Can Airtable generate be used to output notes for a client?

[Kate_LaSala]

Hi all! I just joined (and can’t post images like I was planning!) I’m a dog trainer and trying to streamline the follow up session notes I send to clients. I have lots of boilerplate text that I currently copy/paste in Word but am wondering if there’s a way to do this in Airtable and output a PDF (or text I could then copy into Word to generate a PDF).

The background section would still need to remain a field I could type in because that is specific to the client. But the other sections I have various blocks of text I use depending on the case. I’m thinking/hoping these could all be listed in a base and then checked off to be included in the section export.

I also have follow up sessions which would need to be formatted slightly differently but pulling from many of the same blocks of text.

And then lastly I have day training notes which are purely customized but it would great to have the template available.

Is this possible? I have dug around in the templates and don’t see anything like that but perhaps it is something that can be done with Blocks? I’m not sure. If you know, can you point me to a similar template?

(I will try to post images in comments if I can)

Thanks!

[JonathanBowen]

Hi @Kate_LaSala - yes definitely ways to achieve this. My approach is this:

Have two tables - one for boilerplate content and another for client documents:

The way to think about the Client Documents table is that it describes a document layout where the fields left to right are blocks in the document from top to bottom. So in this example my doc layout is:

• Boilerplate 1
• Boilerplate 2
• Some custom content
• Boilerplate 3

Obviously you could construct a document structure with multiple custom content sections or any variation of boilerplate and custom.

The content associated with each boilerplate block can be looked up into the Client Documents table - I’ve created a 2nd view to show this:

Then, using the Print Designer block (if you have a paid account) or using this method I outlined in this post:

Base -> HTML -> PDF Show and tell

Base -> HTML -> PDF This “show and tell” is based on a project I worked on for the Computer Museum of America (see this post: TimeLine of Computer History). Airtable Pro plans can make use of the Page Designer block, but if you don’t have a Pro plan or want something that is a bit more customisable, then this might work for you. Really, this is about outputting base data into a PDF, but uses HTML as an interim step. The benefit of HTML is that is hugely customisable and, by using CSS, you can …

You can print a record to PDF - something like this:

One possible issue with the Page Designer block is that placeholders don’t expand as the content increases in size/length; the HTML → PDF method will accommodate this easily though.

Hope this helps.

JB