Creating automatic PDF from Page Designer

[Peter_Steinberg]

So I have a table called Investors. Say there are 300 records here.

And I have a table called Companies. Say there are 100 records here.

And I have a tabled called Individual Investments. It’s the intersection of Investors and Companies. An investor can invest in any deal they choose and invest any amount. So I might have, say, 2,000 records here (but obviously I wouldn’t have more than 30,000 — which would be if every one of the 300 Investors invested in every one of the 100 companies).

In the Individual Investments table I list the Investor, the Company in question, and the amount they invested.

We’d like to send a report to each investor that lists all their investments and how much they invested.

I once figured out how to put this together in the Page Design block and I’m sure I can muddle my way there again (or come here for help) but I also want to email out this report as a PDF.

And not just one big report showing all 10 investors what all 10 invested in, but a customized report that shows each investor just their own investments.

I know I can create a report that has one investor per page.

I know I can create a PDF that’s ALL pages as one big PDF.

But…

1. Is there any way to create a series of PDFs — one per record?

2. Is there a way to use the SendGrid block to mail out these individual PDFs?

If I have to sit here and split up the giant PDF into 300 individual PDFS and then manually email them out I think I’m going to cry.

-Peter

[AlliAlosa]

Sadly, one of the biggest pitfalls of Page Designer is that you have to save the PDF(s) manually before you can attach it to a record or to an email. I really do hope that this is on Airtable’s radar; it would save an immeasurable amount of time in so many scenarios. It would also be great to be able to access the block from Zapier.

My workaround for this is to use some creative linking, formulas, and rollup fields to create a custom email report for each person. I markup the Airtable data with html to create table rows, and insert it into an email template in Zapier. The below post breaks down one way of approaching this (it’s complicated- but I’m happy to answer any questions if you’re interested). It’s not as pretty as Page Designer, but it does the trick.

Daily recurring reminder emails formatting Formulas

OK! So here is a sample base that I hope will point you in the right direction. There is a TON of information here and I didn’t even spell everything out, so please don’t hesitate to ask questions! This workflow makes use of two different zaps: The first zap is still triggered on a schedule, every day at 5AM. Set it up to find the record “:briefcase: :briefcase: :briefcase: ” on the Junction table, and insert the value from the field {Alert Names}, into the linked record field {Email Alerts}.…

Good luck!

[AlliAlosa]

One more suggestion that pertains to your original question… if you have Adobe Acrobat, you can quickly extract and save all pages of a PDF separately. There may be other programs that do this as well. But this still leaves emailing them all out and/or attaching them to each record separately. Which would be a pain.

[Peter_Steinberg]

@AlliAlosa, it sounds like you’re telling me I can at least use Acrobat to split each page into it’s own PDF. That’s great! Thanks so much.

But do you know how it names each of the 250 PDFs? (I just checked – it will be 250 records.)

-Peter

[Peter_Steinberg]

@AlliAlosa, as I look into your first, much longer post I think that might do the trick. An email report is even better than a PDF really.

I’ll go read and try to digest what you did but something tells me that I’ll be asking for a lot of help along the way. 😕

Thanks again.

-Peter

[AlliAlosa]

Definitely don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions - it’s definitely a more complicated workflow, but it’s doable! I am happy to help if needed.

To answer your first question though - I don’t believe there are many naming options available when using the “Extract Pages” tool in Acrobat. However you might be able to set up an Action that extracts and saves with more custom naming options. :slightly_smiling_face:

[Moe]

Peter_Steinberg:

Is there any way to create a series of PDFs — one per record?

We’ve built an extension that allows you to generate PDFs in bulk. One file for each record.

miniExtensions

PDF and Document Generator for Airtable - miniExtensions

Generate PDF files in bulk for Airtable records by integrating with Docupilot. Use this to export custom reports, invoices, etc. Supports scheduling & webhooks.

[typeflow]

If you're still looking for a solution, Typeflow can help you easily 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.

Feel free to ping me if you're interested or have any questions.