Form Publisher and Form to PDF compared
Both add-ons turn Google Forms™ responses into documents in your Drive. Form Publisher does more. Form to PDF does one job, costs less, and asks for less access to your Drive. Here is the difference, so you can pick the right one.
Form Publisher's details checked November 15, 2026, from its Marketplace listing, pricing page, help center and release notes.
Side by side
| Feature | Form to PDF | Form Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes: 20 PDFs a month | Yes: 20 submissions a month |
| Pay once, no subscription | Yes: $19 once, for every form on your Google account | No: $99 a year for one person, $690 a year for a whole domain |
| Can’t see the rest of your Drive | Yes: Only files it makes or you pick | No: Asks for all your Drive files |
| Emails the PDF to the respondent | Yes: PDF attached | Yes: Yes |
| Says why a PDF failed, with Retry | Yes: A Log with the reason, Retry, and one email a day | Partly: An email about failed submissions |
| Slides or Sheets templates | No: Google Docs and Word files only | Yes: Google Docs, Sheets and Slides |
| Word, Excel or PowerPoint output | No: PDF, and the filled Doc if you want it | Yes: Word, Excel and PowerPoint files |
| Approvals and e-signature | No: Not yet | Yes: Yes |
| Pictures from file uploads | No: Shown as links | Yes: Can be inserted as images |
| Remakes a PDF when a response is edited | No: Remake it from the Log | Yes: Yes |
Form Publisher's details are from its own pages, checked November 15, 2026. Prices change; check theirs before you decide.
Price
Both have a free plan of 20 a month. Form Publisher counts submissions; Form to PDF counts PDFs, across all your forms.
After that, Form Publisher is a yearly subscription: $99 a year for one person, or $690 a year for everyone in a domain. Form to PDF is $19, paid once, with no subscription. That suits forms that come a few times a year, such as trips, term reports and event sign-ups.
With either add-on, Google's own limits still apply. For example, a personal Google account can email about 100 people a day.
Access to your Drive
When you install an add-on, Google shows you what it can do. Form Publisher's listing asks to "See, edit, create, and delete all of your Google Drive files", as well as access to all your Docs, Sheets and Slides.
Form to PDF asks only to "See, edit, create, and delete only the specific Google Drive files that you use with this app". In practice, that is your template, your folder and the PDFs it saves. It cannot open anything else in your Drive.
For a school office that keeps student records in Drive, that difference can matter, and some administrators look for it before they allow an add-on.
What Form Publisher does that Form to PDF does not
If you need any of these, Form Publisher is the better choice:
- Sheets and Slides templates, for example certificates designed on a slide. Form to PDF uses Google Docs and Word files only.
- Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. Form to PDF makes PDFs, and can keep the filled Google Doc.
- Approvals and e-signatures, where a document goes to someone to approve or sign.
- Pictures in the document from images uploaded with the form. Form to PDF shows uploads as links.
- Updating the document when a response is edited. With Form to PDF you make it again from the Log.
- A different template depending on an answer, and folders two levels deep by answer. Form to PDF uses one template per form and one level of subfolder.
- A plan for a whole domain, for every user at once. Form to PDF is bought per Google account.
- Years of tutorials and a large user base. Form to PDF is new and in early access.
Where Form to PDF is different
- One payment. $19 once instead of a yearly bill.
- Narrower Drive access, as described above.
- A Log in the side panel. Every response with its PDF, or the reason it was not made, in plain words, with a Retry button. A passing Google error is tried again by itself.
- Placeholders are forgiving. Form Publisher's markers must match the question title exactly, including capital letters. Form to PDF ignores capital letters and extra spaces, and lists any placeholder it cannot match before you turn it on.
- Three steps to set up, with a starter template made from your questions and a test PDF from the latest response.
Which one to choose
Choose Form Publisher if you need Slides or Sheets templates, Office files, approvals, pictures in the document, or a plan for a whole domain.
Choose Form to PDF if you need a PDF from a Google Doc for each response, saved in a folder and emailed to the person who answered, and you would rather pay once and keep the rest of your Drive private. You can try it with 20 PDFs a month for free. See how to start.
Moving your template
Your Form Publisher template, if it is a Google Doc, works in Form to PDF:
- Question markers work as they are.
<<Student name>>works the same as{{Student name}}. - Grid markers work as they are. Both use
<<Question [Row]>>. - Rename these built-in markers:
<<Email Address>>becomes{{Respondent email}},<<Link to edit>>becomes{{Edit link}}, and<<Increment>>becomes{{Response number}}.<<Timestamp>>,<<Today>>and<<Score>>work as they are, though the date may be written differently. - Markers with no match, such as
<<Template Title>>or<<CurrentYear>>, should be replaced with plain text. Setup lists them for you.
Sheets and Slides templates cannot be used. All placeholders are on the help page.
Sources
All checked November 15, 2026.
- Form Publisher on the Google Workspace Marketplace: the permissions it asks for.
- Form Publisher pricing: free plan, $99 a year, $690 a year for a domain, e-signature.
- Form Publisher release notes: approvals, updating files on edit, folder rules, failure emails.
- Form Publisher help center articles on markers, grid markers, images and file formats.
- Google Apps Script quotas.
Form Publisher belongs to its maker, Talarian. Form to PDF is not connected with Form Publisher or Talarian.
Something here is wrong or out of date?
Email shubhamvscode@gmail.com and we will correct it.