Create new design based on clean

amt872 · April 17, 2025, 3:54pm

Version ie <v5.11.68>

Hi
I created a custom design (invoice) and have chosen “Clean” as base. I would expect that now my custom design is equal to the Clean design? However it is not, e.g. public notes are not shown.

Is there somewhere the code of the clean template design available?

thanks
best
Andre

hillel · April 17, 2025, 5:14pm

Hi,

Do you see a difference in the notes section of the design template?

If you’re using the web app it may help to try with the desktop app.

amt872 · April 18, 2025, 3:30pm

hi, how can I see the html code of the clean design? I can see it of my copy, but not of the original. As I understand you ask, whether I can see here a difference?

hillel · April 19, 2025, 5:16pm

When editing the design the code is split between the body, header, footer and includes tabs.

amt872 · April 20, 2025, 5:47am

hm, yes, but my question was: Can I see somewhere the code of the Clean design?

Because as written what happens: I create a custom clean design, based on clean design.
My expectation: The copy is 100% the same as original
It is not. Therefore the copy function does not work

You asked “Do you see a difference in the notes section of the design template?”
In order to check, I must know where I can see the code of the original design?

Or maybe I dont understand something?

hillel · April 20, 2025, 6:09am

Sorry, you’re right.

I believe this is the source code:

github.com/invoiceninja/invoiceninja

resources/views/pdf-designs/clean.html

v5-stable

<style id="style">
    @import url($font_url);

    :root {
        --primary-color: $primary_color;
        --secondary-color: $secondary_color;
        --line-height: 1.6;
    }

    html {
        width: 210mm;
        height: 200mm;
    }

    body {
        -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;
        -moz-osx-font-smoothing: grayscale;
        font-family: $font_name, Helvetica, sans-serif;
        font-size: $font_size !important;
        zoom: 80%;

This file has been truncated. show original

amt872 · April 20, 2025, 12:12pm

great! thanks, I will check it out

amt872 · April 23, 2025, 1:43pm

I am now comparing the default html code with the copy of the design.
However, first I compared the clean.html file on github (your link above) and the one on my custom installation, which I did not touch. Interestingly there is one line slightly different, I wonder how this is possible?

hillel · April 23, 2025, 1:49pm

I’m not sure, I suggest asking in a discussion on GitHub.

amt872 · April 23, 2025, 1:52pm

And here the differences between the original clean file and the custom (copied inside ninja invoice)

this piece of code is in the original file but not in one of the 4 code fields of the custom template

$status_logo

And this line is also missing in the copy
$entity_images

I compared html code in these 4 fields with the original file

however, why public notes are not shown is not clear to me.

amt872 · April 28, 2025, 6:18pm

hi @hillel

I spent now some more time. What I can say: Whenever one creates a custom design based on a default one, quite a lot of informaton is lost and not shown anymore. Dont know whether nobody is using this?

So I tried now myself, also with the help of claude.ai. What I could fix
1: Footer is now really at the bottom
2: Totals are now shown again (disappeared in custom design)

However what I struggle and just cant solve is the display of taxes in the total section. Whatever I do, it just does not render.

Can you tell me what I must insert in the templates body field or any other field, so that also taxes are shown?

thanks!

hillel · April 28, 2025, 7:33pm

Hi,

I’m not sure, I suggest asking in a discussion on GitHub.

amt872 · April 28, 2025, 7:48pm

ok thanks, I will do so.
Just to understand: when should I ask in this forum and when github?

another issue I see: Quite often when I change the design, it is not reflected in the invoice. sometimes it is, sometimes not. Must I do something, so a changed design is applied for sure?

hillel · April 28, 2025, 7:50pm

We use the support forum to provide support for existing features, we use GitHub to track bugs and feature requests.

Can you reproduce the problem in the demo?

Schmitti · April 28, 2025, 10:44pm

Just to throw my 2 cents into the hat: Dude, you are not alone! I spent about one year to get near the “perfect” design. But I think, I’m pretty near now. I used a lot of twig-code for different looks and stuff. And still it’s sometimes crushing my head – while creating templates for example.
Just go on. The day of the perfect invoice-design will come to you, too.

amt872 · April 29, 2025, 3:57pm

well, this scares me
I am looking for a simple and good invoice software, in order to concentrate on my business. I dont have time to spend uncounted hours on designs…

Schmitti · April 29, 2025, 6:58pm

Well, Invoice Ninja is international, open source, highly to customise. But several other softwares are even hard to customise. For Germany: SevDesk for example. On the other hand they are easy to setup, but very limited in customising (Lexware).

But no need to be scared. If you are happy with the native features of Invoice Ninja, the customising is pretty easy, because it’s just html and css.