Custom PDF Forms

Permissions and Navigation

Available to: Administrators

Navigation: Forms > Manage > Builder > Select a Form or Create > Form Settings > Custom PDF

Table of Contents

• Creating Custom PDFs
• Formatting an excel file for a Custom PDF
• Applying Unique IDs to the excel file
• Connecting the excel file to the Form Template

Creating Custom PDFs

Custom PDFs are sometimes necessary when needing to display a form submission in an exact format. These are often used for OSHA form submissions. However, they may be applied to any Form Template.

Custom PDFs are generated from an Excel document. The recommended approach to creating a Custom PDF for the platform is to first format an excel document, apply the generated unique IDs to the excel file, and then connect the excel file to the Form Template. 

Formatting an excel file for a Custom PDF

While a formatted excel file is largely customizable there are a few rules to consider when building it out for a form. These rules include:

1. Custom PDF margins are limited to the excel print preview margins. To view these margins on an excel file select File > Print > Back Arrow. This will outline the margins to work with dashed lines. Please make certain the print orientation is portrait. Custom PDFs may only be in portrait orientation.
2. Subsequent excel sheets on an excel file are additional pages to the Custom PDF. These pages will be in order from left to right. While you can format multiple pages on the same excel sheet it is highly recommended to create a new excel sheet for each page to mitigate formatting discrepancies. Any excel sheet named dictionary will not display on the custom PDF. See Applying Unique IDs to the excel file for more details. 
3. It is recommended to allow yourself more cells than defaulted in order to format the document. To do so, select a desired amount of columns and reduce their pixel width to the desired width. This may be done for rows as well. 

Applying Unique IDs to the excel file

Applying Unique IDs to an excel file is how to map responses to formatted cells on an excel document. The recommended steps include the following:

1. Generate the Unique ID from the Form Template Question. This selection will need to be saved for the connection to be maintained. These are found by navigating to Forms > Manage > Builder > Select a Form > Select Edit on a Form question > Generate Unique ID > Remember to Save.
2. Copy this field onto the excel document cell you wish to display the answer. In many cases, answers will need excel formulas applied to them such as for select type questions. These formulas are often utilized to display an "X" in a check box for example.
3. Rename a excel sheet "dictionary" to apply more advanced formulas for any given cell. This "dictionary" excel sheet will not display on form submissions. 
4. Optional additional fields are available to apply to an excel file in Forms > Manage > Builder > Select a Form or Create > Form Settings > Custom PDF > Include Job Information 

Connecting the Excel File to the Form Template

Once the excel file is completely formatted, unique IDs are applied to the excel document, and these unique IDs are saved on the Form Template, it is ready to be connected onto the Form Template. To do so navigate to  Forms > Manage > Builder > Select a Form or Create > Form Settings > Custom PDF > Upload file. This file must be an excel file. It is recommended to test multiple submissions to validate formatting and excel formula consistency.