Getting started with the Templated Document Generator

Configuring and Running the Templated Document Generator

What you will need

In order to use the Templated Document Generator (TDG), you will need the following in Google Drive:

A Google Sheets that will act as your data source (and where you will interact with the TDG).
A Google Docs document that is the template you will use for the data source.
A Google Drive Folder where the TDG will place the generated documents*.
A Google Drive Folder where the TDG will place the PDF version of the documents**.

*: Even if you choose not to keep the generated Google Docs, they will still need to be created in order to generate the PDF documents.

**: This folder is only needed if you choose to generate PDF documents.

Data Source (Google Sheets)

Begin by creating a new Google Sheets document.

The first row of your new Google Sheets document is your Header row. The spelling of your column headers is important

The Heading Row

The heading row is key to the Templated Document Generator.

In the first row, add the following column headers:

You do not need to bold the text for it to be recognized - TDG will always treat row 1 as the header row.

Pay attention to the first column - it is prefixed with the Group By macro ([G]), indicating that every time the value in this column changes, a new document is created.

In the example to the right, we have filled in the fictional staff from the hit show Futurama.

Template (Google Docs)

Next up we create a new Google Docs file.

In this case, we are going to create an award template that each employee of Planetary Express will be receiving.

Wherever we want to add a value from the data source, we put the Column Header inside double curly brackets ({{ and }}).

NOTE: TDG is case sensitive so {{Company}} and {{company}} are not the same thing!

The example in the picture is as follows:

ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

This award is presented to {{Last Name}}, {{First Name}} for having performed their duties as {{Title}} to the highest standards as defined in the {{Company}} employee handbook §8 sub section 9.2-a.

Congratulations,

Now get back to work!

Configuration Stock photos by Vecteezy

Configuring and Running the Templated Document Generator

Going back to the Google Sheets document, we are now going to configure the Templated Document Generator and generate our outputs.

Step 1: Click the Templated Document Generator button in your Add-Ons list.

You should now see the main page.

Click the Open Configuration button.

Step 2: Configure the Templated Document Generator by clicking the Choose button to select:

Document Template
Document Output Folder
PDF Output Folder

Then, assign the Output Name to the output file using the same {{, }} rules as in the Template above.

NOTE: Be patient here. It may take some time (several seconds) between actions.

NOTE 2: The UI will not update automatically with the changes. To see the changes, hit the Refresh button in below the "Generate PDFs" toggle.

Step 3: Hit the "Refresh" button below the "Generate PDFs" and verify the information is correct.

If you are satisfied, click the back arrow at the top left of the Config card.

This will take you back to the main page (as seen in Step 1). Click the "Generate" button.

Step 4: From this card you can execute the document generator by clicking the "Generate" button.

In the event that you are re-generating documents (e.g. you discovered some formatting issues or typos in the template), you can enable Delete similar named output files. This will delete the previous output file with the same name in the respective output folder, and then generate the new one.

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