/ Last Updated July 31, 2023

How To Convert a WordPress Form to PDF (The Easy Way!)

Want to convert a WordPress form to PDF? This post will show you how to do it easily with Formidable Forms.

How to Convert a WordPress Form to PDF (3 Easy Ways!)

Standard PDF forms are clunky. They’re confusing to fill out on a computer, and sometimes you’re unsure if you’re filling out the right field.

We get it.

What if you were able to create an engaging WordPress form that automatically generates a PDF when the form is submitted?

Well, now you can!

In this post, we'll show you how to use a WordPress form to PDF generator to do everything you need.

Let’s jump into it.

Why use WordPress to create a PDF from a form?

When you run a business, you probably have forms all over your website. You’re using contact forms, survey forms, payment forms, and maybe more.

And wouldn’t it be nice to have a way to take the information from those forms and put it into a neat and orderly PDF? The PDF can then serve as an easily printable paper trail or as a proof of purchase that you can email customers to confirm their order.

But, that’s just one example of why you might want to have WordPress generate a PDF from a form. You can also:

  • Send a PDF quote to a potential client
  • Create a PDF invoice for your own records
  • Generate a paper receipt for purchases
  • Print out a member profile

You could even have the WordPress Form to PDF email option if you want to send a PDF document.

The visitor submits the form, and you get an email with it compiled into a PDF. You can also have it send the customer an email if you’d like.

How cool is that?
And there’s one plugin that surpasses all the others in this task: Formidable Forms.

How do I create a PDF form in WordPress?

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To get started, you must download and install the Formidable Forms plugin. Once you get that activated, we’ll dive in.

There are only three easy steps to create a PDF form in WordPress:

Short on time? Try one of these WordPress PDF templates instead!

These practical pre-built solutions come complete with form templates and the PDF View template.

In two clicks, you'll have everything you need to quickly create PDF certificates, PDF contracts, or PDF invoices in WordPress.

Let’s get into it.

Step 1: Create your form

Inside your WordPress admin, we can create a form. Go to Formidable → Forms and click Add New.

Create a new form in WordPress plugin Formidable Forms

Don't have Formidable Forms yet? Click below to get the most powerful WordPress form maker on the market.

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Next, choose Blank Form or select one of our many pre-made templates.

Give your form a name, and a description, then click Create.

Now, let’s add some fields to your form. As we mentioned above, you can drag these into the canvas. It’s a user-friendly way to build forms.

Formidable's drag-and-drop builder makes designing forms easy and fast

Once finished, click Update to save your form. You’re halfway there.

Step 2: Set up PDF settings

Okay, now that we’ve set up our form to collect entries, how do you convert those forms to PDF?

You have three options here:

  • Export the entry as a PDF
  • Attach the PDF file to an email
  • Insert a shortcode for a download link

Before you do any of this, in your WordPress admin, go to Formidable → Add-Ons and click Install on the WordPress PDFs plugin.

Now, we’ll show you how to use the PDF plugin.

Export the entry as a PDF

To export a specific entry, go to your form Entries page, then select View or Edit below the entry on its details page.

In the Form Entries, select Download as PDF

In the sidebar, under Entry Actions, select Download as PDF.

Pretty easy, right?

Attach the PDF file to an email

Want to attach it to an email? Easy.

Go to your form’s Settings → Actions & Notifications.

Click on the email notification action to edit it, or you can click the Send Email icon to add a new one.

In the Form Settings, you can automatically attach a PDF to an email

Scroll down to Attach PDF of entry to email and toggle the switch.

That’s it.

Let’s move on to the last method.

This is an easier way to download the PDF. You paste the shortcode on a page, post, email, or View. When visitors click it, the document will get open, and they can download it.

To do this, simply put a bit of shortcode into the area:

[frm-pdf id=x]

In this shortcode, simply replace the ‘x’ with the ID of the ID you want to show.

You can find the ID on the entry details page.

For example, you can set up the shortcode like this:

[frm-pdf id=x label="Click to download entry as PDF"]

Three easy ways to take your form entries and export them to a PDF. Simplicity is beautiful, and it’s something we prioritize.

Step 3: Customize the PDF

You'll notice the PDF looks a bit basic.

But it doesn't have to. In fact, you can customize it to look exactly how you want!

To start, go to Views in your form builder. Then, click Add New to create a new View.

