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When you have a high level of common content across files with minor variations in usage, content placeholders are a way to reuse content while providing the flexibility to specify variations. With content placeholders, you can create source links that allow for planned variables, or use them without links to create document templates.

Here are some examples of how you can use content placeholders:

• Insert a placeholder in a source link to allow for variable content at the destination 
• Build templates for narratives and show where dynamic content needs to be updated each time the narrative is used
• Introduce variability to standard reporting language

You can also use connected placeholders that connect directly to spreadsheets elsewhere in your workspace.

Feature availability 

• Content placeholders are currently only available in Documents and Presentations.
• This feature is currently available for select solution types. Please reach out to your CSM for more information

Create a new manual placeholder

To create a placeholder in an individual file:

1. Open the content placeholders (x) panel on the right side.
2. Click the plus (+) icon and select Manual placeholder.
   
3. Enter a placeholder label name and an optional description.
   Note: When inserting a placeholder into a document, this label will display until you give it a value. 
4. Click Add to save the placeholder, or click Add and insert to insert the placeholder where your cursor is in the file.
   

Once added, your placeholder can be inserted at any time from the Placeholders panel.

Insert a placeholder

To insert a placeholder in your document:

1. Click in your document where you’d like to add the placeholder. If you’d like to replace existing text with your placeholder, highlight the text to replace.
2. From the Content placeholders panel, click the drop-down arrow next to your placeholder and select Insert at selection.
   

You can highlight your new placeholder in the document and add text formatting, like emphasis or color, that you’ll want when values are added for the placeholder.

Once you’ve inserted all the necessary placeholders in your document, you might:

• Click Save As in the File toolbar and save the file as a template
• Highlight the content and right-click to Create Source Link and use it as a destination link in a different file
• Connect your placeholders to data in a spreadsheet to quickly populate dynamic values for sets of placeholders

Value formatting

You can use value formatting options to change how your spreadsheet displays placeholder data. This gives you even more flexibility in how dates, currencies, and other numeric figures are displayed in your documents.

Learn more: Format values and numbers

Connected placeholders

Connecting placeholders to data in a Workiva spreadsheet helps keep your information organized, up to date, and centralized in one location. This allows you to use a consistent set of content placeholders across multiple files.

There are two parts required when connecting to a spreadsheet:

• Part 1: Configure the data in your spreadsheet
• Part 2: Set up the connection

Part 1: Configure the data in your spreadsheet

To set up a spreadsheet for multiple sets of placeholder values, create a new Workiva spreadsheet or use an existing one. Make sure you do the following:

• Set up your data range and use the first row or column for the placeholder labels you’d like to use—these can be things like Office Manager or Address if you’ve written a narrative to use across multiple office locations
• Fill in the rows and columns with the unique sets of values for each narrative
  

Set up the connection

Once you’ve created a spreadsheet with the values to fill in for your placeholders, you can connect it to your document.

1. Open the content placeholders (x) panel on the right side.
2. Click the plus (+) icon and select Connected placeholder.
   
3. Choose the spreadsheet with your placeholder data and click Select.
4. Complete Step 1: Enter a data range for the connection.
   • Choose which sheet you'd like to connect to.
   • Enter the Data range to use from the spreadsheet, for example A1:C4. Make sure the range includes both the placeholder labels and values.
   • If you need to view the connection spreadsheet to verify the cell range, click the hyperlinked name of the file.
   • Indicate if the Data fields are in row 1 or column 1 of the data range.
     
5. Complete Step 2: Review content placeholders and select key.
   • The placeholder labels from your spreadsheet are listed in the Source column. In the Placeholders column, you can either select the existing placeholder in your document to map to, or create a new one by typing it into the box.
   • Choose a Placeholder key to pin to the top of your list of placeholders. You’ll use the key to identify the set of data to use to populate your placeholders. Make sure you select a key that has distinct values that don’t repeat in any data set. You can also select multiple keys with a distinct combination of values.
     
