Report house style

forecraft's documents should read like paper from a good law firm or accountant: calm, exact, legible and expensive-looking. The renderer already does most of this for you — sizes, rules, margins, figures, pagination. This page says what is still yours to choose, what to choose, and why.

What the renderer decides (and you do not)

Paper and margins. A4 by default, US Letter when you ask; real print margins (narrow, normal, wide). Window letters get DIN 5008 Form B geometry and fold marks.
Type sizes. Body about 10 pt, tables 8.75 pt, fine print 7.5 pt, titles 21 pt, labels in small letter-spaced capitals, tabular lining figures in every number.
Rules and rhythm. Hairlines (0.5 pt) in neutral grey, a stronger rule under table headers and above the total. Space separates; nothing is boxed.
Pagination. A running footer with the page counter in the document's language on every page; a running header from page 2; table headers repeat; rows never split; a heading never ends a page; totals stay with the last rows; no blank trailing page.
Ink. Black on white. Every page survives a monochrome laser printer.

There is no setting for any of this, on purpose. If a page looks wrong, preflight says so.

What you choose

Choice	Choose	Why
Starter	The nearest one (`invoice`, `letter`, `business-report`, `confirmation`, `survey-summary`, `submissions-register`)	Each is a finished document; editing one keeps its grid and rhythm
Print theme	`document` for invoices and statements, `document-serif` for letters, `editorial-document` for reports, `ink-document` for confirmations, `swiss-document` for data	The theme is the paper's voice; keep one per kind of document across a business
Type pairing	`plex-sans` (invoices), `source-serif` (letters), `editorial` (reports), `inter` (dense numbers)	At most two families plus a mono, all self-hosted, so the PDF is the same on every machine
Accent	One dark, saturated ink: navy `#1f3a8a`, oxblood `#5b2333`, forest `#14532d`, petrol `#0f4c5c`	It marks three things only — the letterhead rule, eyebrows, the amount due. It must contrast 4.5:1 on white or the API refuses it
Density	`comfortable`, unless a long table must fit	`compact` is for 40-line invoices, not for letters
Locale and currency	The customer's, per document if you bill abroad	Dates, decimals, the currency sign and every built-in word follow it

How to write the content

Bind data, do not paste it. {{ customer.name }}, not "Atlas Retail". Mark optional values: {{ customer.vat ?? "—" }}. A missing path is an error at issue, by design.
Bind questions by name. In a summary, {{ number(question("seats").mean, 1) }}, not questions[5].mean, which moves when the form does. Shares are already percentages (0–100): {{ percent(row.share) }}.
Use the built-in words. {{ label("invoice") }}, label("dueDate"), label("amountDue"): they are correct in en, ro, de and fr, and a report can override any of them.
Let money compute. Point money at the lines; print line.net, the totals block and doc.money.due. Never compute an amount in an expression.
Mono for codes. IBANs, references and order numbers in pairs set "mono": true; print IBANs with iban(), grouped by four.
Short labels. "Due date", not "Payment due date for this invoice".
Text blocks are prose. Two short paragraphs beat a wall of bold. Markdown links stay clickable in the PDF.

The five most common ways to make a document look cheap

A colourful accent. Bright blue, orange or green reads as a web app. Use a dark ink, and let black do the work.
Everything in a box. Callouts, tables and totals inside borders and tints. The house style separates with space and hairlines; do not ask for more.
Too many columns. Nine columns on portrait A4 means 6 pt text or wrapped figures. Seven is the limit; move details into a column's note, or go landscape.
Placeholder content left in. "Lorem ipsum", "Your company", — everywhere, a QR that encodes "DRAFT" on an issued document. Preview with your real data and read it.
Low-resolution logos. A 72-dpi PNG prints soft beside crisp vector type. Upload an SVG, or a PNG of at least 600 px across; preflight warns under 200 dpi.

Before you issue

Preview (POST /reports/:id/preview, or forecraft_preview_report), read every finding, and look at the pages it returns. Fix every error — issue is refused while one stands — and every warning you would be embarrassed to send.

Reports and documents