Page Designer automation?

[Ben_Lillie]

Is there a way to automatically generate and download/send a pdf of a page designer? Or has anyone found a way to do this with zapier or similar?

Our use case: We generate several reports a night which need to be sent to a distribution list. Right now an employee has to manually print as pdf and re-upload it to airtable – after that the automation sends it out. It would be amazing if we could skip that one last manual step.

[Tom_Figiel]

I just sent a similar inquiry to Airtable support. I have a similar use case whereby I have a new record created via Zapier and would like Page Designer to autogenerate the pdf report and save it into a field under that same record. Then I could use the email integration to autosend the report with an email template to the corresponding record email address. How sweet would that be…

[jowan_qupty]

It is possible with Integromat:

You’d have to create the following scenario:

1. receive trigger from Airtable
2. create PDF of the data using the PDF module (This will take an HTML template and create a pdf out of it)
3. send the pdf through gmail/mail module Or do anything else you’d like (upload to Airtable/drive…)

[Pablo_Ambram]

Hi Jowan. Could you please elaborate a little more on this scenario? I had never heard of Integromat but it looks amazing. I’m trying to build a PDF from airtable uploaded media (photos). Do you have any good links for instructions on how to connect Airtable to produce PDF reports with Integromat?
Thanks

[jowan_qupty]

Hi Pablo,

Apologies for the late reply.
I’m not aware of any online tutorials that show you how to automate this process but hope this can help.

Below is my Integromat Scenario which does the following:

1. (Trigger: Using Airtable Module): You watch for a new record in a view.

2. (Action: Using the PDF Module): You create a pdf using HTML (or plain text), therefore allowing you to bypass the page designer block until they release an API for it. This is a very helpful tool that will convert to HTML if you don’t know HTML --> https://wordtohtml.net/

3. (Action: Using the Google Drive Module) Ideally, we would directly upload that pdf straight to Airtable. However, since the previous PDF module can only spit out a url for the newly created pdf and not the actual file, then what I did was upload this url into Google drive, which you can then fetch as an actual attachment.

4. (Action: Using the Airtable Module): You fetch the attachment from Google Drive, and upload it to wherever you’d like in Airtable.

5. From here it’s really up to you. You can do whatever you’d like. you can send the attachment by email, sms…etc or automate anything else.

Hope this helps.

[Quentin_Zakoian]

Hi, apparently the PDF module isn’t available in Integromat ? Any idea why ?

[ScottWorld]

Integromat disabled it due to security issues. Here are some other workarounds, using the Integromat platform: https://www.integromat.com/en/requests/requests-to-update-existing-apps/p/pdf

Note that you can also use the Formstack Documents Block (which is built into Airtable) to create PDF files as well, but that does require a paid Formstack Documents account.

Similar thing with this extension and a paid DocuPilot account.

[PeterMengO]

Two new possible solutions.

miniExtensions

Image to PDF Converter on Airtable - miniExtensions

Convert image attachments to PDF files directly without having to download them, convert them and re-upload again. This tool does it all in Airtable

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.

[Williams_Christ]

Hi there! I believe that @Ben_Lillie solved the problem but still decided to share an idea that the job could be done using Zapier and Plumsail Documents. Maybe, someone else would find this useful.
I tried the app to generate reports based on Airtable data. For the case from the question, the Zap could be two-step - Airtable trigger, Plumsail Documents action launching the process of PDF generation. Inside the process, it’s possible to set up various deliveries - sending by email as well.

[Rupert_Hoffsch1]

Just wanted to add DocsAutomator to 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 🙂