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Sign Requests and Document Tags

  • May 22, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 47 views
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I'd like to be able to use the API to upload a document and send it out for signatures, and I want the document to have fields in various locations of the document  for signatures, checkboxes, etc..  I'm able to upload the document and create a Box sign request but am a bit perplexed by the use of document tags.  I don't want the user to have to go to Box and manually put the signature blocks where they need to go.

I found this page which seems to indicate that you can embed tags in the document I'm uploading... 

https://support.box.com/hc/en-us/articles/4404085855251-Creating-templates-using-tags

but I can't get it to work.  I searched and found this page where someone is wanting to do something similar with tags...

https://support.box.com/hc/en-us/articles/4404085855251-Creating-templates-using-tags

The response seems to indicate that what I want to do can't be done.  Can anyone confirm if it can be done?  If so, can someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks.

Jim

    1 reply

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    Hi James

    I assume you mean the prefill tags as given here: https://developer.box.com/reference/post-sign-requests/#param-prefill_tags

    There are a couple of steps to make these work - or at least these are the steps I have taken to get it working - in this case adding a name tag to the document

    1. Create your document and add the tags  - see this example word document https://peter-demo.box.com/s/y5h2hw8fvi8z6tltgiukze3v8z6vhkod

    2. As the tags are actually standard text you have to make them 'invisible' by making the font colour of the tags white, then convert to PDF - see example PDF https://peter-demo.box.com/s/v8t51rb1ljj063r925i1ie8m1ibsbbkl 

    3. For the above sample you can add a name to the prefill tags that is part of the create sign request API 

    prefill_tags: [

    {

    document_tag_id: 'name',

    text_value: 'Peter Christensen',

    checkbox_value: null,

    date_value: null

    }

    ]

    }

    and then send the PDF to the sign request create API and the signer should see this
    BOX1_Cfa8l-l-6OyaBTovs-QUTw.png

    Hope this helps

    Peter Christensen, Platform Solutions Engineer, Box

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