PDF Generation: Instant Quotes, Receipts, and Documents

A potential customer fills out your cleaning quote form. They select three bedrooms, two bathrooms, bi-weekly service, and a few add-ons. Before they can even close the browser tab, they're looking at a professionally formatted PDF quote with their name, address, itemized services, and total price. They didn't wait for an email. You didn't manually create anything. The document just appeared.

That's PDF generation working the way it should. The form collects the information, calculates whatever needs calculating, and produces a document that looks like you spent twenty minutes in Word - except it took zero minutes and happens for every single submission.

The Problem With Manual Documents

Every business that sends quotes, receipts, or confirmations faces the same friction. A customer fills out a form. Someone on your team gets notified. They open a template in Word or Google Docs. They copy information from the submission into the template. They save it as a PDF. They email it to the customer. Maybe they remember to save a copy somewhere organized.

This process works when you have five customers a week. It falls apart at fifty. At five hundred, you need dedicated staff just to create documents. And no matter how careful people are, mistakes happen. Wrong name. Wrong price. Wrong date. The template from last year with outdated terms. The version someone edited and forgot to save.

The deeper problem is speed. A customer who fills out a quote form at 9 PM won't see a response until your team is back in the office. By then, they might have already contacted two competitors who had instant quotes ready. The delay isn't just inconvenient - it costs business.

What Instant PDF Generation Solves

When a form generates its own PDF, every problem disappears at once. Speed becomes instant - the document exists the moment the form is submitted. Accuracy becomes perfect - the data in the PDF is exactly what the user entered, calculated exactly as your logic specifies. Consistency becomes guaranteed - every document follows the same template, uses the same formatting, includes the same legal text.

And it scales infinitely. Whether you get ten submissions today or ten thousand, each one gets the same instant, professional document. No additional staff. No overtime. No backlog on Monday morning.

Documents You Can Generate

Quotes and Estimates

The most obvious use case. A customer describes what they need, the form calculates a price, and a PDF quote appears with everything itemized. Cleaning services with room counts and add-ons. Contractor estimates with materials and labor. Photography packages with options and upgrades. The quote becomes a tangible thing the customer can save, print, share with a spouse, compare against competitors.

A good quote PDF includes more than just the price. It has the customer's name and contact info (so they know it's personalized, not a generic price list). It has each line item broken out (so they see exactly what they're paying for). It has your contact information and next steps (so they know how to proceed). And it has an expiration date or validity period (so they don't dig it up six months later expecting the same price).

Receipts and Confirmations

When someone books an appointment, registers for an event, or places an order, they want proof. Something they can reference later. A PDF confirmation gives them exactly that - a record of what they submitted, when they submitted it, and what to expect next.

For event registrations, the confirmation might include the event details, the attendee's name, any options they selected, and a reference number. For appointment bookings, it might include the date, time, location, and preparation instructions. The document serves as both a receipt and a reminder.

Reports and Summaries

Not every form is customer-facing. Internal forms - inspection checklists, assessment questionnaires, audit forms - often need to produce reports. An inspector fills out a property inspection form on their tablet. A PDF report generates with all findings organized by category, photos referenced, issues flagged. The report goes to the client and into the company's records.

Assessment forms work similarly. A fitness trainer conducts an initial assessment with a new client. The form captures measurements, goals, limitations, history. The PDF becomes a baseline document they'll reference for months.

Certificates and Completion Documents

Training completed? Certificate generated. Course finished? Diploma ready. Warranty registered? Coverage document produced. These documents often need to look more formal - centered titles, signature lines, official-looking layouts. The content is simple; the presentation matters.

Building a PDF That Works

A PDF from a form isn't the same as a document you'd create manually. You're not positioning elements pixel by pixel. You're declaring structure - here's a header, here's a section, here's a table of items - and letting the system handle the layout.

Start With the Header

Every professional document needs to announce itself. The header typically includes a title ("Service Quote" or "Booking Confirmation") and often a subtitle (the customer's name, a date, a reference number). This is what people see first when they open the PDF, so it should immediately tell them what they're looking at.

The filename matters too, more than people realize. When a customer downloads "document.pdf" and saves it to their Downloads folder, it disappears into a sea of similarly named files. When they download "CleaningQuote_JohnSmith_Jan2026.pdf" they can find it six months later. Include identifying information in the filename - the document type, the customer name, the date.

Organize With Sections

Break the PDF into logical sections with clear titles. A quote might have "Customer Information," "Requested Services," "Pricing Summary," and "Terms & Conditions." An inspection report might have sections for each area inspected. The sections create visual hierarchy and let readers scan to find what they need.

Within sections, the most common pattern is rows of label-value pairs. "Name: John Smith." "Service Date: January 15, 2026." "Total: $250.00." This format is scannable and familiar - people know how to read it.

Use Tables for Line Items

When you have multiple items of the same type - services, products, fees - a table presents them cleanly. Headers across the top (Service, Quantity, Unit Price, Total), rows for each item, maybe a summary row at the bottom. Tables work for quotes with multiple line items, orders with multiple products, registrations with multiple attendees.

Tables also solve alignment problems. Trying to line up columns with spaces or tabs in plain text is fragile. A proper table keeps everything aligned regardless of content length.

Finish With a Footer

The footer is for information that should appear on every page but doesn't need prominent placement. Your company name and contact info. Legal disclaimers or terms references. "Quote valid for 30 days." Page numbers for longer documents. The footer grounds the document and provides context without cluttering the main content.

Multiple PDFs From One Form

Sometimes one form needs to produce more than one document. A service booking might generate a customer confirmation (friendly, focused on what they need to know) and an internal work order (detailed, focused on what your team needs to do). Same form submission, different audiences, different documents.

A contractor quote might produce a customer-facing quote and an internal cost breakdown. The customer sees the final prices; the internal document shows margins, supplier costs, labor estimates. The data is the same; the presentation and included fields differ.

In FormTs, you can call configurePdf() multiple times with different IDs. Each configuration produces its own document. The user might see a download button for the customer version while the internal version is sent via webhook to your operations system.

When Not to Generate a PDF

PDF generation is powerful, but it's not always the right choice. If someone fills out a simple contact form - name, email, message - they don't need a PDF confirmation. A thank-you screen or confirmation email is enough. The PDF adds complexity without adding value.

Similarly, if the "document" would be a single paragraph with two pieces of information, it's probably not worth a PDF. PDFs make sense when there's enough content to warrant a document - multiple fields, calculations, line items, terms. For simple acknowledgments, simpler confirmations work better.

Consider also whether the recipient actually wants a file. Some contexts favor PDFs (formal quotes, legal documents, records). Others favor in-context information (quick confirmations, receipts they'll never reference again). Match the format to the use case.

Building PDFs in FormTs

FormTs treats PDF generation as a natural extension of form configuration. You call configurePdf() on your form, give the PDF an ID, and use a builder to define its structure. The builder pattern mirrors how you build the form itself - sections contain rows, rows contain fields.

The key insight is that PDF content is reactive. When you add a field to the PDF with form.textbox('name')?.value(), you're not capturing a static value - you're creating a reference that will resolve when the PDF generates. This means the PDF always reflects the current form state.

Headers, footers, filenames - all can include dynamic values. A filename that includes the customer name and date produces personalized files that are easy to find later. A subtitle showing the submission date and time creates a built-in timestamp. The same reactive principles that power the form power the PDF.

After submission, users see a download button on the completion screen - the label is customizable ("Download Quote," "Get Receipt," "Save Confirmation"). One click and their document downloads, professionally formatted, ready to save, print, or forward.