@Alexandra_Scott - our team at On2Air (https://on2air.com) will be launching this functionality in the next 2-3 weeks. It will be part of our new On2Air Action Functions product: https://on2air.com/on2air-actions

Feel free to DM me if you’d like to learn more about it.

Dan,
Openside

I had a look at Documint recently, which has an Airtable app, and seems promising. Ideally I’d like Airtable to integrate these sort of features into the Page designer app. The main thing Page Designer is lacking at the moment is for you to be able to vary field sizes based on the content of each record. My projects use a lot of long text fields, which sometimes contain several paragraphs, sometimes only one sentence. If the page designer could adjust each document accordingly, that would solve most of the issues I’m having. I’m generally not to keen on using google due to the sensitive data I process in Airtable, but I recognise it might be the only solution.

Thanks @JonathanB, I will check it out. One of the reasons I haven’t gone the route of some other products like Documint is that the data I’m working with have a lot of complex relationships and require a lot of logic gates to determine what gets grouped together and how (as opposed to things like invoices or sales reports, which most of these services seem to lean toward). And as you mentioned, some of these records contain a lot of content that isn’t always simple to manage for an automated system. Hand-rolling code has been the only way I’ve gotten close to a manageable / sensible output. But it is a lot of overhead for someone who isn’t a programmer by profession. I would certainly welcome a more robust tool set and greater flexibility in Page Designer (someday).

I think that’s probably the only solution that is going to suit most users. I too have some very complicated bases and a lot of formula fields, with variation in how much content there is in fields (if any). What we’re doing at the moment is generating emails from automations, using markdown, where the fields used in the markdown are themselves formula fields, so that the email contains only the content you want, based on certain conditions, and if the fields are empty, those fields are not included in the email at all. But obviously the formatting options in markdown are very limited, so a printable pdf that adapts the template used for every record is still preferable.

Wow, there are a lot of very complex workarounds mentioned in this thread. Am I the only one that finds these type of “solutions” completely infeasible? :woozy_face:

The whole reason I came to Airtable in the first place was to be able to build what I needed without having to involve an expert programmer. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

@Airtable, PLEASE give us the ability to use Automations in conjunction with Apps!!!

@Cara_Van_Meter If you want Airtable staff to see your comments, it’s always best to contact them directly via Airtable support. Tagging @Airtable doesn’t actually tag a specific account because that’s not an account. That only creates a link in your comment to a group of all Airtable staff in this forum. To the best of my knowledge the members of that group aren’t notified.

Hope this video can help you.

Automate Custom Docs Using Airtable, Zapier & Google Docs

I use Zapier+Google Doc. It works!

On2Air now has Google Functions to generate documents! :fire:

You can generate Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides using your Airtable data.

Here’s an example of the Google Docs function to create an Invoice in Docs from your Airtable base. (includes a free Google Docs and Airtable template)

You can also combine it with the On2Air Amplify product to edit and view your Google files inside Airtable.

Jotform does the pdf generation and automation not so complex, also I was able to generate workflow easily there. Good side is prices are not that expensive like webmerge, way more cheaper.

I know it's an old thread, but wanted to add my app to this conversation: DocsAutomator

It's the dynamic document creation tool I also wanted 🙂 Very happy to give a demo to anyone who's interested!

Best,
Rupert

Maybe for someone else the question remains relevant. You can use apps from the Airtable extension store. For example, we use the plumsail documents (https://plumsail.com/documents/) extension:
You create a process --> set up a template and an outgoing file --> choose a delivery method and you don’t even need a connector.

Hi Jonathan!

Try the plumsail documents extension. You can transfer data from your Airtable directly to a pre-prepared template.

To do this you need:
1. Create a process in plumsail documetns
2. Customize the template and match the fields in the template with the fields of your table
3. Configure the outgoing file format (anyone can use, including PDF)
4. Set up the Delivery section, where you can choose any method or even several, including delivery by mail or even sending for signature. https://plumsail.com/docs/documents/v1.x/user-guide/processes/create-delivery.html

5. Add an extension button to your Airtable database and assign a process from plumsail documents to it. You can read more here: https://plumsail.com/docs/documents/v1.x/getting-started/use-from-airtable.html

Yes, by the way, they give a free trial for 30 days, so you can test whether this solution suits you or not.

 You can use typeflow.us. it will help you to generate PDFs based on Airtable data. We use Google Docs as template.
We offer a lifetime plan currently at 150$. This plan lets you generate as many pdf as needed.

This is super easy with FlexiPage. I’ve tailor made this extension to support multi-page documents and add automation support.

You can create templates within the extension itself

Checkout FlexiPage extension here - https://airtable.com/marketplace/blkxiBhC4JLMwyIaZ/flexipage