You can choose any template you want to get started, but we'll show a Grid view to start.

Grid View template

Next, name the View, then click the Create a view button.

The plugin will take you to the View Builder, where you can click Layout Builder. The Layout Builder is drag and drop like the form builder. So you can drag the different columns based on your preferences.

Layout Builder

Then, click Save Layout.

You can click inside the column, and it will open the Visual/Text editor where you can begin customizing your View, which will be your PDF! Add text, images, and more until you get the design you're looking for.

For example, if you're using the PDF editor to create a certificate, you can create something like this:

Example certificate

Once you get your PDF designed, it's a piece of cake to display it on form submission and let users download the PDF easily.

Head to a post or page where you want to show your PDF download.

Then add a bit of shortcode:

[frm-pdf view="*YOUR VIEW ID*" public="1"]

Then, when you update and preview the page, you can click the download link to view your PDF!

Example link to PDF

For a more detailed guide to customizing your PDF, check out this post explaining how to create custom PDFs in WordPress.

Why use Formidable Forms for your web form to PDF in WordPress

Regardless of your industry, the Formidable Forms PDF add-on makes using a WordPress form to generate a PDF simple and fast.

No matter the form you’re using — survey, payment, or contact form — you can design your PDF form to fit the form fields. To be clear, you can convert a WordPress contact form to PDF or literally any form on your site!

It’s almost like having a fillable PDF (we think it’s better)!

So, look no further if you’re searching for a WordPress contact form to PDF plugin.

With Formidable Forms' drag-and-drop builder, designing forms is effortless and fast.

This form can serve as your PDF template. With the plugin, you can design a form your customers fill out and generate a PDF using the contact form.

Print this PDF, send it as an email attachment, or display it in our unique Views feature. Or, just display a download PDF button in WordPress.

Formidable Forms Views feature makes displaying data and information effortless.

No other WordPress plugin has anything like this built in. Not Gravity Forms/Gravity PDF, not the Contact Form 7 plugin, not Caldera Forms, none of them.

With Views, you can create a dashboard where the admin can add information for each customer, then display it on the admin side or your website.

All you need is the Formidable Business plan to get started!

But, you get far more than just the PDF add-on with the Business plan. Here are some more features:

If you’re unsure, give it a try. You have 14 days to try it out and get a full refund if you don’t like it. 

But we’re sure you will ?.

Get Formidable Forms!

Ready to convert your WordPress forms to PDF?

Don’t you love when things are easy? At Formidable Forms, that’s built into everything we do.

This post taught you how to convert a form to PDF with our fantastic PDF add-on. But don’t stop with just our contact form to PDF WordPress add-on. Formidable can do so much more.

Discover all the features of Formidable Forms.

There’s more you can do with WordPress forms to PDF. Fill out your knowledge completely, so you know all the options available.

And one last thing. If you’re on social media, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to get all our tips and tricks. You don’t want to miss out on these.

Learn more about Formidable PDFs

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Comments

  1. Formidable Forms is really great - but the PDF feature is a bit limited. I was hoping to use this to get a contract document signed and then send a PDF copy to the admin and customer. However, if you have a long document and for example you put the text in a Paragraph Field as a default value, when submitted, the PDF only pulls through the first couple of paragraphs and the rest of the document text is lost. This is really disappointing and the suggested workaround of breaking the document up into multiple paragraph fields is not practical. I'm hoping for an update to the PDF feature soon...!

    Reply

    • Hi Nick,
      I'll have to double check with our devs, but this sounds like a bug and unintentional behavior. We just released the first version of this add-on and we are definitely listening to feedback to make it better going forward. We'll work on replicating and fixing this issue in an upcoming release.

      Reply

      • Just an update on this issue. A release just went out that addresses this issue and it should be fixed. Long paragraph fields should now properly show in the PDF.

        Reply

  2. Do you have more info on how to design the pdf template? Let say I have the design and fields, how to integrate with this?

    Reply

  4. Formidable Forms is definitely one of the most versatile plugins for WordPress. I plan on using the PDF feature shortly in my web projects.

    Reply

  7. Thatis a powerful solution that can be implemented in a variety of ways. Really could be a time-saver in streamlining a variety of processes.

    Reply

    • You can export your form entries as CSV files as well. We even have Google Sheets integration so you can automatically pull entries into Google Sheets.

      Reply

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