Zapier Integration: Automate Document Generation

The PDFMonkey Zapier integration lets you generate, retrieve, and manage documents directly from your Zaps. If you are new to the integration, start with the Getting Started section below for a complete end-to-end tutorial.

Getting Started

Before you begin, make sure you have a PDFMonkey account and a published template. See From Zero to First Document for setup instructions.

Writing Your First Template

In the HTML tab of your template, insert the following code:

<p class="greeting">Hello {{name}}!</p>
<p>Your favorite number is {{favoriteNumber}}.</p>

In the CSS tab, insert the following code:

.greeting {
  color: #6D28D9;
  font-size: 24px;
}

And finally in the Test data tab, insert this:

{
  "name": "Peter Parker",
  "favoriteNumber": 8
}

Click Save to see the preview update, then click Publish to make the template available for generation.

Generating Your First Document

Now that your template is complete, let’s head to Zapier.

For this guide we will define a Zap triggered by a form submission on Tally, generate a document in PDFMonkey, and then send it by email.

The Tally Form

We will use the following Tally form as our source of information in our Zap:

Setting Up Your Zap

Start by creating a new Zap. As trigger we will use Tally’s New Response event:

We then proceed to fill out our form and check it’s correctly connected in Zapier:

Calling PDFMonkey

Now that we have some data to work with, we will configure our PDFMonkey action.

Select the PDFMonkey app and choose the Generate Document action.

You can then map the data from the form to variables for your document. Make sure to use the same names as the ones used when writing the template.

We’re now ready to test the document generation.

Sending the Document by Email

Now that our document is generated, let’s send it by email.

Add a new action and select the Email by Zapier app, then choose the Send Outbound Email action.

We can now use our document’s Download URL as attachment for the email. Zapier automatically downloads the file and attaches it.

You can now test this last action and you should receive an email with the document attached.

Congrats! You generated your very first PDFMonkey document using Zapier!

Generate a Document

The Generate Document action creates a document from one of your PDFMonkey templates. You select a template, map your data fields, and PDFMonkey generates the document. The action returns a download URL you can use in subsequent Zap steps.

For a step-by-step walkthrough of your first Zap, see the Getting Started section above.

Advanced JSON Payload

By default, the integration provides a simple mapping field to define what gets sent to PDFMonkey. In most cases the simple mapping is sufficient, but there are situations where you need to structure your data differently. The Use a custom JSON structure option switches from the simple mapping to a text area where you can insert your own JSON with nested properties:

Custom Filename

You can specify a custom name for the generated file. This is useful if you plan on storing the document in a service like Drive or Dropbox.

You can use dynamic parts to build the filename, but keep these restrictions in mind:

• The filename must not contain any slash / or backslash \
• Non-latin characters should be avoided as they can be corrupted when saving the file

Short names based on dates or IDs tend to work best.

Metadata

When you generate a document, you can attach metadata to it. Metadata is not available in the template and cannot influence the content of the document; it is simply attached to it.

A common use case is receiving the document via a webhook and using its metadata to route or handle it differently.

Line Items

If you are generating an invoice or a quote, you will likely need to deal with line items. Zapier provides a way to access those items if the trigger you use supports them.

Take the example of a Stripe invoice. Items in the invoice are available through a Line Items collection. To send those items in a way that PDFMonkey can understand, set Add Line Items to Yes.

This opens a section where you specify what a single item looks like. For example, consider a Stripe invoice with these items:

Delicious waffle         3.50€      x12      = 42.00€
Perfectly round donut    4.99€      x5       = 24.95€
TOTAL                                          66.95€

The TOTAL should be sent as basic data for the document, while the name, unit price, quantity, and total amount for each item should be sent as line items from Zapier:

Using the Line Items in Your Template

When Zapier sends the line items to PDFMonkey, they are accessible through a special lineItems variable. In the example above, the payload would look like this:

