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PDF created with Page Designer has no selectable text or links

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I have noticed that the PDFs I have created with Page Designer (by clicking the little printer icon) do not contain selectable text. It seems to be a giant image. Not how a PDF is supposed to work.

This is especially relevant when you include a URL field and want this to be clickable. Strangely enough some of my URL fields are clickable in the little preview pane in Airtable. But only some of them.

Of course when I print and save them as PDFs none of them are clickable, because it is not text.

There is an answer to a previous question that suggests using Long Text fields to avoid that problem but that does not work for me (and how should it, since my output is not text?): Some links not clickable in output PDFs from page designer - #6 by ScottWorld

Best answer by Achim_Baur

ScottWorld wrote:

When your web browser’s print dialog box appears, you can either choose “Save as PDF” or “Open in Preview” from the “PDF” menu at the bottom of the print dialog box.

Either of those options should work. If those aren’t working, I wouldn’t know how to guide you further. Perhaps send an email to support@airtable.com to see if they can help.


Ah, the word “browser” got me thinking.

I was using the Airtable App. If I do it in Safari, the text in the PDF is selectable and the links are clickable.

(Chrome does not work, since I do not get the Mac print dialogue there).

Thanks!

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11 replies

ScottWorld
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  • ScottWorld
  • Brainy
  • 8859 replies
  • December 16, 2021

Text is selectable in the resulting PDF, but I’m sure that this behavior depends on how you create the PDF, though. I’m on the Mac, which has built-in PDF creation in every print dialog box… and all the text in the resulting PDF file is selectable.

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  • Achim_Baur
  • Author
  • Inspiring
  • 24 replies
  • December 16, 2021
ScottWorld wrote:

Text is selectable in the resulting PDF, but I’m sure that this behavior depends on how you create the PDF, though. I’m on the Mac, which has built-in PDF creation in every print dialog box… and all the text in the resulting PDF file is selectable.


I am on a Mac as well. How do you do it? For me it is:

  • Print icon in the top-right corner
  • Close the proceeding dialogue with “Print”
  • Open in Preview

The resulting PDF has no selectable text.

ScottWorld
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  • ScottWorld
  • Brainy
  • 8859 replies
  • December 16, 2021
Achim_Baur wrote:

I am on a Mac as well. How do you do it? For me it is:

  • Print icon in the top-right corner
  • Close the proceeding dialogue with “Print”
  • Open in Preview

The resulting PDF has no selectable text.


When your web browser’s print dialog box appears, you can either choose “Save as PDF” or “Open in Preview” from the “PDF” menu at the bottom of the print dialog box.

Either of those options should work. If those aren’t working, I wouldn’t know how to guide you further. Perhaps send an email to support@airtable.com to see if they can help.

kuovonne
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    kuovonne
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  • Achim_Baur
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  • Answer
  • December 16, 2021
ScottWorld wrote:

When your web browser’s print dialog box appears, you can either choose “Save as PDF” or “Open in Preview” from the “PDF” menu at the bottom of the print dialog box.

Either of those options should work. If those aren’t working, I wouldn’t know how to guide you further. Perhaps send an email to support@airtable.com to see if they can help.


Ah, the word “browser” got me thinking.

I was using the Airtable App. If I do it in Safari, the text in the PDF is selectable and the links are clickable.

(Chrome does not work, since I do not get the Mac print dialogue there).

Thanks!

ScottWorld
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  • ScottWorld
  • Brainy
  • 8859 replies
  • December 16, 2021
Achim_Baur wrote:

Ah, the word “browser” got me thinking.

I was using the Airtable App. If I do it in Safari, the text in the PDF is selectable and the links are clickable.

(Chrome does not work, since I do not get the Mac print dialogue there).

Thanks!


Great that you figured it out! I’m not 100% sure how committed Airtable is to maintaining the desktop app, but you may want to email support to let them know about this broken behavior.

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  • Achim_Baur
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  • 24 replies
  • December 16, 2021
ScottWorld wrote:

Great that you figured it out! I’m not 100% sure how committed Airtable is to maintaining the desktop app, but you may want to email support to let them know about this broken behavior.


Thanks for going through this with me. I’ve contacted Airtable about this in case they did not know.

ScottWorld
kuovonne
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  • typeflow
  • Participating Frequently
  • 68 replies
  • November 29, 2024

Alternatively to page designer, you can use typeflow.us for generating pdf based on Airtable data. We offer a lifetime plan currently at 150$. This plan lets you generate as many pdf as needed.

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  • Pete_Lead
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  • 2 replies
  • March 30, 2025

Printing from Browser instead of Mac Desktop app worked for me. (Crazy that it’s still an unsolved issue 3 years later...) Thanks for this solution!!

ScottWorld
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  • ScottWorld
  • Brainy
  • 8859 replies
  • March 31, 2025

You’re welcome! Glad I could help! :)

Beyond this limitation, Airtable’s Page Designer extension has many other limitations as well.

Here are just a few of Page Designer’s limitations:

  1. Page Designer can’t be automated in any way.
  2. Page Designer can’t be used from interfaces.
  3. Page Designer can’t handle multi-page documents effectively.
  4. Page Designer doesn’t work properly from the Airtable app.

Because of these limitations, you may want to look into 3rd-party solutions for automatically creating documents & PDF files from Airtable.

There are many different apps that provide this functionality, but 3 of the most popular solutions for Airtable are:

  1. DocuMint
  2. DocsAutomator
  3. Make's integrations, which can be integrated with any document-creation app of your choosing, even something as simple as Google Docs and Google Sheets. If you’ve never used Make before, I’ve assembled a bunch of Make training resources in this thread.

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

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Rupert_Hoffsch1
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Rupert_Hoffsch1
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Like always, thanks for the shoutout ​@ScottWorld !

ScottWorld
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ScottWorld
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  • ScottWorld
  • Brainy
  • 8859 replies
  • April 11, 2025

You’re welcome, ​@Rupert_Hoffsch1! :) 

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