Template to produce a Google Document

Niobab
Participant I

Hi,

Is it possible from the worklow to produce, after merging variables in placeholders, a Google Document, alternatively to produce one of the transformed authorized outputs (CSV,HTML,JSON,PDF,XLSX,XML,ICS).

The only workaround I found was to output in html and then open it in google document. But I loose a lot of formatting.

This is useful if the users wants to adapt the document manually for complex documents.

Thanks for your help !

Status Open
13 9 1,257
9 Comments
Cortex
Participant IV

Hello,

Why not using directly a word template as an input ?

You can edit a word document through the google doc interface if it’s stored in the drive or use the application launcher for a seamless edition

PDF output can be easly edited too, or converted into a DOC

Regards,

Niobab
Participant I

Many thanks Jeremy ! The input is not an issue : Gdoc or Word are fine. The pb is the output : pdf or html. When converted back from pdf / html to Google document, much of the formatting is lost. It would be great adding the feature to add Google document as output format !

Cortex
Participant IV

Your right, will be nice to add this output.
i’m interested about those formating issues, can you give us input vs output ?

BMAP
Participant I

For my project, the lack of a document merge output to an immediately editable form was one of my biggest obstacle, so I manage to create a rudimentary document merge functionality.

An action button, copies/posts data to DocTemplateForm in a separate Google Sheet & Table. Example, for a letter, this data includes name, address, project/file no, File Name, a destination GDrive FolderID, and a Google Drive ItemID of a pre-built customized GDrive Doc Template which has the Column Names of the sheet data to be merged, etc. When this sheet’s script is triggered, it copies the specified template Letterhead to the specified GDrive Folder ID and then performs a search/replace with the relevant data posted to the Document Template GSheet. Best of all the script then places the new document’s Google Drive ItemID into the original “document table”, so that the UX will replace the “Merge Doc” button with an “Edit Document” button. (This does require an extra refresh to update UX)

I’m currently using an action button to “go to another view” to create the merge table entry, but I intend to streamline with the new “add row to a diff table”.

It’s clunky, a bit slow, but it does work.

PocketSurvey
Participant V

You have my vote for having a Google Doc as an output format in Workflows.

Why is there so little interest in this feature request?

It would be a good solution to the all the headers, footers, page numbering problems.

Then from Google Docs, the end users could print to PDF, and have the added benefit of being able to modify the document before printing if they needed to.

Shashwat_Hemato
Participant III

I am also waiting for this feature… At present I have to do a lot of manual work… If as an output I get Google “docs file” instead of “pdf” then it would be very useful for me

SteveK
New Member

This is a really essential feature. Producing editable G Docs just seems like it should be a basic feature, and internal business users are demanding this feature, because it is a pain that you cannot make small tweaks to style and content in PDFs

SteveK
New Member

That sounds like a pretty good workaround. Do you have an example, or have you made any changes to this workaround since?

Status changed to: Open
Pratyusha
Community Manager
Community Manager