Zapier Examples: Automatically create a Google Doc from a template like "document automation"
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ส.ค. 2024
- Document automation means automatically generating documents with external input.
With Zapier you can automatically create Google Docs from a template. This is done by replacing "variables" or placeholders within the doc. It's super easy to do and you'll see how in this video.
This method could help you automate proposals, quotes or basically any document that you have to repeatedly create for your clients.
I use it to create a podcast 'run sheet' when a guest books to come onto Agency Highway (agencyhighway.com)
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Thank you so much for the vid. very helpful. For people who stuck on the first part on how you set up the push button - just choose the "Zapier Chrome Extension". I was trying to make it work for my friend, hope it helps someone else too.
Thanks. Yeah they went and changed the name of the extension :(
Great idea Jimmy and great work!
All the best,
Daniel
Thanks Daniel hope it jogs a couple of ideas
Thank you for the video. I applied this automation to save bunch of my team's workload ;)
Woo! That's some work they'll never have to do again :)
@@_jimmyrose Any suggestion on how to set the number to be in my preferred currency format? They are formatted in Airtable but on the generated doc they are numbers only without thousand separator :D
@@AlmaziaPratita Yeah I think you can do that with the Zapier Formatter
@@_jimmyrose ahhh I didn't know about Formatter. Did a little read and apply it to my Zap, works perfectly. Thank you!
@@AlmaziaPratita glad to help!
hi, please answer. is it possible to add image in zapier to google docs?
What a great tutorial once more Jimmy. Thank you for your expertise.
Thanks for the kind words Laurent :)
I really wish you would have shown setting up the trigger, because I am trying to figure out how to turn the google sheets fields INTO the squggly line fields. Or how they relate to each other. You kinda skipped over the most confusing part which is the relationship between the squiggly line fields and the input fields.
Oops I must not have hit send on my original reply to this. I don't go through the Zapier basics in every video otherwise there would be a lot of repetition. Take a look at my Zapier Tutorial video here: th-cam.com/video/tX2cTiD9P9Y/w-d-xo.html
Thank you! Saved my time
Thanks man, super helpful!
No worries at all thanks Jordan!
I am missing the first part on how you set up the push button, where you create the trigger, I am sorry but thank you!
Push was just an example here - you can use any trigger you like!
Super useful, thanks Jimmy!
No worries Amanda!
how to introduce un variable photo or et link ?
Anyway put a continuing list in a table?
I couldn't find example of how to save Google Sheet as PDF. Link pls?
I cannot find the place to put my template document ID. I "added a search step" but cannot find the document. This is miserably frustrating.
Sorry it's been a while since your comment. Hopefully you've worked it out. Zapier can be tricky but you'll get the hang of it. Without seeing your exact setup I can't really know what's going on
I can get the template to create a new document, but cannot get the rest of the fields to populate. Zapier circa 2022 doesn't seem to have a New Push With Fields function...might be a new function or renamed. Can you advise?
Hey sorry only just getting to this. They've changed the way it works now - you just use "Push" but then specify the "Input fields" in the next step. WIsh TH-cam would let us update videos
Great video. I've done the full course and learnt loads. Does this work with Google sheets too?
PS. You say you've linked up to your basics course, but no link appears in the video. Guessing that can't be automated... ;-)
That's great to hear man! I'll have to check Sheets tomorrow.
Haha! It appears at the very top of the vid sometimes only a little i icon. The links are a bit crap on TH-cam now
Is it possible to create a table with google docs template using zapier?
You could have a table in the doc and include placeholders inside it, if that's what you mean. If you need a dynamic table size, I don't think it's possible
this is cool but can you also save the document as a PDF? and then send it? i cant find google cloud print :(
That got discontinued :( Check out PDF.co - great Zapier integration
"Push by Zapier" doesnt seem to exist anymore...?
It's called "Zapier Chrome Extension" now
The {{variable}} should contain no spaces by the way! I figured this out the hard way.
Oh good catch. I guess the programmer in me always defaults to no spaces. Thanks!
Thank you so much for this
Hello, do you have a video to explain how we can convert this doc into pdf? Thanks for your help.
Unfortunately not. Google discontinued their cloud print service which used to be able to do this.
However I think you could edit the link like this to export it into another service: support.google.com/a/users/answer/9308985?hl=en
Zapier does a terrible job of explaining what these placeholders even are... and how to use them. its 3 years since this TUT was made, does zapier still use the {{}} around placeholders?
I'm pretty sure it does yeah. I haven't set up a new zap for this in a while but my old ones still work
Hey great video. How do i format list items into table data?
Depends what system you're putting the data into. It's beyond the scope of what I can help with in youtube comments sorry
This may seem complicated but I’m using Pipedrive to create a Google Document using their Documents Beta tool. When the Google Document is created, it’s located in a specific folder in My Google Drive. Within that Google Document, I have specific tags that I want to use as a Template Google Document.
