Document Generator
SharePoint List Item to Word & PDF
WHY CHOOSE DOCUMENT GENERATOR?
The Document Generator is a powerful, premium feature available in Lightning Tools Actions and Lightning Forms that enables users to easily create and convert documents directly from SharePoint lists. With the Document Generator, you can convert list items into well-formatted documents for easy sharing, printing, and storing. It also includes a dynamic PDF conversion action that transforms Word documents into PDFs, making it ideal for generating secure, shareable copies of list forms, such as Expense Reports or Purchase Orders, without needing to provide direct access to the list itself. This tool streamlines document management and enhances data security by allowing users to generate and distribute documents quickly and efficiently, all within the Microsoft 365 environment.
- Streamlined Document Creation: Easily generate formatted documents directly from SharePoint list items, saving time and simplifying workflows for document management.
- Secure Data Sharing: Convert list forms, such as Expense Reports or Purchase Orders, into shareable documents without granting access to the underlying list, enhancing data security and privacy.
- Effortless PDF Conversion: Automatically convert Word documents to PDFs for easy distribution, printing, and archiving, ensuring consistency and professionalism in document handling.
- Enhanced Collaboration: Quickly share documents with team members or external parties, facilitating better communication and collaboration without compromising data security.
- Improved Efficiency: Reduce the need for manual document creation and conversion processes, allowing users to focus on higher-value tasks and increasing overall productivity.
The Document Generator provides powerful features that simplify the process of creating and managing documents directly from SharePoint lists. It allows users to build Word documents by referencing list fields using double square brackets (e.g., [[FieldName]]), making it easy to dynamically populate templates with data from list items. These templates are uploaded to a SharePoint document library and can be associated with a list item through an action button in Lightning Forms or Lightning Tools Actions. Once generated, the document can be automatically stored in a document library with a dynamically generated file name or opened immediately for review and editing. Additionally, the Document Generator supports dynamic PDF conversion, allowing DOCX files to be converted to PDF format with a specified file name, providing a versatile solution for document generation and management.
- Dynamic Field Referencing: Build Word documents by referencing list fields using double square brackets, allowing for seamless data integration into templates.
- Template Upload and Association: Upload document templates to a SharePoint document library and associate them with list items via action buttons in Lightning Forms or Lightning Tools Actions.
- Flexible Storage Options: Store generated documents in a document library with a dynamically generated file name or open them immediately for quick access.
- Dynamic PDF Conversion: Convert DOCX files to PDF format dynamically, enabling easy sharing, printing, and storage of documents.
- Seamless Integration with SharePoint: Fully integrated with SharePoint and Microsoft 365, making document management straightforward and efficient within your existing digital workplace.
The Document Generator is a premium feature available within Lightning Forms and Lightning Tools Actions, providing powerful document creation and conversion capabilities directly within the SharePoint environment. Built as a SharePoint Framework (SPFx) solution, the Document Generator is fully integrated with Microsoft 365, ensuring a seamless user experience across SharePoint and Microsoft Teams.
As an SPFx solution, the Document Generator runs entirely within the client’s Microsoft 365 tenant, ensuring that all data processing and storage are confined to the secure environment of the tenant.
Watch a Quick Overview Of the Document Generator
Within this video, we explore the Premium Document Generator action for use within SharePoint Online Modern Lists via Lightning Forms or Lightning List Actions. The Document Generator Action allows us to build an Action Button to generate a Microsoft Word document that references the fields from the current SharePoint list item, or list items using a query.
Building the Microsoft Word Document
Any Microsoft Word Document can be used by the Document Generator Premium Action. In order to reference the fields within the SharePoint List Item, double squared brackets are used to reference a SharePoint column name. Loops can also be used to loop through each item within a sublist on a SharePoint form. In this example, we generate an Expense Report Document and loop through each expense item on the expense report.
Building the Custom Action within Lightning Forms
Using the Action Builder, the Document Generator Action is used to upload the Document Template, and reference the SharePoint list item using the [[ID]] column, and setting a file name pattern.
Using Lightning List Actions
using Lightning List Actions, the Document Generator can be used within the List command bar allowing documents to be generated from one or more selected SharePoint list items.