Free meeting templates, and documents written from a recording

A meeting template is an empty outline you fill in yourself: the headings a document needs, in order, with a line on what goes under each. Below are free templates for minutes, agendas, summaries, follow-up emails and task lists, each on its own page with a filled-in example.

The Dalm app for Mac works from the other end: after a meeting you record, it writes the document from what was said, and a template you describe in plain words can be filled in after every meeting. Speech is recognised on your Mac and the audio never leaves it; the transcript is kept in your account on our servers, and that text is what a language model reads to write a summary or minutes.

Templates on this site

Each page below has a blank template, notes on what goes where and a filled-in example. They are grouped by the kind of document you are writing.

Minutes

• Meeting minutes and meeting notes templates — the formal record of a meeting, or everyday working notes: two templates in Word and PDF, each with a filled-in example.
• Board meeting minutes template — for a board or any body that votes, with the parts only the secretary can fill in.
• Nonprofit board meeting minutes template — for a nonprofit board: quorum, conflict of interest declarations, reports, motions and votes, with an example.
• HOA meeting minutes template — minutes of a homeowners association meeting, with quorum and votes left for the secretary.
• Committee report template — what a committee did, found and recommends to the board, with any motion written word for word.
• Staff meeting minutes template — for a weekly team or department meeting: status by area, blockers, decisions and tasks.
• Meeting minutes template for Word — the same record as a print-ready .docx: header, Heard — Discussed — Decided per item, action table, signature lines.
• Meeting minutes template for Excel — the same record as a log: one row per item with owner, deadline and status, to filter and sort.
• Printable meeting notes template — a one-page PDF form in Letter and A4 to fill in by hand: attendees, goal, notes, decisions and action items with checkboxes.
• Client meeting notes template — internal notes after a check-in or review with an existing client: their goals in their words, concerns, agreements and next steps on both sides.
• Discovery call notes template — internal notes from a first call with a prospect: pains in their words, qualification with evidence quotes and one next step with a date.
• Daily standup notes template — short notes from a daily standup: yesterday, today and blockers per person, who helps with each blocker, and a parking lot.
• Sprint planning notes template — what the team takes into a sprint and why: the sprint goal, backlog with estimates and owners, total vs capacity, items not taken and risks.
• Retrospective notes template — a team retro that ends in action: last retro’s actions, what went well and what didn’t, ideas, and two or three changes with an owner each.

Agendas

• Meeting agenda template — for planning a meeting before it starts, each item written as a question with an outcome.
• One-on-one meeting template — for a regular 1:1 between a manager and a report: the agenda and the notes on one page.

Summaries

• Meeting summary template — for people who missed the meeting: the outcome, key points, decisions and action items on one page.
• Sales meeting summary template — the internal deal record after a demo or sales call: buyer priorities, objections word for word, buying process, next steps and deal risks.
• Project meeting summary template — a status record for one project after a status meeting: overall status with a reason, milestones planned vs forecast, risks with owners and dependencies.
• Executive meeting summary template — a one-page brief for leadership after a meeting: the bottom line first, decisions, requests with options and a recommendation, key numbers and top risks.

Interviews

• Stakeholder interview template — notes from an interview with an internal stakeholder at the start of a project: goals, success criteria, must-have vs nice-to-have requirements, constraints and quotes.
• User research interview notes template — notes from one user interview: how people do the task today, pains and workarounds, quotes word for word and first takeaways kept apart.
• Interview notes and scorecard template — notes from a job interview: each competency rated only on evidence, strengths, concerns and a recommendation; job-related notes only.

Emails after a meeting

• Meeting recap email templates — two emails to send afterwards: a recap for your own side and a follow-up for a client or partner.

Task lists

• Action items template — for the list of who does what by when, with a place for what nobody said.

Documents for clients

• Project proposal template — the offer you send a client after a discovery call: goals, approach, deliverables, timeline, price and next steps, with a full example.
• Statement of work template — what happens after the client says yes: deliverables with acceptance criteria, milestones, fees and change control, with a full example.
• Engagement letter template — the terms of a professional relationship, signed before work starts: client, scope and exclusions, fees, confidentiality and ending.
• Retainer agreement template — ongoing work for a regular fee: retainer type, monthly allowance, unused hours, overage and termination.

Briefs

• Creative brief template — one objective, one audience and one message for a creative team, with a full example.
• Campaign brief template — the plan for a whole campaign: KPIs, channel roles with dates and budget, tracking.
• Brand brief template — who a brand is before identity work: positioning, personality, what to keep and what to change.

Which of the client documents and the creative brief a project needs, and in what order, is on the agency and freelancer templates page.

Documents for the press

• Press release template — a one-page announcement journalists can publish as is: headline, dateline, lead, quote, boilerplate and media contact, with a full example.
• Press kit template — everything a journalist needs about a company in one place: story, facts, news, bios, images, approved quotes and a contact.
• Fact sheet template — one page of dated facts about a company or product that journalists and partners can copy as is.

Which of the three to prepare first is on the press and media templates page.

Project and product documents

• Release notes template — what changed in a version and what users need to do: summary, New, Improved, Fixed, known issues.
• Root cause analysis (RCA) report template — why an incident happened and what stops it happening again: impact, a timeline with sources, root cause, actions with owners.
• Punch list template — the items left to fix before a construction or renovation project is accepted, with who verifies each.
• Construction daily report template — the same-day site record: weather, crews by trade, work by area, deliveries, inspections, delays with causes and safety.
• RFI log template — every request for information on a construction project: the question with its drawing reference, response needed by, impact, answer and status.

When each of the three site documents is used, and how they connect, is on the construction templates page.

Your own layout

• Custom meeting template — a worksheet for meetings no ready template fits: describe the meeting, choose sections and fields, write the rules, with a site-meeting example.

A template versus a document from a recording

A template is filled in by a person, during the meeting or right after it, and it holds only what that person managed to write down. A document from a recording is put together from what was actually said, so it can catch the decision someone made in passing while the note-taker was still typing the last one. Either way, people read it and correct it before it goes anywhere: a draft from a recording is still a draft. If you are doing it by hand, writing meeting minutes step by step and taking notes while the meeting runs cover the two jobs.

What the app writes after a meeting

Once a meeting is recorded, the app drafts a document from its transcript in one click — the minutes, a short summary, a follow-up email or a list of tasks, for instance. What meeting minutes software does, how a follow-up email after a meeting is drafted, and how a meeting summary is put together each have a page. The transcript itself, word for word with times and voices, is built without a language model. Whatever the app writes saves as Markdown, Word or PDF.

Your own templates in the app

A template in the app is a name and a few words on what you need, written the way you would ask a colleague. Switch on “Write it after every meeting”, and the document appears by itself once each meeting has been recorded. To start from something, add one of the five ready-made templates — “Meeting minutes”, “Action items”, “Follow-up email”, “Customer objections” or “Executive summary” — and edit it like your own, or duplicate a template you already have and change the copy. To work out what yours should say, there is a worksheet for designing your own template.

What stays on your Mac and what is sent

Speech is recognised on your Mac, and the audio is never sent to any server. What goes to our servers is the text: the transcript, with times and which voice said each line, synced to your account so it opens on every Mac you sign in to. When the app writes a document, that text — the transcript, your notes and the names you gave the voices — goes to a language model; the audio does not. The plain transcript is the one document that needs no model. The full split is in how it works.

Plans and working as a team

What each plan includes, and what it costs, is on the pricing page. In a team, templates are shared, like the vocabulary and the tags, so a group writes its minutes the same way; how a shared space is set up is explained under working with colleagues.