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How to create a contract template ready for e-signing

This article explains how to upload a DOCX contract template, validate that it contains the required Luxeride tags, and generate a final PDF contract for a booking. It also covers the most common formatting issues and how to fix them quickly.

Written by Luxeride AI Support Agent
Updated over a month ago

How Luxeride contract template workss

Luxeride generates a contract template in 3 steps:

  1. You upload a DOCX template (Microsoft Word file) that contains placeholders (tags).

  2. Luxeride checks that your template contains the required tags (so bookings can be generated reliably).

  3. When a booking is created, Luxeride replaces tags with real booking data and produces a final PDF.

Step 1 — Preparing your DOCX template

Use Luxeride tags (placeholders)

In your Word document, insert placeholders exactly like this:

  • {{booking_reference}}

  • {{renter_full_name}}

  • {{vehicle_name}}

Tags must:

  • include the double curly braces {{ }}

  • match the key exactly (spelling and underscores)

Required tags

Your template must include the required tags below (unless Luxeride explicitly marks a tag as optional in your settings):

  • {{booking_reference}}

  • {{renter_full_name}}

  • {{renter_email}}

  • {{renter_phone}}

  • {{vehicle_name}}

  • {{vehicle_vin}}

  • {{vehicle_license_plate}}

  • {{pickup_datetime}}

  • {{dropoff_datetime}}

  • {{booking_total_price}}

  • {{security_deposit}}

  • {{included_distance}}

  • {{excess_distance_fee}}

  • {{deductible_amount}}

Important: don’t add currency or units next to certain placeholders

Money placeholders (Luxeride formats currency automatically)

For money-related placeholders, Luxeride automatically inserts the amount formatted with the correct currency based on your account / booking settings.

✅ Correct:

  • {{booking_total_price}}

  • {{security_deposit}}

  • {{deductible_amount}}

❌ Avoid (don’t hardcode a currency):

  • {{booking_total_price}} CHF

  • CHF {{security_deposit}}

  • {{deductible_amount}} EUR

This prevents mistakes when your currency changes (or if you operate multiple currencies) and ensures consistent formatting.

Mileage placeholders (Luxeride formats the unit automatically)

Same idea for mileage: Luxeride inserts the value with the correct unit (based on your account settings).

✅ Correct:

  • {{included_mileage}}

❌ Avoid (don’t hardcode miles/km):

  • {{included_mileage}} miles

  • {{included_mileage}} km

Recommended formatting (prevents broken PDFs)

Word-to-PDF conversion can reflow text unexpectedly when placeholders are inside normal paragraphs. To avoid layout issues, Luxeride recommends:

✅ Put placeholders inside a 2-column table

  • Column 1: label (static text)

  • Column 2: placeholder (dynamic text)

Example:

Vehicle:

{{vehicle_name}}

Customer name:

{{renter_full_name}}

Then remove borders:

  • Word → Table Design → Borders → No Border

This keeps the contract looking premium and prevents broken spacing/wrapping.

E-signing note: you don’t need signature placeholders in the DOCX

When you send a contract for e-signature, the signature(s) are handled by the e-sign process itself (the signing interface + audit trail). For that reason:

  • ✅ You can include a section title like “Signatures” if you want.

  • ✅ You can include static signer labels like “Renter” / “Agency”.

  • ❌ You do not need (and should generally avoid) signature placeholders or manual signature lines like Signature: __________.

In other words: don’t try to “build signature fields” inside the DOCX—the e-sign flow will take care of capturing and applying the signatures to the final signed document.

Step 2 — Upload your template in Luxeride

  1. Go to Dashboard → E-signing → Create a new contract template

  2. Upload your DOCX file

  3. Luxeride converts the DOCX to text and checks that all required tags are present

If Luxeride detects missing required tags, you’ll see a warning listing what’s missing.

Troubleshooting

1) “Missing required tags”

What it means: Luxeride couldn’t find one or more required placeholders in your template.

How to fix:

  1. Check that the tag exists exactly as shown (including braces).

  2. Avoid typographical variants like:

    • { {booking_reference} }

    • {{ booking_reference }}

    • {{Booking_reference}}

  3. Re-upload the updated DOCX.

Tip: Copy/paste tags directly from Luxeride to avoid typos.

2) The PDF layout looks broken (text jumps lines / letters move / labels merge)

What it means: Word-to-PDF conversion reflowed your paragraph after placeholder replacement.

Most common symptoms

  • A letter from the next line appears at the end of the previous line

  • Two lines merge into one

  • Labels appear on the wrong line after replacement

Best fix


✅ Put placeholders in a borderless 2-column table (recommended above).

Also check

  • Use Enter for new lines (real paragraph breaks), not Shift+Enter

  • Make sure placeholders are typed as one continuous text (not split by different formatting)

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