Clio Draft: Manage Cards and Fields in the Template Builder

In the Clio Draft Template Builder add-in, a card is a collection of fields that contain information that you entered into Clio. After you create a Word template, you can add cards to it, which give you access to the card's individual fields that you can then use in your template. These fields acts as a dynamic placeholders that Clio Draft replaces with the actual data from your Clio Manage matter or contact records when you generate a document from the template.

This article covers the second of four steps in building Word document templates via the Clio Draft Template Builder. Before you can add cards and use fields to create your Word template, you will first have to create a Word document template.

Manage cards

From Microsoft Word, make sure the Clio Draft Template Builder panel is open and you are signed in. You can create, add, edit, duplicate, and delete cards from the Fields subtab of the Template Builder panel.

There are two types of cards:

• Role cards: Collection of information fields about your contacts (persons and companies), such as plaintiffs, defendants, and courts.
• Other cards: Collection of information fields about general case information, dates, etc. available in Clio.

Create/add a card

1. Click New card.
2. Select either Role or Other as the card type. 

3. Select an existing card label or type in a custom name.

   Note: Your naming conventions should match those used in Clio Manage. Special characters are not permitted.
4. Click Add Card.

The card will be added to your list of cards in the Fields subtab, making the fields in the card available for use in your document template.

Edit and duplicate cards

1. Find the card you want to modify.

2. Click the pencil icon to edit the card (to change its type or label) or click the paper icon to duplicate the card.

   Tip: Duplicate a card to create a new card with all the same fields as the original. You can then thereby saving time on setting up new cards.
3. Make your changes and click Update Card or Duplicate Card.

Delete cards

Deleting a card removes it from your Word document. You can always find deleted cards again from your existing list of cards and re-add it to your document.

1. Find the card you want to delete.
2. Hover over the card, then click the delete (trash can) icon next to the card name.
3. Click Delete card to confirm.

Add merge fields to cards

1. Go to and open a card of your choice. 
2. Click Add field to card.
3. Select a pre-available merge field name or enter a custom name, and then choose the field type:
   • Short text
   • Long text
   • Single-select
   • Multi-select
   • Date
4. If you select a multi-choice field (Single-select or Multi-select), complete the additional options.
   • Select the format of how you want the options to appear when a user is drafting a document from the template (e.g., list, dropdown, or comma-separated).
   • Enter the Option label (the option the user will see) and the Text to merge (the text that gets inserted into the document when that option is chosen).
5. If you select a date field, choose the date format.
6. Optional: Enter a hint for the merge field. 
7. Click Add field to finish. 

Edit merge fields

1. Go to and open a card of your choice.
2. Click the more icon (vertical ellipses)next to a field’s name.
3. Select Edit.
4. Make your changes, then click Update field.

Delete merge fields from cards

1. Go to and open a card of your choice.
2. Click the more icon (vertical ellipses)next to a field’s name.
3. Select Delete.
4. Click Delete Field to confirm the deletion.

Insert merge fields

You can insert fields from cards into your document individually or in bulk.

Insert individually

1. Select the text in your Word document that you want to replace.
2. In the add-in, find the merge field and click the plus (+) icon.

Insert in bulk

1. To the right of the merge field you want to insert, click the more icon (vertical ellipses), then select Bulk insert.
2. Enter the text to replace and click Find.
   • The number of instances that the text appears in your document will be shown and the text will be highlighted (selected) in your document.
3. Click Replace text to insert the field over the selected text one at a time. Alternatively, click Replace All to insert the field over every instance of the selected text.
   Note: You can use Skip or Undo to manage which instances of text to insert the merge field to.
4. Click Done.

Next steps

Now that your template has been created, you have added cards and fields and inserted them into your template, you can learn how to use conditional logic to add or remove clauses in the document based on information relevant to the matter or contact for whom the document is drafted or based on options that the drafter has to select:

• Clio Draft: Add Conditional Logic to Word Templates