# Understanding form templates

Source: https://participantkit.com/help/courses/how-to/understanding-form-templates

<div class="callout">Templates are the most misunderstood part of Participant Kit. Please take your time to understand how this works.</div>

A template is like a recipe that creates a fresh form each time you use it.

When you edit a form you've created, you're only changing that specific dish - not the original recipe. If you want to change what gets created for future forms, you need to edit the template itself.

## Key concept: Templates vs Forms

- **Template**: The master recipe that lives in your Templates section
- **Form**: A copy created from the template that lives in your study
- **Editing a form**: Only affects that one form
- **Editing a template**: Affects all future forms created from it (but not existing ones)

### Consent form template lifecycle

Here's what happens when you use a template to create and send a consent form:

![Define your consent template, generate a form, ask for consent](https://participantkit.com/assets/images/help/org-templates/template-lifecycle.png)

1. **Define your template** - Create a reusable consent template with placeholders and logic
2. **Generate a form** - When creating a study, the template generates a context-specific consent form
3. **Send for consent** - When you ask for consent, we attach the appropriate signature mechanism (email, in person or paper), create a unique instance of the form for each participant, and automatically set up your audit trail

## Template components

Templates are built from three main components:

### Blocks

Blocks are the "building blocks" of your template. They work the same way in both templates and the form builder. Participant Kit has the following blocks:

- **Content blocks** - For text, instructions and information
- **Agreement questions** - For consent and NDA agreements (only available in consent forms and agreements)
- **Questions** - For collecting data (checkboxes, text fields, etc.)

![Content Section](https://participantkit.com/assets/images/help/org-templates/add-block.png)

Content blocks enables you add headers, text, Placeholders, Liquid objects and Liquid tags into your template.

![Content Section](https://participantkit.com/assets/images/help/org-templates/content-section.png)

Questions enable you to ask more granular questions of your participants. You can add and remove questions by clicking the add or remove buttons.

*Note - We will explain how permission questions work in a later section*

![Content Section](https://participantkit.com/assets/images/help/org-templates/checkbox-section.png)

You can add or remove blocks from any page.

#### Required blocks

Some blocks must be present for forms to work properly:

- **All forms**: Must have at least one content section
- **Consent forms**: Must include "How long we keep your data" section
- **Agreements & consent forms**: Must have the final opt-in section

### Placeholders

Placeholders mark spots where researchers need to add project-specific information. They show in the builder as red text in square brackets. When someone makes a form from the template, the builder warns them about any placeholder text left on it, but it doesn't stop them saving. See [how to replace placeholder text](https://participantkit.com/help/forms/moving-questions-and-branching-warnings#placeholder-text).

**To add a placeholder:**
1. Select the text you want to make a placeholder (1)
2. Click **[placeholder]** in the toolbar (2)

![Adding a placeholder to a consent template](https://participantkit.com/assets/images/help/org-templates/placeholders.png)

### Liquid

Liquid is a templating language that makes your forms dynamic. It pulls in information automatically and adapts content based on study type.

**Two main Liquid features:**

- **Objects** - Insert information automatically, for example:
  - `` - Adds the researcher's name
  - `` - Adds the project name
  - `` - Adds your organisation name

- **Tags** - Add logic to show different content:
  - Show different text for interviews vs usability tests
  - Include sections only when certain conditions are met
  - Adapt consent language based on study category

Don't worry if this seems technical - start with placeholders and basic objects, then explore Liquid tags as you need more sophisticated templates.

Learn more: [What is Liquid](https://participantkit.com/help/what-is-liquid)