Oct 01, 2018 11:58 AM
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.
Dec 09, 2018 03:07 AM
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…
Dec 09, 2018 07:50 AM
It is possible with Integromat:
You’d have to create the following scenario:
Dec 31, 2018 11:09 AM
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
Jan 15, 2019 02:30 AM
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:
(Trigger: Using Airtable Module): You watch for a new record in a view.
(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/
(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.
(Action: Using the Airtable Module): You fetch the attachment from Google Drive, and upload it to wherever you’d like in Airtable.
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.
Feb 05, 2020 10:00 AM
Hi, apparently the PDF module isn’t available in Integromat ? Any idea why ?
May 24, 2020 12:56 PM
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.
Aug 05, 2020 06:53 AM
Two new possible solutions.
Feb 11, 2021 05:22 AM
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.
Apr 28, 2023 02:19 AM
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 🙂