Create Professional Custom Invoice Generator for Building Services with Ease

Custom invoice generator for Building services

Creating professional invoices.  Frustrating, right?   It's time-consuming, repetitive,  and, not to mention, boring.   But there is a way to simplify that  entire process using one powerful tool.   By the end of this video, you will know how  to create your custom invoice generator using   CC editor and make your invoicing  process efficient, customizable,   and totally stress-free. So let's dive in. First, let's talk about CC editor itself.   It's a fantastic, rich text editor that  integrates seamlessly with frameworks   like Angular, React, or Vue. For this tutorial, we're using   React to build our invoice generator. But here's the best part: we have the CC   editor's recently introduced Builder—the  one you're seeing on the screen—that   makes the setup process incredibly easy. With Builder, you can customize your writer,   select your preferred framework, and  get a visual preview of your starter   project—all with just a few clicks. Let me show you how. Let's walk through   the four quick steps to get your  starter project up and running.   First, select your preset. For this video,  we are going with the Classic Editor.   It's the perfect option for a  clean and simple starting point.   Once you've made your selection,  hit "Next" to proceed.   Now, this is where the CK  Editor Builder really shines.   We can enable key features that will  tailor our editor to create invoices.   We'll start by enabling tables to organize  invoice items, lists to break down services   or information, and headings for things  like "Billed to" and "Performed Work."   These are essential for  structuring our invoice.   Here's a pro tip: if you want to take  your invoice generator to the next level,   enable premium features like  templates and merge fields.   Templates will allow you to save reusable invoice  formats, and merge fields are great for inserting   repetitive data like customer names or dates. And of course, don't forget to export to video   so you can easily download your invoice. When you're done with that set of features,   we will be able to produce invoices that  look like that one with a good structure,   a professional look and feel, and the  ability to customize it to your needs.   It's important to mention that you need a license  key to use premium features. You can find a link   in the description on how to get one. At this next step, you can customize   how your toolbar behaves. You can choose to collapse buttons   that don't fit in a single line, or add a balloon  toolbar that appears for highlighted text.   But for now, we will keep it simple and  stick with the default configuration.   And finally, step four—downloading  the project itself.   You can pick one of many options, but for this  video, we'll select React as our technology.   Choose the self-hosted edit option  for the integration method.   And finally, we will select the  "Download Project" option.   And now you have your very own  CKEditor instance ready to go.   With our project downloaded, it's time  to tweak the default configuration.   As you can see, Builder generated a really  standard React application with Vite and   CKEditor as dependencies. Now, find the app.js file.   This is where the CKEditor component lives. If you have never tried CKEditor before,   this code might look confusing, but worry  not, I will break it down for you.   As you can see, we have an editor config  object, which is the editor's heart.   We have the following properties there: a  toolbar that contains an array of items.   Here, we define which functional elements  are visible in the toolbar, in which order   they are displayed, and logically group these  elements using the straight line separator.   Next, we have plugins. Here we'll list the plugins  needed for the toolbar buttons to function.   Plugins are exported from two packages:  CKEditor 5 and CKEditor 5 premium features.   We also have some default configurations  that are predefined by the Builder.   We will talk about that in a minute. And finally, we have a license key property,   and you need it if you plan  to use premium features.   In our case, we will use premium  features—that's why I stored my   license key in a variable and  passed it to this property.   We'll be configuring the editor to  handle invoices specifically.   Let's start by tweaking the  tables plugin configuration.   For example, we will use multiple tables  for our invoices, and we want all of these   tables to follow the similar rule: the  first row is a heading row by default.   You can easily configure that by adding  some code to your configuration.   Now, let's make our invoice generator  even more powerful with templates.   CKEditor’s template feature allows you to  predefine reusable document structures.   In our case, we'll be setting a custom  invoice template in the CKEditor config.   Locate the template definitions and add  a new entry for our invoice template.   Here is an example of a minimal,  clean invoice template.   If you want to use my exact template, you can find  a link in the description to the GitHub repo.   And now, every time you need to create a  new invoice, simply select your template   and fill in the details. Simple as that. Let's say you missed a feature when creating   a starter project using Builder, like slash  commands. Slash commands can allow you to   insert templates by pressing "slash." Let's fix that. We need to import the   slash commands plugin and include  it in the editor's config.   By default, slash commands show all of  the available options, which might not be   something you're looking for. Let's modify the list of items   that show up when you press "slash." Now, when you press "slash" in your editor,   you can see that only "invoice"  is available in the list.   And this is a good example of how you can  modify the default behavior of plugins.   Now, let's talk about merge fields. These are awesome for automating repetitive   parts of your invoice—things like line names,  invoice dates, or even total amounts.   To set this up, you only need to define  merge fields in your editor config.   Each definition consists of three properties:   ID, label, and default value. Here are the definitions you can   use to understand the concept a little  better: my name and the invoice date.   Now, let's replace the hardcoded part of  our invoice to actually use merge fields.   Once that's done, you can use those fields  when creating new invoices, and they'll   automatically populate with the correct data  when you generate a new invoice template.   It's a huge time-saver and helps ensure  consistency across all of your invoices.   Now that our setup looks good, it's time  to export our invoice to a PDF file.   This is where the PDF export  plugin comes in handy.   We don't need to add any code  manually because we actually   added this plugin when we used Builder. With just a click, CKEditor converts your   styled invoice into a downloadable PDF file—no  need for additional tools or software.   You can even customize the layout and appearance  of your PDF with options like custom margins,   page orientation, and format. Once everything is configured,   click the PDF icon in the toolbar, and voila—you  have a professional invoice ready to go.   And there we have it. We've built a fully  customizable invoice generator using   CKEditor in just a few simple steps. With powerful features like templates,   slash commands, merge fields, and export  to PDF, we improved the entire invoicing   process and saved tons of time. If you want to try this particular   setup, check the description of this video—you  can find a link to the GitHub repo there.   Don't forget to like this video and subscribe  to the channel for more videos like this one.   But for now, thank you so much  for watching! Until next time.