A welcome book template you can actually edit
Most welcome book templates are a PDF or a Canva file. They look fine the day you make them, and then the wifi password changes, the new coffee machine arrives, and a guest is reading last season's version because a PDF cannot be edited once it is out the door. The best template is not a file you retype every season. It is a live book you start from and edit, so the guest always sees the current version.
FreshLinen starts you with the standard sections already in place: arrival and check-in, wifi, house rules, how things work, local picks, and checkout. You fill in the parts only you know, and the structure is done. When something changes, you edit one line and the next guest sees it. There is no reprint and no new file to send.
Hosts call this different things. A welcome pack, a welcome booklet, a guest book, a house manual, a welcome binder. The template covers the same job under any of those names: the handful of things a guest needs at the door, in one place, in the order they need them.
Download the free Word template
If you want a file first, start with ours. It is ten pages with every section already structured: a cover, an essentials table, a welcome note, arrival steps, wifi, house rules, how things work, local picks, a checkout checklist, and a safety page. Every page carries a short prompt for what to write, so you are filling in blanks, not staring at them.
It opens in Word, Google Docs, and Pages, and prints clean in black and white. One deliberate detail: the door code row reads “sent to you privately before arrival,” because a printed book gets shared and photographed, and the code should never be in it.
Free to use and share. No email asked, no signup.
The sections you start with
Here is the outline a new book comes with, in the order a guest needs it. Each section has a prompt for what to write, and you can add, remove, or reorder any of them.
- Welcome note. Two or three sentences: who you are, that you are glad they came, and the one thing you most want them to know on arrival.
- Arrival and check-in. Where to park and how to get in, written as steps. The door code stays out of the book and goes in a private message close to arrival.
- Wifi. The network name and password, exactly as typed, on their own page. It is the single most looked-at thing in any book.
- House rules. Quiet hours, pets, events, smoking, parking, trash and recycling day. One line each, friendly and specific.
- How things work. A short how-to for anything that is not obvious: the coffee machine, the thermostat, the fireplace, the laundry.
- Where to eat and explore. The handful of places you would send a friend to, each with a line on why. This is the section guests screenshot.
- Before you go. Checkout time and a short checklist: dishes, trash, thermostat, keys, windows. It saves you a message on every stay.
- Emergencies and contacts. How to reach you, the local emergency number, and where the fuse box, water shutoff, and first-aid kit are.
Why a live book beats a static file
A PDF template has to be redownloaded and reshared every time anything changes, which is why the version a guest actually opens is so often out of date. A FreshLinen book lives at one link and a QR code, so an edit reaches the next guest without a reprint. Guests scan the code or tap the link, with no app to download, and the whole book saves to the phone and works offline once it has been opened, so the arrival page still loads when there is one bar of signal at the door.
The same book works for your Airbnb guests, your Vrbo guests, and anyone who booked direct, because it is a plain link rather than something that lives inside one platform. You share it by pasting it into your own check-in message or by leaving a printed QR at the property. FreshLinen never emails your guests and never asks them for anything.
If you would rather write it by hand first
You do not need a tool to start. The free welcome book template is the same outline written out to copy into a note or a document, and what to put in a welcome book goes deeper on each section. The downloadable Word file above is the same structure, laid out and ready to fill in. When you want an edit that reaches the next guest without a reprint, start a book in FreshLinen and the sections above are already there.
Open a real example book to see the finished thing, or see what $49.99 covers.