PDF, Word and branding

Any document can come back as a PDF or a Word file, typeset from the same Markdown by OpenDocs's converter rather than printed from a web page. Every export uses your workspace's export theme: a brand color, a font and your logo on any plan, and on Pro and Team your own footer in place of "Made with OpenDocs". Files from you, your team and your agents look the same.

Ask your agent

"Send me the board report as a PDF."

"Export everything in the Investors project as PDFs."

"Use the Boardroom preset with our logo on every export."

What you get

• A file in your folder. When your agent publishes and exports in one step, the PDF lands next to the Markdown (board-report.md gets board-report.pdf). A whole project goes into a folder of its own.
• PDF on every plan, with your branding. Every plan can use its own logo, brand color, font and presets. On Free, exports end with a "Made with OpenDocs" footer, even if the workspace kept its own footer from an earlier paid plan; that footer is saved and applies again when you upgrade.
• Word (.docx) on Pro and Team.
• The same content as the page. Tables, alerts, math, code, images, footnotes and signature blocks all come through. See Markdown that renders.
• Optional landscape pages for wide tables.

To file exports in Google Drive instead of your folder, ask your agent to save the document to one of your workspace's Drive folders. See Google Drive.

The export theme

The theme belongs to the workspace and applies to every PDF and Word export in it, whoever makes it. Owners and admins can change it on any plan, in the dashboard under Settings → Export branding or through their agent; only the footer needs Pro or Team. Your agent proposes a preset (or a color and font) and waits for your OK before changing it. Download sample PDF in the same section shows how your exports look with the current settings.

Presets

Each preset is a tested color and font pairing:

Preset	Brand color	Font	Good for
classic	#2E1C5C purple	Arial	The OpenDocs house style
boardroom	#13294B navy	IBM Plex Sans	Board updates, investor memos, policies
editorial	#6E1F2A oxblood	Vollkorn	Essays and long reports
research	#1F4D3A forest green	Merriweather	Whitepapers, studies, technical reports
studio	#1F2328 graphite	Inter	Product specs, design docs, release notes
field-guide	#0F4C5C deep teal	Lato	Handbooks, onboarding, how-to guides
letterpress	#7C2D12 rust	EB Garamond	Proposals, letters, formal reports
terminal	#1E40AF cobalt	JetBrains Mono	Changelogs, runbooks, incident reviews
launch	#86198F fuchsia	Manrope	Launch briefs, one-pagers, announcements

Fonts

Font	Style	Good for
Arial	Neutral sans (default)	Anything
Inter	Modern sans	Specs, design docs
IBM Plex Sans	Corporate sans	Board updates, memos, policies
Lato	Warm humanist sans	Handbooks, how-to guides
Roboto	Familiar neutral sans	Reports and documents of any kind
Manrope	Modern grotesque	Launch briefs, one-pagers
Merriweather	Sturdy serif	Whitepapers, studies
Vollkorn	Editorial serif	Essays, long reports
EB Garamond	Classic Garamond serif	Proposals, letters, formal reports
JetBrains Mono	Monospace	Changelogs, runbooks, incident reviews

Serifs suit long, reading-heavy documents; sans fonts suit specs, memos and handbooks. With JetBrains Mono, code blocks use it too.

The brand color must be dark

The converter uses the brand color for headings, links, the table-header background (with white text on it) and the footer's first line. A light wash of it tints alternating table rows and code blocks. Body text is always near-black (#171717) and can't be changed.

• The color needs at least 4.5:1 contrast against white. Lighter colors are refused with low_contrast.
• Aim for 7:1 or more for long documents. Every preset is above 8:1.
• Use the deepest usable shade of your brand's hue: a navy instead of a bright blue, a forest green instead of a lime. Pastel, neon, yellow and light grey don't work.

Logo and footer

When it's turned on, the logo sits in the top-right corner of every page. It also appears on your workspace page. Use a PNG, JPEG or WebP up to 2 MB; a square or wide PNG with a transparent background works best.

The footer has up to three parts: a company name (the workspace name by default), a tagline and a link. It can be turned off.

Under the hood

Export commands

opendocs publish board-report.md --export pdf --json    # publish, then write board-report.pdf
opendocs export board-report -f pdf                     # an existing document → ./board-report.pdf
opendocs export board-report -f docx -o exports/
opendocs export q3-update q2-update q1-update -f pdf -o ./investor-pdfs
opendocs export --project investors -f pdf              # → ./investors-pdf/

opendocs export flag	Meaning
-f, --format <format>	pdf or docx. The default is pdf.
-o, --output <path>	A file for one document (an existing folder or a path ending in / gets <slug>.<ext> inside it); a folder for several.
--project <slug>	Every document in a project, in batches of 10. Default folder ./<project>-<format>.
--stdout	Write the file to stdout. One document only.
--landscape	Landscape pages.
--accent-color <hex>	Brand color for this export only.

• One command takes up to 10 documents; more fail with too_many_posts before any request. --project has no such limit.
• Batch exports, which opendocs export uses for several documents or --project and publish --export uses for files it updated, include any document you can read, teammates' included. One you can't read comes back as not_found in the results.
• Each export is cached by its content and theme, so exporting an unchanged document again is fast.
• docx on Free fails with docx_requires_pro.
• Rate limits: 120 exports and 30 batch exports a minute, at most 4 running at once per account. The CLI waits and retries on 429.

publish --export details, including re-exporting a folder after edits, are in Publish a document. The endpoints are in the Exports API.

Theme commands

Reading the theme works for any member:

opendocs theme --json                 # current color, font, preset, logo, footer, canEdit
opendocs theme presets --json
opendocs theme fonts --json
opendocs theme check "#0B3D5C"        # contrast against white; changes nothing

Changing it is for owners and admins, on any plan; theme footer needs Pro or Team. Outside a terminal, set, footer and logo refuse with confirm_required unless you pass --yes, so your agent asks you first:

opendocs theme set --preset boardroom --yes --json
opendocs theme set --color "#0B3D5C" --font "IBM Plex Sans" --yes --json
opendocs theme logo ./halvard-logo.png --yes
opendocs theme set --logo-in-exports on --yes
opendocs theme footer --company "Halvard" --tagline "Investor relations" \
  --link-url halvard.example --link-label halvard.example --yes
opendocs theme footer --off --yes
opendocs theme logo --remove --yes

theme set flag	Meaning
--preset <id>	Apply a preset's color and font.
--color <hex>	Brand color, at least 4.5:1 on white.
--font <name>	One of the 10 fonts.
--logo-in-exports on|off	Show the workspace logo in exports.
--allow-low-contrast	Save a color below 4.5:1 anyway. Not recommended.

theme footer takes --company, --tagline, --link-url, --link-label, --on and --off. After a change, export one document as a preview:

opendocs export board-report -f pdf

Errors: forbidden (members can't change the theme), plan_required (a footer change on Free), low_contrast, invalid_preset, invalid_font. The API behind these commands is GET and PATCH /api/v1/workspace/branding.

Related pages

• Publish a document
• Markdown that renders
• Google Drive
• Plans and limits