Use Pattern Codes to Create a Custom Pattern
HotDocs provides Text variable patterns: a telephone number pattern, time of day patterns, and a U.S. Social Security number pattern. You can also create your own pattern by typing it directly in the Pattern field (at the Text Variable Editor) or by clicking the 
Component Manager button at the template, selecting Text Pattern from the Components list, and clicking the 
New Component button.
Use the following codes to create patterns. These codes represent the types of characters the user can enter. Additionally, you can insert hyphens, periods, static text, and so forth with these codes.
| Code | What HotDocs Will Require and Insert in the Document |
| X | any character |
| 9 | any numeric character |
| A | any alphabetic character |
| U | uppercase alphabetic character |
| L | lowercase alphabetic character |
| N | alphanumeric character (9 and A) |
| H | hexadecimal character (0-9, A-F, a-f) |
If you need a character in your pattern that HotDocs may interpret as a code, you can force the character to appear as part of the pattern and not as a code by typing a forward slash (/) and then the character. For example, if you need a pattern to use the X character, you must place the forward slash before the X so that HotDocs doesn't try to replace the X with a character the user types.