I created a Zap that triggers when a New Row is Updated or Created within a Google Sheet…
I’m able to find the folder, file, and everything within the Zap but when using the Create Google Document from Template step the file is nowhere to be found so I can't match up the tags in the Template Google Document with the fields in the Google Sheet Row.
I’ve tried multiple ways with no luck, below are some of the attempts I’ve tried:
1. I put the Google Document ID in one of the fields in the Google Sheet and Referenced it.
2. Referenced the Google Document ID from the Find a File step
3. Referenced the Google Document ID from the Find a Google Document step
4. Referenced the Google Document Name from the Find a File step
5. Referenced the Google Document Name from the Find a Google Document step
The only way I’m able to find the file is by I pasting the Google Document ID into the Custom value field, however, that’s not what I want. I don’t understand why the file can be located only when the Google Document ID is pasted into the Custom value field but can’t be located when all of my previous attempts included the same ID….
The “add a search step” doesn’t work...
Sounds like there might be some permissions issues or maybe it's only a shortcut to the file that you're seeing in your Drive. What's wrong with using the document ID though?
@@_jimmyrose Thanks for the reply! I double checked that I have all the permissions I need and it's not a shortcut to the file. The document ID works only if I paste the ID into the custom field in the Zap. The problem is the Template Google Document changes each time I run the Zap so the ID is never the same. I just don't understand why I can paste in the ID and find the document but I can't get the ID from a prior step and then reference it...
Is there also a way to apply certain formatting, like font size & family, add text to bulleted lists,...? Can't seem to make that work.
From Zapier I'm not sure. If you want all of them to have a certain formatting you could set that on the doc template
@@_jimmyrose thx! tried that but whatever gets sent to the doc from Zapier seems to be exempt from any formatting I apply to the template.
@@aIVIis damn. I thought maybe you could use markup or something but didn't find and info during my research
@@_jimmyrose thx, anyways!
Hi Jimmy, thank for a great tutorial :) Is there a way to to the same thing, but with a Sheets instead of Doc?
No worries! It doesn't look like this is possible :( I was just testing the "copy worksheet" function to see if it picked up variables, but it doesn't seem to. Maybe this is something you could send to them as a feature request, I can totally see how this would be valuable.
For now I think you'd have to use multiple steps to find a row and update the value, for each variable that you want to replace. It's going to consume more tasks but it should be possible to do that way at least
Actually, I'll send this request to them now
Great Tutorial Jimmy, but I have one question, how can we send that particular saved doc to gmail via zapier ?
Thank you. It's just one more step using the Gmail app. You can pull in the link from the previous Google Doc step
@@_jimmyrose Can you please elaborate a lil more? How can I pull the link of previous google doc? Thanks
@@PrinceThinks it's right there in the fields that come from the previous action. You just create the Gmail action like you normally would, except you choose a field from the Google Doc action instead of the trigger
@@_jimmyrose Got it, Thanks Jimmy 🙏💙
Hello, is there any way to create a template with text and pictures as variables ?
You know... I've never tried this. Text yes, but pictures I'm not sure. You could try it by sending an image from a previous Zapier step to the replacement field and see what happens
Hi Jimmy. I have tried this but I'm not getting the bit where the fields map with the tags in the google doc. Do you have a more recent version?
Hi Gemma. The process is still the same. There is likely a problem with the tags in the doc or on the selection of the doc.
If you're sure it's all correct then we can go through it on a consult or you could check with Zapier support
Thanks for the reply Jimmy. I found the issue, there had been formatting applied to the dynamic tags (font size, colour) in the google doc which was preventing Zapier from pulling them in. By right clicking and removing formatting on each one it now works :) Hopefully this will help someone else facing the same issue.
@@taskitvirtualsolutions good to hear you found it!
@@taskitvirtualsolutions Hi Gemma! I'm facing the same issue, have cleared formatting and still cannot get them to appear. I'll try it again and reach back out when I get to the root of the problem.
@@taskitvirtualsolutions I'm noticing it doesn't work because my client's drive isn't a shared drive, hence her document is not a template. I'll look for a work-around!
Can you help
Wpform>sheet>templte>sendit to costomer doc >Pdf
How dot it by zapier
Sounds like you already know how. That's the exact workflow I'd use in Zapier. Google cloud print for the PDF, except that is being closed down and right now I don't think there is a good alternative
@@_jimmyrose
Thanks to answer me faster
I already now how create template
But how create with the data come from wpform and Save it in google sheet and Send the templte to customer with his data
Any idea Thanks My brother
@@openmindjustdoit1306 create a zap that triggers on form submission and has two actions. One add to the sheet and the other send an email. You might not need Zapier though because the forms touol probably has email notifications built-in