Need to convert your WordPress form submissions to PDF?
All you need is a WordPress PDF generator plugin like Everest Forms and this step-by-step tutorial.
Let’s get right into it!
How to Convert WordPress Form Submissions to PDF?
Although the WordPress repository offers a fantastic collection of WordPress PDF generator plugins, Everest Forms is the best choice.
The premium version of the Everest Forms plugin helps you convert form submissions to PDFs.
What’s more? You can:
- Choose from multiple PDF templates
- Customize the PDF templates
- Generate multi-column PDFs
- Attach PDFs to email, and more.
With that said, let’s go through the step-by-step process of using this plugin to generate PDF files from form submissions.
Step 1: Install and Activate Everest Forms and Everest Forms Pro
To convert WordPress form submissions to PDF, you must first install and activate the Everest Forms plugin.
Since this feature is only available in the premium PDF Form Submission add-on, you’ll need to install both free and pro versions of the plugin.
The premium version sits on top of the core free plugin and lets you extend its features with premium add-ons.
Refer to our documentation on properly installing Everest Forms Pro and setting up the free and premium versions. Once you’ve done that, proceed to the next step.
Step 2: Install and Activate the PDF Submissions Add-on
Now, navigate to Everest Forms >> Add-ons in your WordPress dashboard. Alternatively, go to Everest Forms >> Dashboard >> All-Features >> Addons to land on the same page.
Find the PDF Form Submission add-on and activate it by clicking the toggle button.
With that, you’ve successfully set up Everest Forms and its PDF Submissions add-on on your WordPress website.
Step 3: Create a New WordPress Form
You’ll need a WordPress form to convert it into a PDF file. And you can easily create any form you need with Everest Forms.
Go to Everest Forms >> Add New, where you can choose a pre-built template for your form.
Everest Forms offers templates for contact forms, medical appointment forms, leave request forms, and more. The best part is that you can customize these form templates according to your requirements.
Contrarily, you can build your form from the ground with the Start from Scratch option.
Regardless of your chosen method, give your form a name and hit Continue.
This will take you to the Everest Forms form builder.
For this guide, let’s build a simple contact form. You can drag and drop any form fields you need into the form and customize them.
Check out our article on creating a WordPress contact form for a detailed tutorial. After the form is ready, proceed to the next step.
Step 4. Enable Conversion of Form Data to PDF Format
Now, here’s the important part. You need to enable the PDF submission feature for the form you created above.
For that, go to Settings >> PDF Submission in the form builder. Here, toggle the switch on for PDF Submission.
After that, press the Save button at the top. Now, the plugin converts the submissions you receive for this form into PDF files.
Step 5. Customize PDF Submission Settings
The page displays all the available customization settings as soon as you toggle on the PDF submission feature. So, let’s look at each option in detail now.
PDF Template: Everest Forms lets you choose among the three pre-built PDF templates: the Left Header, the Center Header, and the Right Header.
Header Logo: If you have a brand/company logo, you can upload and display it as a logo in the header.
PDF Header Details: You can select the details you want to include in the PDF header from the dropdown. The details include the Form Name, Site Title, Site URL, etc.
Custom Header Text: Type your custom header text that’ll appear in the PDF template.
Paper Size: Select the appropriate paper dimensions for your PDF. You have 5 options to choose from in the dropdown.
Orientation: The orientation for the PDF can be Portrait or Landscape.
Font: You can select the suitable font family from the dropdown list.
Font Size (Pt): This option enables you to set the default font size for the PDF text.
Font Color: You can change the default font color for your PDF text from here.
Header Font Color: This option lets you choose the default font color for the PDF header.
Enable Background Image: It lets you add an image to the background of the PDF template. You can enable the option and upload the image. You can even change the image opacity from the Background Image Opacity option.
Background Color: In case you don’t want to enable the background image, you can change the background color of the PDF.
Header Background Color: The option lets you choose a different background color for the header.
Enable Multi-Column PDF: You can enable the multi-column PDF feature to display the form entries in two columns.
Include Field Description: If you’ve added field descriptions to the form fields, enable this option to display them in the PDF.
Download PDF After Form Submit: Enabling this option means the form submission will be automatically downloaded for the users when they hit the submit button. You also get to edit the Custom PDF Download Text displayed in the front end to your users.
Reverse Text (RTL): You can enable Right To Left (RTL) text for the PDF if you use any RTL language.
Hide Empty Fields: When you toggle this option on, the PDF doesn’t display the form fields that the users left empty.
Enable Choose Fields: With the Enable Choose Fields option, you may select the fields you want to display in the PDF file. This way, you can leave out unnecessary form fields.
In this way, you can customize any settings you need and hit the Save button.
Step 6. Publish Your WordPress Form
Once you complete your form configuration, you can make your form live. For this, click the Embed button at the top.
You can either select an existing page or create a new page to place the form. Let’s create a new page for this guide.
Name the new page and click the Let’s Go! button.
This automatically embeds the form on the new page. Then, you just have to Publish the form, and it’ll be live.
Step 7. Export WordPress Form Submission to PDF File
Once you make your form live on your site, you’ll get several form submissions.
Now, what if you need to export the form submissions as a PDF file? It’s pretty simple with Everest Forms.
Navigate to Everest Forms >> Entries.
In the dropdown, choose the form you want to export form submissions for. The page will then display complete analytics about the form’s submissions.
Most importantly, you can export the form submissions as a PDF file.
For this, scroll to the bottom of the page, where the form entries are listed in a tabular form.
Under the Actions column, you have an option called Export to PDF. All you have to do is click on it, and the entry will be downloaded on your device as a PDF file.
So, this is how you convert WordPress form submissions to PDF using the versatile PDF generator WordPress plugin; Everest Forms.
Wrapping Up!
To conclude, Everest Forms is the ideal choice for effortlessly converting WordPress form submissions into PDF format.
This plugin allows you to easily create PDF files for your form submissions and export them as needed. Furthermore, you can personalize the PDF template to suit your preferences.
But that’s not all you can do with Everest Forms. You can also enable conditional redirection, upload files from WordPress forms to Dropbox, and more.
Read more about Everest Forms on our blog. We also have a YouTube channel with fascinating video tutorials for you.