6. Click Save to finish.

Your connected placeholders now display in the Content placeholders panel.

If you didn’t map the placeholders to existing ones in the document, you can now add them to your document using Insert at selection in each placeholder’s drop-down.

Manage connection

The drop-down menu for the spreadsheet connection provides various ways to manage your connection.

• View source data: Go to the connected spreadsheet to review the data
• Edit connection: Return to the Set up connection modal to modify the data range, placeholder mapping, or key
• Disconnect from source: Remove the connection to the source spreadsheet but maintain placeholders and entered values
• Delete placeholders: Remove the connection to the source and delete placeholders, but any values entered for the placeholders will remain in the document

To refresh the connection, click the Refresh connection icon. Any values updated in the spreadsheet will now be updated in your document.

Tag a placeholder with XBRL

After creating a placeholder, you can choose to apply XBRL to an individual usage of the placeholder without applying XBRL to all usages of the placeholder. This gives you the flexibility to place tags exactly where you want them without impacting other . XBRL can be applied to placeholders in text, in source links, or in destination links. You can apply XBRL to placeholders in the same way you can apply XBRL to other pieces of information. For more information on tagging XBRL, see Tag facts.

Add placeholder values

Use the Content placeholders panel to add values to your placeholders. The value you enter in the panel replaces the label in the text but maintains the formatting. The way you add values depends on whether or not your placeholders are connected to data in a spreadsheet.

Clear placeholder values

To clear all placeholder values in the document, click the eraser icon in the panel. All placeholder values are cleared and replaced with their corresponding placeholder label.

Hide and unhide placeholders

If you don’t need to add a value for a placeholder, you can hide it from the document so the label doesn’t display. You can only hide placeholders that don’t have values. For example, you might have placeholders in the document for "Address Line 1" and "Address Line 2". If you don’t want anything to show for "Address Line 2", you can hide it from the document.

Automatically hide a placeholder without a value

You can also choose to automatically hide a content placeholder label when no value is entered. 

1. In the Content placeholders panel, expand the drop-down menu for the placeholder and select Properties. 
   
2. Select Hide from document.
   
3. Click Save.

The placeholder will be hidden from the document whenever it doesn't have an assigned value.

Edit placeholders

To edit an exiting placeholder's properties when you need to change its name, description, or value.

1. In the Content placeholders panel, expand the drop-down menu for the placeholder and select Properties. 
   
2. Enter a new placeholder name, description, or value. Click Save.

Remove or delete placeholders

You can remove or delete placeholders from your file depending on what you need to update. Removing a placeholder detaches it from the document, but keeps the content you've already entered. Deleting a placeholder removes it from both the Content placeholders panel and the document. If a placeholder already had a value, that value remains in the document after it's removed or deleted.

View all placeholder locations in a document

To view all current placeholders used in a file, open the Locations tab of the placeholders panel.

Understand the Locations panel

• Number of uses: The light blue number beside each placeholder denotes how many times it is used in the current document.
• Placeholder name: The placeholder name appears on the first line. ("Company" or "City" in the example below)
• Section name: The section name appears below the placeholder name. ("Financial statement" or "Revised statement" in the example below.)
• Hidden placeholders: Any hidden placeholders will appear grayed out.

Search, sort, and filter placeholders

Use the toolbar at the top of the panel to:

• Search placeholders by name
• Sort placeholders by name or number of locations in the file
• Filter placeholders by section, visibility, or value type (i.e., connected data, manual data, or null data).

Jump to a placeholder location

Click on a placeholder within the Locations panel to quickly jump to the location where it appears in your document.

Things to know

Additional questions

Content placeholders: Frequently asked questions

Copy operations

When copying a folder containing placeholders:

• If the placeholder spreadsheet is within the copied folder: Any placeholder connections will automatically update to point to the newly copied spreadsheet in the destination folder.
• If the placeholder spreadsheet is not within the copied folder: Any placeholder connections will remain linked to the original spreadsheet, with no updates made to those connections.