Tutorials

How to convert Notion Forms submissions to PDFs on automation

A step-by-step automation guide on how to convert the notion forms to professional looking PDFs

By Sanat Biswal · 2026-04-26 · 10 min read

How to convert Notion Forms submissions to PDFs on automation

If you have been using Notion Forms regularly to collect data from users and want to convert the data collected to branded PDFs, then this guide is for you.

Today, we are going to talk about how to convert Notion Forms to PDFs using a simple and easy automation process using the tool PDFOutput.

This is how exactly it will work, it will require 2 things:

  • Notion Forms Database — This contains all the form entries which is collected from the users. In this post, we are going to use a Rental Agreement Form to demonstrate how the PDFs will be generated.
  • Template Source — This is where we will design the template that will be used to produce the PDFs. We can provide a PDF File, Google Document or even a Word File that can be used to work as the template. In this post, we are going to use a Rental Agreement Google Document to define the template source.

    • Once the above 2 are provided, PDFOutput will now connect with both of the above to help generate the PDFs.

    Let's understand how this process will work…

    What You'll Need Before Getting Started with Automation of Notion Forms

    In order to get started with automating the process of generating PDFs from Notion Forms, here's the essential 3 prerequisites:

  • Notion Account — You must have a Notion account to get started and create a form to process for PDFs.

    • In this example, we will create a Rental Agreement Form to setup the automation.

    Type "/" and then type "Form" (as shown below) to create a Form.

    !Creating a Notion Form

    Once you click on Form, it will create a new Form Database which we can design to collect entries from the users.

    Here's a sample Rental Agreement Form created with the following details:

    1. Tenant Name 2. Property Address 3. Lease Term 4. Rent Amount 5. Security Deposit

    !Rental Agreement Form fields

    Now users can start filling in the form with their form submissions and the entries will appear on the "Responses" side next to the form created.

    I have added 3 sample entries (as shown below) which will be now converted to PDFs through the PDFOutput automation.

    !Sample form entries in Notion database

  • Template Source — We can create a sample template file which will be used as the design document that will generate the PDFs for us.

    • The design document can be added in one of the following forms:

    - Google Document - Word File - PDF File

  • PDFOutput Account — A PDFOutput account is required for the user to be able to connect both of the above and get started automating the PDFs.

    • How to generate PDFs from Notion Forms submissions in PDFOutput

    PDFOutput will work to automate in the following manner: Notion Form → Database → PDFOutput → Generated PDF

    Let's get to understand the automation better step by step.

    Step 1 — Connecting Notion Database

    In order to connect the Notion Form (Rental Agreement Form), here's what we need to do.

  • Log In to PDFOutput (free to get started).

    • !PDFOutput login screen

  • Click on "New Automation" and provide a name for the automation, eg: Rental Agreement Automation.

    • !New Automation button

    !Naming the automation

  • Click on Connect Notion button to connect your Rental Agreements Database.

    • !Connect Notion button

  • Once you click on Connect Notion, click on "Select pages" to select the notion pages.

    • !Select pages option

  • Once you click on Select pages, click on Select all to select all the notion databases available in your notion workspace.

    • !Select all databases

  • Scroll down and click on Allow Access to give access to the database connected.

    • !Allow Access button

  • Once the databases are added, click on the Change Notion Database to change the notion database and select the Rental Agreement Form.

    • !Change Notion Database

    Once the Rental Agreement Form is selected, we will be able to see the following 3 additional properties in the Rental Agreement Form database:

    !Three new properties added by PDFOutput

  • GeneratePDF — This is a Select type property added by PDFOutput which is used to set the records inside Notion Database that will be generated as PDFs.
    • Its set to In Progress by default when the property is added.
  • PDFFiles — This is a Files and Media type property added by PDFOutput.
    • This is where the PDF Files will be saved once its generated from PDFOutput.
  • google\_drive\_file — This is a URL type property added by PDFOutput.
    • This is where the Google Drive File link will be saved, if the user adds Google Drive File in the Workflow step to save the PDFs.

    Thus, these 3 properties are added by PDFOutput automatically onto the Rental Agreement Form database once its connected.

    Step 2 — Designing Your Template Source

    !Template source selection screen

    In this step, we are going to design the template source by using any one of the following 3 ways:

  • Google Document
  • Word Files
  • PDF File

    • > Note: We can also use Google Slides for this and create presentations using the automation.

    In this demonstration, I am going to add a Google Document, so click on the Google Document and then click on Select Document button below to select a Google Document.

