MachForm Community Forums » MachForm 4

1. agdm619
   Member

   Thought I would start a new thread for this, as I asked under the "Machform 4.4 released" thread. I just didn't want it to get lost.

   Is there anyway to customize the .PDF Attachments?? Even if it could use custom HTML and put into the PDF. And would it be possible to customize it for each form?

   I would like to customize it for the admin emails, receipt emails, and logic emails.

   Thanks again for everything!
   Aaron

   Posted 8 years ago #
2. 

   yuniar

   Yes, it is actually possible by updating the backend database record directly. You can use phpMyAdmin (or any other similar tool) to update your database record.

   1) Admin Email
   Open the "ap_forms" table and edit the "esl_pdf_content" field.

   2) Receipt Email
   Open the "ap_forms" table and edit the "esr_pdf_content" field.

   3) Logic Emails
   Open the "ap_email_logic" table and edit the "custom_pdf_content" field.

   You'll need to edit the field with the matching form_id number as your form.

   By default, those fields are empty. You can put any valid HTML template there and use the template variables, similar as the email content.

   ---

   MachForm Founder

   Posted 8 years ago #

3. agdm619
   Member

   That's great! - Still confused on how I can have different versions of this for each form we have. we have over 20.

   But I hope in the future there would be a "user friendly" way of doing this. Kinda like the theme editor but for PDF's, or an insert .html option for PDF attachments, or a check box that could allow it to use "Email Content" customizations already in place. (Link below.)

   https://www.genprod.com/images/addl-Box.JPG

   Thanks for any help or feedback!
   Aaron

   Posted 8 years ago #
4. 

   yuniar

   Yes, that's actually what we plan for the future update. We're considering to revamp the whole editors and provide WYSIWYG HTML editor.

   As for now, when you look into any of those tables, you'll find the "form_id" column. Since each form is having unique id number, you can edit the record associated with each form id to customize the template for each form.

   ---

   MachForm Founder

   Posted 8 years ago #

5. webmerge
   Member

   If you'd like to generate customized PDF, Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documents from your form entries, you can use a service called WebMerge. Here's an article that outlines how to generate an invoice: https://www.webmerge.me/blog/populate-a-customized-pdf-invoice-from-machform

   Each form you setup can be attached to a unique document/template and it can be emailed, sent to cloud storage like Box or Dropbox, or even sent for e-signature with services like DocuSign or CudaSign.

   Posted 8 years ago #

6. MvdL79
   Member

   This would be great if Yuniar would do the same, but from within Machform.

   For us this would mean, we can send out contracts automatically in PDF format as an attachment, where all necessary fields are already filled in the contact PDF template (form fields which are taken from Machform).

   This is something I wanted 2 years ago already, as mentioned here: http://www.appnitro.com/forums/topic/when-will-there-be-a-pdf-option?replies=4

   I really hope to see this function added in the near future. Though Webmerge looks good/decent, I really don't trust 3rd parties with our contracts obviously and them getting an email from Webmerge (no offence meant).

   Posted 8 years ago #

7. williamansley
   Member

   I also would really like to see customizable PDFs with a WYSIWYG editor, although having to do it with html and CSS would be great, too. And I also would like really to see a built-in format for PDF attachments that uses a layout that looks as close as possible to the way the form appears on the web page. In fact, I rather optimistically thought that this was the way the original PDF attachment was going to look.

   I don't suppose Yuniar and company are planning to add free placement of form fields as part of a WSIWYG editor, but I hope that more flexibility in form layout of some kind is coming soon.

   Posted 8 years ago #

8. MvdL79
   Member

   In fact, I rather optimistically thought that this was the way the original PDF attachment was going to look.

   Exactly, I was thinking the same. Oh well, apparently Yuniar is working on this feature, so I can only hope it will be added soon.

   Currently, our main business website is build in Joomla, including the forms, in which also order forms exists. In contrary to Machform, these forms do populate PDF templates, as we need for our client's contracts. And since I am redesigning the complete website, build from scratch with Bootstrap, I always favour the use of Machform, however we do need some sort of PDF function for our contracts. Which is still a pretty big miss in Machform. People were excited when this function was announced, however it was added not the way I (or several others) expected.

   We can only hope it will be added (very) soon, as I am almost done with our new website. And I also hope it will be added in the Machform v4-series, as we already bought several unlimited licenses over the past years (for all versions) and it would suck to have this PDF function (as it should have been added) in v5. Don't get me wrong; Machform and Yuniar deserve it obviously.

   In the meantime I will look into other options for sending out those PDF contracts with fillable fields (in the PDF) filled by Machform.

   //edit

   I am by no means a scripter or developer, but I think Yuniar could use the information displayed on this website to achieve PDF files to be filled by Machform: http://koivi.com/fill-pdf-form-fields

   They also explain on their website the following:

   - Processing user-submitted data for use with PDF forms
   - Generate a Filled PDF Form File

   And apparently they use PDFtk Server, which seems to be free to use? Might be a solution to achieve the above.

   Posted 8 years ago #

9. MvdL79
   Member

   * small bump (to keep Yuniar's attention *

   Posted 8 years ago #

10. heinzfrick
    Member

    Yuniar, thanks for the awesome form building tool. With all the work you do to polish this already beautiful tool, and the millions of people sending in comments, how do you find time to even sleep...HA!

    I have not installed the upgraded version yet, and have not had time to play with this PDF option. Sending out a simple invoice that is populated with form data would be absolutely awesome. Can some one post a few examples of what the current PDF attachments are looking like, I would like to see how they have been created using the wysiwyg tool Yuniar talks about. I understand a nice invoice which would include a company logo, and company information would be nice, but for now, a simple document that a customer could print that contains simple, vital info regarding job details, and price and date with some small notes, and they could include this with their check/payment. I'm patient and let yuniar work on these details as he has time....

    Also: Having the record entry number included in the document would be extremely useful as it can be used as a unique invoice number to prevent any and all confusion. I'm wondering if the WYCIWYG tool allows a way to customize a label to notate the entry number to read as an invoice number as in,,,,,

    INVOICE# XXXX

    Thanks Guys,
    Heinz

    Posted 8 years ago #

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