Tempo opens up powerful possibilities for scalable design.

This guide highlights just a handful of features available to help you think creatively about what’s possible in your templates. It’s not a comprehensive list — it’s a spark. Use these building blocks to design flexible, branded templates that empower your team and save valuable design time.

Lytho Pro Tip: Want to level up your approach? Explore the full guide on how to Develop Your Templating Strategy for practical tips and examples.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Basic Building Blocks
  • Text Options
  • Image Controls
  • Interactivity Options
  • Output Formats
• Advanced Features

Basic Building Blocks

Text Options

• Variable Text: Allow stakeholders to edit their own copy. You can even use a single text frame to merge fixed and editable copy. 
  • Creating a Text Variable (Tempo)
• Inline Editing & Styling: Allow stakeholders to edit text and apply basic formatting.
  • Creating Editable Inline Text Fields (Tempo)
  • Creating a Bulleted List in the CHILI BackOffice (Tempo)
• Flexible Text Fit:
  • Auto-scale text to fit the frame
  • Auto-grow frame height to account for text overflow
  • Anchor linked frames for smart resizing
    • Auto-Grow and Anchoring Frames (Tempo)

Image Controls

• Image Selection Options:
  • Upload from local device
  • Browse the DAM (respecting permission settings)
  • Choose from pre-set options (curated or tag-driven)
  • Creating an Image Variable (Tempo)
• Frame Fit Settings:
  • Fill frame proportionally and keep within the frame, even if that means there are empty pixels in the frame
  • Fill frame proportionally but allow overflow
  • Manually move image within frame

Interactivity Options

• Enable stakeholders to:
  • Move elements on the artwork
  • Add new text or image frames beyond predefined ones
  • Generate unique QR codes and barcodes(like EAN 13, UPC-A, GS1 128)
    • Creating a QR Code Variable (Tempo)

Output Formats

• Export as PDF, PNG, or JPG
• Include crop marks and bleeds
• Generate interactive PDFswith clickable links
  • Creating an Interactive PDF (Tempo)

Advanced Features

• Layout Variants: Offer multiple formats (for example, portrait vs. square)
  • An Introduction to Alternate Layouts (Tempo)
• Conditional Logic:Show or hide fields, layers, or elements based on dropdown inputs
  • Creating a List Variable (Tempo)
• Layer Visibility Control:Let end users toggle between design elements or layouts by setting visibility for specific layers. Separate artwork into individual layers and use list variables with logic to control what appears.
  • Setting Layer Visibility (Tempo)
• Predefined Color Schemes:Change background image or text colors to brand-approved palettes
  • Changing the Paragraph or Character Style of a Variable (Tempo)
• Bulk Output Generation Through Data Merge
  • An Introduction to Data Merge (Tempo)
• Data Merge with Image Variables:Combine image variables with data merge by linking image frames to Asset IDs in your data source. This enables batch generation of visual content from a spreadsheet.
  • Linking an Image Variable in a Data Merge Template (Tempo)
• User Personalization: Autofill fields based on stakeholder profile data

Need help building your Tempo templates?

Dream big. Let our experts bring it to life. Lytho's Professional Templating Services make it easy to scale high-quality, on-brand templates without burdening your internal design team. You provide the content, and we'll handle the complexity. Have a project in mind or want to learn more? Contact our team.