I’ve been searching the community pages and it seems that there is no way to create PDF’s automatically from templates created using Page designer, is that right?
I’ve created the field type ‘Button’ to click which displays the document in the page designer app perfectly. But, I then have to manually save it as a PDF. What I’d like, is to be able to click the button and for that document to be automatically downloaded and saved as a PDF file. Surely this must be possible? It just seems crazy that the button can produce the document but can’t save the file.
Am I missing something? What do people use the Page Designer app for if not to create documents which they then want to attach and send to their customers?
Yep, unfortunately not possible to automate downloading and saving as a PDF with the Page Designer app.
As @ScottWorld mentioned, this is possible with the On2Air Actions app. You can click a checkbox and it will automatically add your Airtable data to a Google Doc, create a PDF, and upload the PDF back to your base in your Attachment field.
Here’s an example of how it works using a Sales Contract template.
______________________________________ Hannah - On2Air.com - Automated Backups for Airtable
It is not possible, and like you said, it is certainly & absolutely 100% crazy. :crazy_face:
If you want to automate the creation of PDFs, you will be required to pay for an external service to handle this for you.
Two of my favorite options for creating PDFs are DocuMint and On2Air: Actions, but there are tons of other options as well.
Many PDF creation tools either have built-in automations, or you can use an automation platform like Integromat to automate as well.
If you have a budget for your project and you’d like to hire an expert Airtable consultant & Integromat Expert+ Partner to help you create this, please feel free to contact me through my website:
Yep, unfortunately not possible to automate downloading and saving as a PDF with the Page Designer app.
As @ScottWorld mentioned, this is possible with the On2Air Actions app. You can click a checkbox and it will automatically add your Airtable data to a Google Doc, create a PDF, and upload the PDF back to your base in your Attachment field.
Here’s an example of how it works using a Sales Contract template.
______________________________________ Hannah - On2Air.com - Automated Backups for Airtable
Hi Scott, thank you for your reply. It’s kinda mind-boggling that this feature isn’t available.
I’ll bear your comments in mind.
So, what do people use Page Designer for? Is it just to create physical documents? I just don’t understand the use of the app if it’s then so difficult to automate the documents it creates. Although this is mainly a hypothetical question, I am actually really intrigued… :thinking:
Many thanks for your reply. I’ll have a look at the on2Air Actions app. Having spent a while creating templates using the Page Designer app it’s a little frustrating to find out that the only way to move forwards would be to re-create the documents again using a different system. :roll_eyes:
There’s also another big limitation of Page Designer as well, which is that it can only create single-page documents. (There are workarounds to this in some circumstances, but not all.)
So yeah, the only people using Page Designer are either: (1) manually printing documents, (2) manually creating PDF files using their computer’s operating system, and/or (3) manually attaching those PDF files into Airtable after their OS manually created the PDF file for them.
If you’re new to Airtable, you’ll soon discover that many of Airtable’s features are half-complete like this. I often get visions of Airtable engineers who got bored halfway through creating something. :crazy_face:
Just wanted to addDocsAutomatorto this thread. It's a flexible and powerful solution to turn Airtable data into PDF + Google Docs and has been helping many Airtable users overcome Page Designer's limitations 🙂
I recommend you try the Plumsail Documents extension for Airtable. This application allows you to create a document from a template (docx, pptx, etc.) in any format you need (PDF included).
In your case you will need: 1. Create a process in Plumsail Documents 2. Upload and customize your template 3. Select the outgoing file format 4. Select the Delivery setting (you can save the file to Google Drive, SharePoint, or send it by mail or for signature) 5. Connect the extension to Airtable, bind the process from Plumsail Documents to the created button and correlate the Airtable database columns with the template.
After that, when you click on the button, your document will be generated based on the data from Airtable transferred to the template. The received document will be delivered by the method you choose.
If you're looking for a solution, Typeflow can help you quickly generate PDFs from Airtable data using Google Docs templates. It's straightforward and efficient.
Feel free to give it a try, and I'd love to hear your feedback! I'm also offering a lifetime plan for early users at just $100. Ping me if you're interested or have any questions.
