Handouts are available for Basic and Premium subscription plans. Adding a finished Handout to a course requires district manager course access.
Before You Begin: Organize a Folder
Create a shared school or district folder for your new Handout before you build it, rather than leaving it in your personal folder. Items in personal folders are harder for other users to find, and the folder a Handout lives in becomes its default grouping when it is later added to a course.
Create a Handout
In Resources, open or create the folder where the Handout should live.
Click “New,” then select “Create Handout.”
This opens a blank Handout in the Handout Editor.
Switch Between Body, Header, and Footer
Use the view switcher in the top right of the editor to move between Body, Header, and Footer. Content added to the Header or Footer repeats on every page.
Switch back to Body when you are ready to continue building the main content of the letter.
Add an Image
This works the same in the Body, Header, or Footer. A school or district logo is commonly placed in the Header or Footer so it repeats on every page.
Place your cursor where the image should appear.
Select the plus sign and choose “Image.”
Choose the image file to insert.
Click the image to resize it, and use its own toolbar to set alignment.
Personalize Text with Dynamic Content
Any selected text can be tied to a student's real data instead of staying static. This is what turns one template into a personalized letter for every student.
Type the text, for example a heading such as “Semester Report for [Student Name].
Highlight the part that should be personalized and select the dynamic content icon in the text toolbar.
In the “Text Replacement” panel, choose what the text is based on: Student Info, Term Name, Proficiency, Assessment Score, or Date.
Note: If a similar field has already been configured elsewhere in the Handout, a matching option appears under Suggestions. Selecting it reuses that exact configuration instead of building it again from scratch.
Proficiency or Assessment Score fields
Choose a configuration source: Standards Configuration (one or more standards, from any assessment that reports on them) or Assessment Configuration (one specific assessment).
For Standards Configuration, select “Select Standards” and search for and add one or more standards.
For Assessment Configuration, select “Select Assessment” and choose the assessment from Resources.
Set “Data From” and “Data To” (these default to the school year's start and end).
Add an Assessment Filter if the value should only consider certain assessments.
Choose an Extremum, such as Latest, to control which value is used if a student has more than one matching data point in range.
Assessment Configuration also offers “Include Partial Data,” which counts a student who has not completed every question, and “Merge Assignments,” which combines multiple assignments of the same assessment into one value instead of treating them separately.
Under Text Mapping, review or override what each proficiency level should say to families, then save.
Note: Text Mapping labels default to the district's standard language for each proficiency level. Overriding them here only changes the wording on this Handout.
Rearrange and Reuse Blocks
Right-click any block for Create, Move Up, Move Down, Duplicate, Turn Into, Adjust Margins, and Delete.
Tables have their own Cell, Row, Column, and Table tabs in the toolbar, with commands such as Insert Row Above/Below, Insert Column Left/Right, Duplicate Row/Column, Resize Columns, and Evenly Distribute Columns.
The Row and Column tabs each have their own Modify Inclusion command, which applies a Modify Inclusion rule to an entire row or column at once, instead of one block at a time.
Color-Code a Table by Proficiency
A table cell's background can also be tied to a student's proficiency, the same way text can.
Select the cell, then choose “Select Color” from the cell's formatting options.
Under “Color Based on Proficiency,” choose Standards Configuration or Assessment Configuration, the same as for text.
Under Color Selection, review or change the color assigned to each proficiency level. Each defaults to “District Default.”
Save.
Show or Hide Content per Student with Modify Inclusion
Modify Inclusion controls whether a block, such as a bulleted activity, appears at all for a given student, rather than changing its text or color.
Highlight the block and select the Modify Inclusion icon.
Choose what the choice is based on: Proficiency, Assessment Score, or Student Demographic.
For Proficiency, choose a Standards or Assessment configuration, then set which proficiency levels the block should show for.
For Assessment Score, set a Minimum and Maximum instead of proficiency levels, so the block shows only for scores in that range. Set Data From/To and an Assessment Filter if needed, choose an Extremum, and save.
Special Considerations and Recommendations:
Include at least one activity with no Modify Inclusion condition alongside any conditional ones, so a family never sees an empty activities section.
When a rule has more than one selected standard or condition, “Require All” controls whether a student must match every one of them, or just one, for the block to show.
A “Legend” explaining abbreviations, like the one in the sample screenshots, is not a built-in block. It is just a heading and a table typed in like any other content, kept as its own convention rather than tied to the real Text Mapping labels used elsewhere in the Handout.
Add Links and QR Codes
Place your cursor where the link should appear.
Select the plus sign and choose “Link (QR Code).”
Enter the link and the text that should display.
This adds a clickable link and a scannable QR code together, so families can reach the resource whether they are viewing the Handout on a screen or on a printed page.
The block's own toolbar controls how it looks and what it links to:
Stroked, Borderless, or QR Code Only, which control whether a box appears around the block and whether the link text shows at all.
Edit URL, to change the destination link.
Edit Display Text, to change the visible text families see, separately from the URL.
Use Short URL for Label or Use Full URL for Label, which control whether the visible link text shows the shortened ffqr.link address or the original full URL.
Align QR Left or Align QR Right. Center alignment is only available in QR Code Only mode.
Forefront is actively building dedicated multi-language support for Handouts. A separate article will cover sharing translated home letters once that work is finished.
Preview the Handout
Select “Preview,” then choose a school year and search for a specific student.
Selecting a student and clicking “Preview” shows the Handout exactly as that family would receive it, with all dynamic content filled in.
Tip: Preview using a student who already has real data on record. Previewing a student with no data will make a correctly configured Handout look broken.
Rename and Publish the Handout
Click the Handout's title to rename it. New Handouts are private by default while they are being built.
Once a Handout is ready, toggle it from private to public. Only a public Handout can be added to a course.
Download the Handout
Select the download icon to open “Handout Download.”
Scope: choose Students, and which students to generate handouts for.
Select a Cohort Type: Student, Course/School, or Class, which controls whose handouts are generated in this run.
Layout: set Margins and Collation.
Output: choose Packaging, such as a single combined PDF.
Select “Download.” Handouts generate as a PDF, one page per student, with each student's own data filled in.
Add the Handout to a Course
Once a Handout is public, it can be added to a course so teachers can access and send it. This step is covered in its own article:
Need More Support?
Submit a support request or email our team at [email protected].