Fill PDF forms using Adobe PDF Services alternative & Power Automate

Perhaps you are searching for how to fill Adobe Acrobat PDF form practically. The Adobe PDF Services connector for Power Automate does not provide actions for filling PDF forms. But there is an alternative to Adobe PDF Services that populates fillable PDFs in Power Automate flows. This article shows a practical approach to filling out PDF forms without Adobe Acrobat using Plumsail Documents. Moreover, our method will allow you:

• Fill PDF forms with data from third-party systems and databases in automated flows rather than download and fill PDF forms manually;
• Bulk filling PDF forms, signing the results, and sending them by email and across almost any system;
• Extract data from incoming email messages and use this data to fill in your PDF form;
• To set validation on fields like phone number, use PDF protection watermarks, disable or enable printing, etc.;

Watch the video to learn how to fill out PDF forms in Power Automate, and read the detailed description of this feature in the article below.

 

Content of the article

1. What is Plumsail Documents?
2. Create a PDF form if you need one
3. Two main ways to get the result
4. Way 1. Flow with “Start document generation process” action
5. Way 2. Flow with “Fill in PDF Form” action
6. Get a filled PDF form

What is Plumsail Documents?

Plumsail Documents customers use the app to generate documents, send them by email, collect e-signatures, and save it in almost any app using Power Automate, Zapier, and native integrations. The app supplies the needs of the most demanding customers as it works equally well for basic and complex documents with repeating fields, tables, pictures, charts, math formulas, and more.

Create a PDF form if you need one

We hope you have a PDF form, and we have instructions to create a fillable PDF if you haven't one. Also, you can download the template file you can see on the screenshot below.

Case example

We will automatically fill the Application for Employment PDF form by pulling the data from a SharePoint list via Plumsail Documents connector and Power Automate. You can merge data from your favorite apps into your PDF.

You can automatically deliver and store filled PDF forms in any system via Power Automate (Microsoft Flow) connectors and Plumsail Documents deliveries.

Two main ways to get the result

There are two different ways to fill the PDF form with the Plumsail Documents connector and Power Automate:

1. Use Plumsail Documents processes with the action “Start document generation process” in Power Automate. This way most fitted to those of you who may want to implement full-featured document automation using Plumsail Documents processes.
2. Use the action “Fill in PDF Form” from the Plumsail Documents connector in Power Automate. Most fitted for those of you who want to stay only in the context of Power Automate flow without digging into the processes of the Plumsail Documents app.

Way 1. Flow with “Start document generation process” action

We use the “When an item is created or modified” trigger to get the newest or modified item from the SharePoint list. You can use any trigger related to your systems. We create the columns in the SharePoint list named as the fields in our fillable PDF file. Here is how our flow looks:

You can see on the screenshot above the "Start document generation process" action we use in the flow.

Start document generation process

Before using this action, we need to create the process in Plumsail Documents. If you’re new to Plumsail Documents, register an account and follow the steps described in the article. Go to Processes in the Plumsail account and add a new process. Upload your PDF form, or use our template from this example.

Next, set the output settings for the document. You can place data from fillable fields into a filename, add watermarks, and protect PDF. Our example:

Store and deliver settings

With Plumsail Documents, you can deliver the document via email and store it in your favorite apps using native integration, Zapier, and Power Automate. We will store filled PDF documents in a SharePoint document library.

Then, go back to flow, find the “Plumsail Documents” connector, and set the action “Start document degeneration process.” Then, put a JSON object as source data to fill in your form. As you may see in the screenshot below, we use the field names assigned to the PDF form fields while preparing the template. We combine assigned names of PDF form fields with the data from the SharePoint list by using JSON format.

Read the article to learn more about this approach. There you can find the answers to questions you may encounter.

Way 2. Flow with “Fill in PDF Form” action

In this way, we use the same “When an item is created or modified” trigger and different actions:

• "Get file content" action. This action gets the file content of the fillable PDF from a SharePoint document library;
• "Fill in PDF Form" action. This action from the Plumsail Documents connector is used to fill PDF forms;
• "Create file" action. We use this action to store the populated PDF form in the SharePoint folder;

Here is how our flow looks:

Get file content action

In our example, this action gets the file content of the fillable PDF from a SharePoint document library.

“Fill in PDF” action

"Fill in PDF Form" is the action from the Plumsail Documents connector you can use to fill PDF forms.

There are three parameters:

1. Content of the PDF document
2. JSON data
3. Lock form fields

In our case, we specified the output of the “Get file content” action as a source fillable PDF. In the first parameter, “Content of the PDF document,” you can put file content from other actions you need. In the second parameter, “JSON data,” you can put a JSON object as source data to fill in your form. Please make sure that, you specified the same property names as you used in your fillable PDF. Thus, the action will match properties to fields in PDF and fill them.

Activate the third parameter, “Lock form fields,” if you want to lock the fields after filling the PDF form.

“Create file” action

In our example, we save the filled PDF file in the SharePoint folder. We use dynamic content in the file name. Be aware of how we specified the PDF file. It is essential to specify the file name with the correct extension.

You can use any other connector to send or store documents in your system.

Read the article to learn more details about this approach.

Get a filled PDF form

Our flow is ready. Here is what we get as a result:

Now you know how to automatically fill out PDF forms with the help of Plumsail Documents in Power Automate (Flow).

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