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Hi all,

So I have a table of client records. I have about 30 columns with various pieces of information in each. Some of them are drop-downs, checkboxes, some are single lines of text or numbers, etc. What I need to be able to do is to output information from certain columns into something like a PDF in order to create a "job sheet" for our surveyors, with only the information from certain columns that are relevant to their work. Is there a way to do this?

At the minute I have to scroll left to right, manually copy and pasting each cell into a Word document, which is incredibly time-consuming. Does anybody have a workaround for this?

Many thanks in advance.

Hey @TheHydra688b!

Absolutely. One easy and simple way in which to create PDFs is using the Page Designer extension. Even if the use case is different (invoices), you’ll find this video super helpful. 

Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation

If you're okay with a Google Doc try using the 'Create Doc' automation action: https://support.airtable.com/docs/document-automator-setup-guide

You can then do a Find Record action to grab all the relevant records and then insert it into your Google Doc as a list

--

If you need it to be a PDF and you're making <20 docs a month, I'd recommend trying out DocsAutomator.  Page Designer is nice, but doesn't really do dynamic data well (e.g. varying numbers of line items being displayed followed by a footer), not really sure if that's a problem for you though!

@TheHydra688 

Unfortunately, Airtable's Page Designer extension can't handle multi-page forms properly, nor can it be automated in any way.

So you will be required to use 3rd-party tools for this, if you would like to automate the process of creating a PDF document.

Here are 4 popular solutions for generating documents from Airtable that can do what you’re looking to do:

  1. DocuMint — the original document creation app for Airtable. Creates PDF files.
  1. DocsAutomator — creates Google Docs documents or PDF files. 
  1. Make’s integrations — which can be integrated with any document-creation app of your choosing, even something as simple as custom Microsoft Word documents.

    If you’ve never used Make before, I’ve assembled a bunch of Make training resources in this thread. For example, here is one way that you can instantly trigger a Make automation from Airtable.
  1. Fillout’s advanced forms for Airtable — which offers hundreds of features that Airtable’s forms don’t offer, such as the ability to automatically generate custom PDF files from a form submission.

    I show off this feature on this Airtable podcast episode:

    Using Fillout to create an eSignature approval process with PDF file creation.

Hope this helps!

If you’d like to hire the best Airtable consultant to help you with this or anything Airtable-related, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consultant — ScottWorld

 

As an alternative, 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.

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