# Write a legal document

The **Legal documents** menu holds your privacy policy, your terms and your rules. This article shows you how to create a document, edit it while it is live and read the list of your documents.

## Before you start

- A legal document is content that binds your site and its visitors: privacy policy, legal notice, terms of sale, terms of a workshop or rules of a contest. You name it as you like.
- For your visitors, it is a page like any other. On your side, the site keeps every text it has put live, with its dates. [Find a past edition](https://lovelyrender.com/documentation/find-past-edition/) describes this memory.
- You must be able to edit the pages of the site to open the **Legal documents** menu.

## Create a document

1. In the administration menu, open **Legal documents**.
2. Click **Add a document**. The editor opens.
3. Give the document a title, for example `Privacy policy`, then write its text.
4. Publish the document in the editor. It goes live at the next publication of the site.

The address of a document starts with /legal/, for example /legal/privacy-policy/. On a site in several languages, a document is translated like a page and each language keeps its own texts.

## Write the text

A legal document contains only text. The editor offers these blocks:

- headings, paragraphs, lists, quotes and tables;
- preformatted text, code and separators;
- the container, to space and arrange these blocks;
- the **Cookie table**, described in [Show the cookie table](https://lovelyrender.com/documentation/cookie-table/).

Other blocks are not offered. The site keeps the text your visitors read: a list of contents changes without anyone writing. A text placed in a closed accordion has not necessarily been read.

For the same reason, a document does not offer values that change on their own, such as today’s date. Write the date.

**Warning:** A pasted text that contains an image or another block missing from this list is not pasted at all. Paste the text alone.

## Set up the page around the text

When you publish your first document, the site creates the **Legal document** template from your **Single Item (any type)** template. It takes over its header and footer. Above the text, it adds a line, for example “Effective since October 3, 2026”.

This date is that of the putting live of the current text. It writes itself. A document that has never been live shows none. In the template, you can move this line or change its style. The **In force since** value of a content’s data reuses it in any paragraph of the template. It is not offered in the document itself.

The layout around the text does not count in the text kept: changing your footer changes no document. [Decide the look with templates](https://lovelyrender.com/documentation/decide-look-templates/) describes templates.

**Note:** The **Legal document** template is created only if your **Single Item (any type)** template is published and carries the **Post content** block. Otherwise, publish that template, then publish a document: the **Legal document** template is created at that moment. Once created, it is yours: the site never goes back on your changes.

A **Legal document** template moved to the trash is not recreated. Deleted permanently, it returns at the next publication of a document, made from your current **Single Item (any type)** template.

## Edit a live document

So that your visitors keep the text in force while you write, a live document is edited in a new version.

1. In **Legal documents**, hover the row of the document and click **Create a new version**. The editor opens on the new version.
2. Read the notice above the text, for example **Edition 4 has been in force since October 3, 2026. Your changes will become the next edition at the next publication of the site.**
3. Write your changes, in several sessions if needed. The new version does not go live until you publish it.
4. Click **Publish the new version**. The new text waits for the next publication of the site.

Until that publication, you can correct the new text: open the document and write in it. A document therefore never has two texts waiting.

| The document | Screen opened |
| --- | --- |
| Live, identical in Production | A new version, created on opening. |
| With a new version in progress | That new version. |
| With a new text waiting for the site publication | The document itself. |
| Never published | The document itself. |

**Note:** You cannot save a document in force directly or restore one of its revisions. A direct save shows **This document is in force. Its changes go through a new version, which replaces it only when you publish it.** Quick edit is not offered.

## Read the list of documents

The **Legal documents** menu opens the list of your documents. One row gathers a document in all its languages, with a badge per language.

![The Legal documents list of a landscaper: the privacy policy in French and English, each language with its edition in force and its date, waiting for publication in French, cited by 3 forms; contest rules accepted 42 times; workshop terms with a new version in progress; and rules removed on June 30.](https://static.lovelyrender.com/uploads/2026/10/924-doc-contenus2-legal-liste.png)

| Column | Content |
| --- | --- |
| **Document** | The title of the document and a badge per language when it is translated. |
| **In force** | The edition your visitors read and its date of going live, for example **Edition 4** since Oct 3, 2026. A removed document shows **Withdrawn** and the date of removal. A document never published shows **Never online**. |
| **On the Staging** | The changes of the next site publication for this document. |
| **Cited by** | The number of forms on the site that link the document. A form placed on several pages counts once. |
| **Acceptances** | The number of acceptance boxes ticked for this document in the last 30 days. |

| State | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| **Up to date** | Staging and Production show the same text. |
| **New version in progress** | Someone is writing a new version. The site publication does not carry it. |
| **Waiting for publication** | The new version is published in Staging. The next site publication will make it a new edition. A click opens the comparison. |
| **Offline** | The document is not published in Staging. |
| **In the bin** | The document is in the Staging trash. |

The **All**, **Online** and **Withdrawn** views filter the list. On hover of a row, **History** opens the history of the document, like a click on its title. The edit action is named after what it opens: **Create a new version**, **Open the new version** or **Edit**. Then come **View** for a published document and **Move to the bin**.

A document in the trash offers **Restore** and **Delete permanently**. Deleting a document from Staging does not erase its editions: it stays in the **Withdrawn** view.

## Have a form cite a document

In a form, link your document like a page: in the information notice, the description of a field or the text of a choice. Each request received keeps the edition of the document in force at the time of sending. The **Forms** screen shows it in the **Legal documents** column.

Contest rules or registration terms are accepted with an **Acceptance** box in the form. For each box ticked, the site keeps for 10 years who accepted, which edition, when and from which page. [Create a form](https://lovelyrender.com/documentation/create-form/) describes the box.

## Check the documents before publishing the site

The **Publish website to production** screen puts legal documents at the top of **Changes going to production**. Their group is open and marked with a line. Publishing the site puts terms into force: the person who publishes must see it, even if they did not write the text.

![The Legal documents group of the publishing screen: the modified privacy policy, whose Text column announces edition 6 with two lines added and one removed, then workshop terms whose new version stays out of the publication.](https://static.lovelyrender.com/uploads/2026/10/927-doc-contenus2-legal-publier.png)

The rows carry the same labels as the other contents, such as **New** or **Modified**. The **Text** column also gives the edition that the publication will create.

| Text column | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| **Edition 6** and the lines added and removed | The text changes: the publication creates edition 6. |
| **Same text as the edition in force** | The document moved, its date for example, but not its text. No edition is created. |
| **Edition 2 returns** | The text becomes that of edition 2 again, which takes back its number. |

**See the comparison** opens the comparison in the history of the document.

## Hand a document to your AI

An AI connected to your site creates, writes, translates and publishes a legal document like a page, with the same text blocks. It writes directly in a live document: its text arrives all at once and waits for the site publication.

- It does not touch a document whose new version is being written. A new version opened then closed without changes does not stop it: it is removed when the AI writes.
- It reads the editions of a document and compares them. It can tell you what changed in your policy, or what it said on a given day.
- When it writes a form, it cites the policy with a link to the document.

## See also

- [Find a past edition](https://lovelyrender.com/documentation/find-past-edition/)
- [Show the cookie table](https://lovelyrender.com/documentation/cookie-table/)
- [Prepare a new version of a live page](https://lovelyrender.com/documentation/prepare-new-version/)
- [Create a form](https://lovelyrender.com/documentation/create-form/)