# DocsAutomator - looking for some API Guidance

**URL:** <https://community.glideapps.com/t/docsautomator-looking-for-some-api-guidance/86971>\
**Category:** Ask for Help\
**Created:** [April 27, 2026, 4:12am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/docsautomator-looking-for-some-api-guidance/86971 "2026-04-27T04:12:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Darren\_Murphy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/darren_murphy/32/47326_2.png) [@Darren\_Murphy](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Darren_Murphy)\
**Post date:** [April 27, 2026, 4:12am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/docsautomator-looking-for-some-api-guidance/86971/1 "2026-04-27T04:12:44Z")

</div>

Using Docs Automator for the first time, and am struggling a bit with the API.

My template is quite large, and will have something like 200+ replacements, including several sets of line items.

Ideally, I want to pass everything as a single JSON payload, but the Docs Automator API seems unable to deal with complex nested JSON, as far as I can work out.

A simplified example of the data payload I want to send is something like the following:

```auto
{
	"section1": {
		"parameter1": "some value",
		"parameter2": "another value"
	},
	"section2": {
		"parameter1": "some value",
		"parameter2": "some other value"
	}
}

```

And then in my template, I would want to refer to the above like:

```auto
{{section1.parameter1}}
{{section1.parameter2}}
{{section2.parameter1}}

```

and so on…

Does anyone know if the above is doable, or do I just have to bite the bullet and flatten everything out into a long series of key/value pairs?

cc @Rupert

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Rupert](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/rupert/32/44178_2.png) [@Rupert](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Rupert)\
**Post date:** [April 27, 2026, 4:08pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/docsautomator-looking-for-some-api-guidance/86971/2 "2026-04-27T16:08:04Z")

</div>

Hi @Darren_Murphy, thanks a lot for giving DocsAutomator a spin! 🙂

Your mentioned nested syntax is indeed not supported by DocsAutomator. There are three different types of placeholders: Regular text, images and line items.

You can define section tags in the template and then define conditions for hiding / showing in the DocsAutomator interface. However, the placeholders used within those sections are just referenced flat in the payload. See docs for sections here: [Sections - DocsAutomator](https://docsautomator.co/docs/features/sections)

Please share your exact use case and I’ll be able to point you in the right direction, advise how to achieve the scenario with DocsAutomator.

Thank you!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Darren\_Murphy](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/darren_murphy/32/47326_2.png) [@Darren\_Murphy](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Darren_Murphy)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2026, 9:11am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/docsautomator-looking-for-some-api-guidance/86971/3 "2026-04-28T09:11:40Z")

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@Rupert thanks for confirming. That’s a shame, may I know if you have any plans to support nested JSON in the future?

Also, a follow up question if you don’t mind.

I’ll have several images to insert into my generated PDF, and each image will have an associated caption. I would want to insert them into a two column table, like the example shown below, and the number of images will be dynamic. I’m guessing I will need to use `line_items` for this, but I’m not exactly sure how that should look in the template. Do you have an example template in your library that I could refer to, or could you suggest the correct approach?

 ![CleanShot 2026-04-28 at 17.10.48@2x](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/glideapps/original/3X/a/7/a7d68b781982dc67470ffd61dfdc83fb298032f1.jpeg)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Rupert](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/rupert/32/44178_2.png) [@Rupert](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Rupert)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2026, 9:57am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/docsautomator-looking-for-some-api-guidance/86971/4 "2026-05-26T09:57:27Z")

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Just replying here again for everyone to see @Darren_Murphy:

The easiest way right now to achieve a two column image grid is to define a line items table with two columns / image variables. This requires preparation of the data, so that each object has two images. Template might look like this:

 ![image (2)](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/glideapps/original/3X/6/6/666d87ccf5202f91cd5ad14701c79e64c3520daa.png)

Or with captions like this:

 ![image (3)](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/glideapps/original/3X/7/a/7aaa189d58a2f0048525c92d692700f3e43d1d39.png)  
Trying to find ways to make this easier 🙂