    !Google Document option selected

    !Select Document button

    Once you click on Select Document, you will find 4 options to choose from:

  • Select Existing Document — Choose this if you have an existing Google Document which you want to use as the template.
  • Create Blank Document — Choose this if you want to create a new blank document to edit and use as a template.
  • Add Demo Document — Choose this if you want to create a document which already creates all the placeholders (notion properties) directly in the document.
  • Select from Templates — Choose this to select a template available from a list of templates already added beforehand.
> Note: For this to work, once the user selects a template, the user must click on Make a Copy button to create the copy of the document and then the user must select the same document using the Select Existing Document button again.

I will go ahead with the option of Select Existing Document which will allow me to select an existing Google Document. I have already added the Rental Agreement Document template into a Google Document and I will select the same.

Once the document is selected, click on Select below to load the document.

!Selecting an existing Google Document

Once we click on Select it will load the document in the Step 2 of the Setup tab.

Here's a sample Rental Agreement Template which we will use for the demo:

!Rental Agreement Google Document template

Once the document is loaded, click on Continue to Workflow button to continue to the next step where we will map the properties and generate the PDFs.

!Continue to Workflow button

Step 3 — Mapping the placeholders onto the document

!Property mapping screen

In this step, we are going to map the placeholders, i.e. Notion Database properties onto the Google Document one by one.

Mapping the properties onto the Google Document is simple and easy.

Here are the 2 steps to follow to map the properties onto the document one by one:

  • Copy the properties from the right — Click on Copy for the notion property shown under the Rental Agreement Form Properties on the right side. It copies the placeholder for us in the form of \{\{…\}\}.
  • Paste the properties onto the Google Document shown on the left — Use Ctrl + V (Win users) / Cmd + V (Mac users) to paste the properties onto the document.

    • Once the properties are all mapped onto the document as required, its time to define some additional settings for the PDF generation.

    Additional Settings

    !Additional settings panel

    Under additional settings, you will find 2 options:

  • Google Drive Folder — If you want to store the files in a google drive folder, then this is where you can do the same.
  • PDF File Name — You can select the property which will be used to define the name of your PDF Files.
    • Eg: If you choose Tenant Name, then it will create the PDF's in the Tenant Name.

    Step 4 — Activating the PDF Automation

    !Setup Notion Automation button

    Once everything is all setup properly, its time to activate the automation.

    For this, simply click on the Setup Notion Automation button to activate the automation.

    How to start generating PDFs inside Notion Database

    Once the automation is activated, we can start generating the PDFs directly from inside the Notion Database.

    For this simply head over to the notion database, and change the GeneratePDF property in the notion database from "In Progress" to "Ready to Generate".

    !Setting GeneratePDF to Ready to Generate

    Once you set the property to "Ready to Generate", it will process the records and then mark the records as "Completed" also producing the PDFs at the same time.

    Here's the output generated in the Notion Database with the PDF's created by the Tenant Name…

    !PDFs generated in Notion database

    Here's a sample document that is created from the use of the automation…

    !Sample generated PDF document

    As you can see in the output the placeholders that were added earlier in the form of \{\{…\}\} have been replaced by the values from the Notion Database and mapped onto the document and generated as PDF.

    This concludes the entire process on how to generate PDFs on automation from Notion Form submissions.

    Real world use cases of PDFOutput automation

    Here are some of the real world use cases of automation from the tool:

  • Agreements — You can generate any form of agreements by following the similar pattern of adding a Google Document, Notion Database, mapping the fields and producing the PDFs on automation.
  • Onboarding Forms — You can also generate client onboarding forms and produce the PDFs easily from this automation from Notion Database.
  • Registration Confirmations — You can also create registration confirmations easily from this automation tool using your Notion Database.
  • Invoices and Receipts — One of the most popular use case for PDFOutput is producing Invoices or Receipts on automation using the tool.
  • HR Forms — Another popular use case of using PDFOutput is producing HR forms on automation with the use of the tool.

    • Why Automating PDF Generation Saves Time and Looks Professional

    There are several benefits from generating PDFs on automation.

    Here's some of the relevant benefits of automation:

  • Eliminates the Manual Creation of Documents — The first key benefit is it helps to eliminate the process of creating the documents manually.

    • Creating a document manually is time consuming and is prone to errors which can become overwhelming when producing more PDFs at scale.

    When PDF creation becomes automated, it saves a lot of time and makes it error free to produce PDFs with ease.

  • Saves Time when producing at scale — When you are producing PDFs at scale, it always consumes time to produce PDFs each time.

    • This becomes a tedious process and when repetitive in nature it often becomes error prone and doesn't scale well.

    When its automated, it saves time when the pdfs are produced at scale for the users.

  • Quick Turnaround of Documents — Setting up the documents to be produced on automation also allows for quick turnaround of the documents being produced.

    • There's no wait time for long hours just to get the PDFs produced especially at scale.

    This becomes really essential for time sensitive documents which require instant generation and approval such as Agreements, Invoices or even time bound contracts.

    Ready to automate your PDF generation from Notion Forms? Get started for free and create your first automation in minutes.