Generating Dynamic PDFs with Gravity Forms, Zapier, and PDF.co
By Clifford P
One of my favorite clients had an intriguing project. They’re a manufacturer with a co-branded PDF brochure.
We thought to create a self-service web form so they can upload their logo onto the PDF and immediately have it to distribute online, such as email to a new potential client to sway them to order or display on their iPad in a presentation.
This appears as a very flexible solution while also saving us time in crafting each PDF by hand after obtaining each one’s logo file.
Although there are dozens of solutions available for anything regarding PDFs, we went with Gravity Forms in order to collect their account information, add/update their record in the CRM, process the image and place it onto the PDF via PDF.co by way of Zapier, log the file into Zoho (for the sales team), and then send the PDF download link (email attachments are gross!) for their immediate marketing action.
ByteScout is PDF.co’s parent company, and they’ve been quick to reply and eager to help with any troubles setting up jobs in Zapier. They also have integrations with other automaters besides Zapier.
Pricing
At PDF.co’s lowest initial investment pricing, adding an image to one or more pages of a 2 page PDF costs roughly $0.11-$0.15 per job. Once on their $19.99/mo plan or higher, the price per job goes down drastically to less than $0.01.
All of the PDF plugins dedicated to Gravity Forms get pricey pretty quickly or otherwise have some processing limitations to where the functionality is no longer an apples-to-apples comparison — so PDF.co comes out looking extremely competitive.
Generating Dynamic PDFs with Gravity Forms, Zapier, and PDF.co
One of my favorite clients had an intriguing project. They’re a manufacturer with a co-branded PDF brochure.
We thought to create a self-service web form so they can upload their logo onto the PDF and immediately have it to distribute online, such as email to a new potential client to sway them to order or display on their iPad in a presentation.
This appears as a very flexible solution while also saving us time in crafting each PDF by hand after obtaining each one’s logo file.
Although there are dozens of solutions available for anything regarding PDFs, we went with Gravity Forms in order to collect their account information, add/update their record in the CRM, process the image and place it onto the PDF via PDF.co by way of Zapier, log the file into Zoho (for the sales team), and then send the PDF download link (email attachments are gross!) for their immediate marketing action.
Alternatives
ByteScout is PDF.co’s parent company, and they’ve been quick to reply and eager to help with any troubles setting up jobs in Zapier. They also have integrations with other automaters besides Zapier.
Pricing
At PDF.co’s lowest initial investment pricing, adding an image to one or more pages of a 2 page PDF costs roughly $0.11-$0.15 per job.
Once on their $19.99/mo plan or higher, the price per job goes down drastically to less than $0.01.
All of the PDF plugins dedicated to Gravity Forms get pricey pretty quickly or otherwise have some processing limitations to where the functionality is no longer an apples-to-apples comparison — so PDF.co comes out looking extremely competitive.
Video: How To Build It in Zapier