Handle creating and designing your HL7 templates like any other project you've ever worked on.
Step 1. Know where you're going before your start.
•What is your mission? Obviously you want to create documents/reports from HL7 data, but beyond that what are you trying to accomplish?
•What type(s) of output should the template produce (HTML, PDF, XML Metadata)?
•Who is the target audience who will be viewing the published documents?
•How are the published documents going to be delivered and presented to the audience?
Step 2. Identify and collect sample HL7 data.
•Since you are creating an HL7 document you will need 1 or more (we recommend more) HL7 messages to use when designing/testing your templates. 
TIP: Use the HL7 Notepad
to collect and store sample HL7 messages all in one file for ease of use.
•HL7 messages and their content can vary widely from trading partner to trading partner. Is your template expected to handle HL7 from multiple trading partners? or just one? If multiple you will want to make sure that you have sample messages from each one to use.
Step 3. Creating your HL7 Template. Where to Start?
Using other HL7 Templates as your starting point
•Is there another Template in your library which is similar to the one you want to create? If so you can clone it.
•Is there a Template in another library which is similar? If so you can create a new template by importing it.
•Is there a Template in the Samples and Examples which might be a good source to start with?
Starting from scratch
•You can "draw" your template in Microsoft Word or Wordpad (RTF) and then use that source to create a template.
•You can use any 3rd party HTML editor (Dreamweaver, Visual Studio, etc) to create your initial template and then just import that into a new template for final touch-ups and cleanup. Just make sure that you follow the basic HTML Rules for the Template Editor.
TIP: Use the HL7 Notepad to collect and store sample HL7 messages all in one file for ease of use.
TIP: From your sample HL7 messages choose one message which "best" represents the data elements you want and "embed" that HL7 message right into your Template so that it will always be available for testing and you don't have to open an HL7 data file every time you want to tweak your template. Do this in the HL7 Message Panel.
TIP: When creating and editing your Templates create checkpoints (
) regularly for safety.
See Also: Template HTML, Using Styles, Using the Image Library, Template Macros, Publisher Settings, Stand-Alone Templates