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Getting started

Form to PDF is not on the Google Workspace Marketplace yet. Until it is, you start from a copy of a ready Google Form that already has Form to PDF in it. The early access page walks you through it.

Once it is in your form, open it from the Extensions menu (or the add-ons button, the puzzle piece): Form to PDF › Open. The side panel opens on the Setup tab, which has three steps:

1. Choose a template. Press Make a starter template from my questions and a Google Doc appears with a placeholder for every question. Or press Pick a Google Doc or Word file to use one you already have. Logos, letterheads, tables, headers and footers stay as you made them. A Word file is copied into a new Google Doc next to it, and that Doc becomes the template; your Word file is not changed. Most Word layouts convert well, but make a test PDF to check.
2. Choose where PDFs go. Pick a Drive folder, or press Make a folder for me. Then give the files a name, and choose a question to sort PDFs into subfolders if you want that.
3. Check, then turn it on. Make a test PDF from the latest response to see exactly what people will get. Then press Save and turn on.

From then on, each new response becomes a PDF a few seconds after it is sent, usually within a minute.

With a school or work account, your administrator may have to allow add-ons before you can use Form to PDF. If it will not open, ask them.

Placeholders

A placeholder is a question title in double braces, such as {{Student name}}. When a response arrives, Form to PDF copies your template and puts each answer where its placeholder is. Placeholders work anywhere in the Doc, including tables, headers and footers.

• You can also write <<Student name>>. Both kinds work the same, so templates made for Autocrat or Form Publisher can be used as they are, if their placeholders use the question titles.
• Capital letters and extra spaces do not matter. {{student name}}, {{ Student Name }} and <<STUDENT NAME>> all match the question "Student name".
• If someone leaves a question empty, its placeholder becomes empty too.
• If two questions have the same title, the first one is used. Setup tells you when this happens.

Built-in placeholders

If one of your questions has the same title as a built-in placeholder, for example a question called "Today", the answer to your question is used.

Grids, checkboxes and file uploads

• Grid questions. Each row has its own placeholder: the question title, then the row in square brackets. For a grid called "Lunch" with a row "Monday", write {{Lunch [Monday]}}.
• Checkbox answers. When someone ticks several boxes, choose how the list looks under List checkbox answers as: on one line with commas (A, B, C), one per line, or as bullets.
• File uploads. A file someone uploaded with the form appears in the PDF as a link to that file in Drive, not as a picture. Only people who are allowed to open that file in Drive can open the link.

Placeholders that do not match

A placeholder that matches no question and no built-in stays in the PDF exactly as you wrote it, so you can see it and fix it. Setup lists these when you choose the template, so check them before you turn on. A common cause is a question title that was changed after the template was written.

If someone types something like {{Name}} into an answer, it is printed as they typed it. Answers are never treated as placeholders.

File names and subfolders

In step 2 of Setup, type a file name using placeholders, such as {{Student name}} – {{Timestamp}}. A preview under the box shows what a real file name will look like. The PDF gets .pdf at the end by itself.

• Placeholders that do not match anything are left out of file names.
• Characters that Drive does not like in a file name are removed.

To keep things tidy, choose a question under Put each PDF in a subfolder named by. With "Class", for example, each PDF goes into a subfolder named after the class inside your folder, such as Trip slips › Grade 4A. Subfolders are made when they are first needed.

Tick Keep the Google Doc too to keep the filled Google Doc next to each PDF, if you may want to change one later.

Email

Form to PDF can email each PDF, as an attachment, to the person who filled in the form.

• The email is sent from your own Google account, so replies come back to you.
• It goes to the email address your form collects, or to the answer of a question you choose, such as "Parent email".
• You write the subject and the message. Both can use placeholders, such as Your copy: {{Student name}}.
• Tick Send me a copy to get each email yourself as well.

Google limits how many emails any account can send in a day: about 100 for a personal Google account, and more for most school and work accounts. The side panel shows how many you have left today. If you reach the limit, the PDFs are still made and saved, and the emails wait until the next day, when they are sent by themselves. In the Log they show as Email waiting.

If a response has no email address, the PDF is still made and saved, and the Log says so.

The Log

The Log tab lists every response Form to PDF has handled, newest first, with what happened:

When something fails

Google sometimes returns an error for a moment, for example when it is busy. Form to PDF tries again by itself after 1, 5 and 15 minutes, and an hourly check picks up anything left. Most of these never need you.

Some problems will not fix themselves, so the response is marked Failed straight away:

• The template can't be found. It was deleted, moved to the bin, or you lost access to it. Pick it again in Setup.
• The folder can't be found. Pick the folder again in Setup.
• The response was deleted from the form before its PDF was made, so there is nothing to make.

When a PDF fails, you get an email about it. You get at most one of these emails per form per day, however many responses fail.

After fixing the cause, press Retry beside the response in the Log.

Make PDFs for past responses

Responses that came in before you set up Form to PDF can be made in one go. In the Log tab, under Responses from before, type the first and last response number in From response and To response, and press Make PDFs. These count towards your free PDFs like any others.

When a response is edited

If someone edits their response after sending it, its PDF is not made again by itself. Make it again from the Log if you need the new version.

Turning it off

Press Turn off in the side panel. New responses then no longer become PDFs. PDFs already made stay in your Drive.

Responses sent while it is off are not made later by themselves when you turn it back on. If you want PDFs for them, use Make PDFs for past responses and choose their numbers.

Free plan and paying

• The free plan makes 20 PDFs a month for each Google account, counted across all your forms. Every feature is included.
• After 20, new responses wait in the Log as Over the free limit. Nothing is lost. You get one email that month to say responses are waiting.
• Waiting responses are made on the 1st of the next month, or straight away once you pay.

Paying costs $19, once. There is no subscription. It removes the monthly limit on every form of the Google account you use Form to PDF with.

To pay, open the Account tab in the side panel and press the button to unlock. Payment is handled by Dodo Payments. When you come back, press I've paid: check again. If it still shows the free plan, wait a minute and press it again.

If it does not work for you, you can ask for a refund within 14 days. See the terms.

Shared drives

You can pick a template or a folder on a shared drive. You need permission to add files to that shared drive. PDFs saved there belong to the shared drive, like any other file in it.

Form to PDF can only open files it made and files you picked with it, so to use a different template or folder later, pick it again in Setup.