Can't figure out how to get form responses into Page Designer

[Kelsey-]

This feels like it should be so simple. I've got a form with roughly 30 questions on it, and I want to use Page Designer to create a PDF of each response that I can then email to respondents. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how to get a simple grid in Page Designer that shows the responses. The only clue I can find is that if I add a Linked Records element to Page Designer I can choose Grid Mode, but I don't have any linked records in the table, it's just collecting the form responses as they come in. I know I must be missing something obvious.

More details: we offer 4 different products and we're asking our partners how many containers/pallets of each product they will want in each month of the next fiscal year. i.e. In March 2024, partner A might want ten containers of product 1, five pallets of product 2, six pallets of product 3, and one container of product 4. I just want to show that in a simple grid in Page Designer - Month, product 1, product 2, product 3, product 4 - based on their responses to the form.

What am I missing? 

Thanks,

Kelsey

[ScottWorld · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately, none of that is natively possible with Airtable's Page Designer nor Airtable's forms. (Also, on a related note, Page Designer can not be automated in any way.)

For creating PDF files that can combine multiple records and put them all on the same PDF document, you will need to turn to an external document creation app.

Here are a few options:

1. One of the most popular PDF creation tools for Airtable is DocuMint. This can be automated natively or by using Make’s DocuMint automations.

2. Another popular tool is Docs Automator, which integrates with Google Docs.

3. However, you can choose ANY document creation app that you would like, and automate the PDF creation process by using Make.

You can use good old fashioned Google Docs, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, or even newer apps like Formstack Documents or PDF Monkey.

There is a small learning curve with Make, which is why I created this basic navigation video to help. I also provide the links to a few other Make training resources there as well.

For creating Airtable forms with multiple line items:

1. Fillout natively communicates with Airtable in real time, and gives tons of advanced features that are all Airtable-specific. I gave a brief demo of Fillout on this episode of the BuiltOnAir Podcast.

2. JotForm is possibly the most feature-rich form software on the Internet, and you can send data from JotForm to Airtable using Make’s JotForm integrations.

3. Cognito Forms is another great form app that allows for unlimited line items, and you can send data from Cognito Forms to Airtable using Make’s Cognito Forms integrations.

p.s. If you have a budget for your project and you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant to help you with any of this, please feel free to contact me through my website: Airtable consulting — ScottWorld 

[Sergio]

Hi! I see that the problem has already been solved, but maybe my comment will be useful to someone.

There are two ways to solve this problem using Plumsail Documents - an application for automatically generating documents from templates:

1. First, as described above, you can use one of the connectors and the application to generate a PDF document. The connector can be Make or Zapier, for example. Plumsail Documents act as a document generation tool.
Zapier or Make will extract the data from Airtable and then populate it into a document template in Plumsail Documents to generate a PDF.

2. The method is much simpler, you can use the Plumsail Documents extension for Airtable. Directly extract data from the Airtable table and generate a PDF document according to the template used. You can read about this integration in Plumsail Documents Documentation