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Document Creation overview

Beta

This is a beta feature, which means we’re still developing it. Some functionality might change.

Access to this feature can change based on your Quickbase plan. Learn more about feature availability and plans in Quickbase capabilities.

Document Creation allows you to create PDF, HTML, or Word documents that include data from your app. Use it to create things like quotes, proposals, invoices, mailing labels, and summaries.

The document creation process is made up of three parts:

  1. App builders create a template in table settings

  2. App builders add a formula-URL button that references the template to forms and/or table reports

  3. App users generate documents according to the template by selecting the button, or app builders use other methods to incorporate document creation into their workflows

This article provides an overview of each of these parts and document creation limits.

In this article

Document templates

Document templates are created in table settings. They determine how your data is presented when an app user generates a document. Templates can include elements from your Quickbase app, like fields and reports. You can also add images and text. Learn more in Building document templates.

Note

If you include Quickbase elements like reports and forms in your document, most styling will render correctly in a PDF. However, they will not render correctly in Word documents.

Generate document formula-URL field

Each template you create is assigned a template ID. After you’ve created a template, set up a formula-URL field on your table that references the template ID. You can find an example formula in our help article, or you can install a formula directly from the Exchange. Learn more in Generate documents from records in your app.

The formula determines:

  • File type of documents that are created: PDF, Word, or HTML

  • Other settings, like margin, orientation, page size

Add document creation to your workflows

After you set up a formula-URL field that references a template, there are several ways you can add document creation to your workflows, including:

  • Display the formula-URL field as a button forms and table reports. App users select the button to generate a document when needed.

  • Include the document in custom emails. The option to include a document is included in the email builder after you’ve saved templates in the table settings.

  • Create a pipeline that uses the Make request step in the Quickbase channel to create documents.

Limits

Document creation has the following limits:

  • Max size for document templates is 1 MB

  • 50 document templates per table

  • Max size for the HTML of a generated document is 6 MB. If the limit is reached, you will see an error in Quickbase.

    • This limit may translate to a different size for Word documents and PDFs.

    • This limit is most likely to be reached if you have a large number of charts in your template, as those are embedded as images.

    • Images that are included as record data do not count towards this limit.

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