them to my template folder. They aren’t showing up in the template editor. Do they have to be imported somehow?
Usually closing the editor entirely and then reopening it will help it “find” the templates. This also works for some formatting things especially with snippets for some reason.
I love the idea of snippets, but I think that my desk has a permanent imprint of my forehead in it after fighting with them today. I may have to leave this for a summer work project!
Reawakening this topic. I am starting on my annual review of the T1 templates which involves cloning our last year custom templates, comparing them to the current Taxcycle standard templates and making appropriate changes. Especially the client letter / joint client letter I wish the sections in the Taxcycle standard letter were snippets. Taxcycle does a great job on their templates and we use probably 80% of them in our custom templates. Rather than laboriously comparing the templates for changes it would be nice to only look at those areas we actually change the snippets would then ensure the rest of the areas were up to date.
Also we find a lot of the wording in the Taxcycle client letter and joint client letter is the same and putting that wording into snippets would cut down on revision time.
Agreed. I did get around to converting our letters (deceased, joint, family and single) letters to pull largely from snippets, but it was the work of the ages to get it all to work properly with correct paragraph formatting etc. I will go through the new letters and compare to my snippets and update only those who need it… but there has to be an easier way? Please?