{
  "lineItems": [
    {
      "product": "Delicious waffle",
      "quantity": "12",
      "unitPrice": "3.50",
      "totalAmount": "42.00"
    },
    {
      "product": "Perfectly round donut",
      "quantity": "5",
      "unitPrice": "4.99",
      "totalAmount": "24.95"
    }
  ]
}

You can loop over the lineItems array to display content for each item individually:

{% for item in lineItems %}
  <p>{{item.product}} at {{item.unitPrice}}€ x{{item.quantity}} = {{item.totalAmount}}€</p>
{% endfor %}

This produces the following HTML:

<p>Delicious waffle at 3.50€ x12 = 42.00€</p>
<p>Perfectly round donut at 4.99€ x5 = 24.95€</p>

You will probably want to build a table row for each item, but this gives you a good idea of how to get started. See Conditions and Loops for more Liquid loop techniques.

Document Generated Trigger

The Document Generated trigger fires your Zap every time a document finishes generating (reaches the success status). This is useful for automating post-generation tasks like storing the file in Dropbox, sending it by email, or logging it in a spreadsheet.

You can choose to trigger your Zap for:

• Any template in your workspace
• A single template
• Several specific templates

Make sure to have at least one generated document before testing your trigger in Zapier.

You can then use the generated file to store it, send it by email, or get notified in some way.

Retrieve and Delete Documents

Retrieve a Document

The Retrieve Document action fetches a previously generated document by its ID. Use this when you need to access a document’s details or download URL in a later step of your Zap; for example, after a delay or in a separate workflow from the one that generated it.

Delete a Document

The Delete Document action removes a single document from PDFMonkey. Use this to clean up documents after you have processed them; for example, after downloading and storing the file elsewhere. See Retention and Deletion for more on document lifecycle management.

Troubleshooting

Download URL Expired

If you get an expired download URL error while building your Zap, reload the example record in your trigger.

The download URL is only valid for 1 hour. You need to refresh the documents in Zapier to get a new URL. Click the Load More button in the Test section of your trigger:

422 Responses

This error usually happens when you use the custom JSON option and have values that need escaping before being sent to PDFMonkey.

Values Containing Double Quotes

Consider the following custom JSON:

{
  "user": {
    "name": "(Dynamic Field From Zapier)"
  }
}

If the value in Dynamic Field From Zapier contains quotes, the resulting JSON breaks. Take Peter "Spiderman" Parker as an example:

{
  "user": {
    "name": "Peter "Spiderman" Parker"
  }
}

This is not valid JSON. What you need is to escape the double quotes:

{
  "user": {
    "name": "Peter \"Spiderman\" Parker"
  }
}

Values Containing Line Breaks

JSON does not support values that include raw line breaks:

{
  "userBio": "Once upon a time,
They lived happily ever after."
}

Escape the line breaks by replacing them with a <br /> tag or using the text representation \n:

{
  "userBio": "Once upon a time,\nThey lived happily ever after."
}

Solution

If you cannot escape the values before they reach Zapier, add a Code by Zapier action before calling PDFMonkey.

Suppose your data contains both line breaks and double quotes:

You need to escape values for both Trigger App User Bio and Trigger App User Full Name. Start by adding a Code by Zapier action to your Zap and selecting Run Javascript:

Give your fields names that help identify them in the following steps:

Now add the code that escapes the values:

let data = Object.assign({}, inputData);

for (let key in data) {
  if (typeof(data[key]) === "string" && data[key].length > 0) {
    data[key] = data[key].replace(/\r?\n/g, '<br>').replace(/\t/g, " ").replace(/"/g, '\\\"');
  }
}

output = [data];

This gives you the same fields in the output but with their values properly escaped:

You can now use those values when building your PDFMonkey payload:

Notice how we used the fields from the Code by Zapier step, not from the trigger directly.

Next Steps

• From Zero to First Document: Set up your PDFMonkey account and create your first template
• Defining Dynamic Data: Learn how to structure the JSON payload for your templates
• Document Statuses: Understand the lifecycle of a generated document
• Webhooks: Receive real-time notifications when documents finish generating
• Explore other integrations: Make, n8n, Workato