Generate a PDF from a Google Sheets row with Apps Script

Setup: paste the script, store the key

Create a free API key at /signup. Then, in the spreadsheet:

• Extensions → Apps Script. Replace the editor contents with papertype-sheets.gs (about 90 lines, MIT) and save.
• Project Settings → Script properties → Add script property: name PAPERTYPE_API_KEY, value your dp_… key. Google's Properties guide describes script properties as key-value strings stored with the script and shared by all its users; the key stays out of the code and out of the sheet.
• Reload the spreadsheet. The onOpen function adds a PDF menu with two items (Google's menu guide: createMenu → addItem → addToUi). The first run asks you to authorise the script for Drive, Gmail and external requests.

The function that talks to the API is short. muteHttpExceptions matters: without it a 4xx throws a generic exception and you never see the API's message (Google's reference: default false).

function renderPdf_(body) {
  const key = PropertiesService.getScriptProperties().getProperty('PAPERTYPE_API_KEY');
  const res = UrlFetchApp.fetch('https://papertype.dev/v1/pdf', {
    method: 'post',
    contentType: 'application/json',
    headers: { Authorization: 'Bearer ' + key },
    payload: JSON.stringify(body),
    muteHttpExceptions: true,
  });
  if (res.getResponseCode() !== 200) {
    throw new Error('PaperType ' + res.getResponseCode() + ': ' + res.getContentText());
  }
  return res.getBlob().setName(body.filename || 'document.pdf');
}

Row → report PDF saved to Drive

Select any cell in a data row and choose PDF → Save selected row as report. reportBody() uses the first column as the title and turns the other columns into a Field | Value table in Markdown; date cells (which Sheets hands to the script as Date objects) become yyyy-MM-dd, pipes are escaped and line breaks inside a cell become <br>. For a row Q4 launch plan · Jane Doe · 2026-11-15 · On track | review Friday · Line one⏎Line two the script sends:

{
  "markdown": "# Q4 launch plan\n\n| Field | Value |\n|---|---|\n| Owner | Jane Doe |\n| Due | 2026-11-15 |\n| Status | On track \\| review Friday |\n| Notes | Line one<br>Line two |",
  "title": "Q4 launch plan",
  "theme": "clean",
  "page_numbers": true,
  "filename": "Q4-launch-plan.pdf"
}

The response is the PDF (Content-Type: application/pdf, X-Pages: 1). DriveApp.createFile(blob) saves it in the root of your Drive (Google's reference), and the menu shows the file link. To file it in a folder instead, use DriveApp.getFolderById(id).createFile(blob). Swap the Markdown builder for your own layout, or send html instead; every field from the API docs works here.

Row → invoice with the hosted template

PDF → Save selected row as invoice fills the hosted invoice template. Header names are matched case-insensitively: Number, Date, Due date, Client, Client address (line breaks allowed), Items, Tax rate, Currency. Items is one cell with one line per item, description, quantity, unit price, so a whole invoice fits on one row. Edit the from block in the script once with your own details. The row INV-1042 · 2026-10-22 · 2026-11-21 · Acme Client Ltd · 1 Sample Street⏎Shelbyville · Design, October, 10, 120⏎Hosting, 1, 45.50 · 8.25 becomes:

{
  "template": "invoice",
  "data": {
    "number": "INV-1042", "date": "2026-10-22", "due_date": "2026-11-21", "currency": "USD",
    "from": {"name": "Northwind Studio", "address_lines": ["12 Example Road", "Springfield"]},
    "to": {"name": "Acme Client Ltd", "address_lines": ["1 Sample Street", "Shelbyville"]},
    "items": [
      {"description": "Design, October", "quantity": 10, "unit_price": 120},
      {"description": "Hosting", "quantity": 1, "unit_price": 45.5}
    ],
    "tax_rate": 8.25, "tax_label": "Sales tax"
  },
  "page_size": "Letter",
  "filename": "INV-1042.pdf"
}

Live result: one Letter page, Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="INV-1042.pdf", totals $1,200.00 + $45.50 + 8.25% tax = $1,348.25. A row without a number returns 422 Missing required field(s) for template 'invoice': number, which the script surfaces as the alert text. The certificate and report templates work the same way with their own fields.

Form submission → PDF by email

For a Google Form that writes to the sheet, onFormSubmit(e) renders the new row as a report and emails it to the address in the form's Email question. It is an installable trigger: in the script editor open Triggers → Add Trigger, choose function onFormSubmit, event source From spreadsheet, event type On form submit, and save (steps from Google's installable-triggers guide). The handler reads the row through e.range and the address through e.namedValues, both documented on the spreadsheet form-submit event:

function onFormSubmit(e) {
  const sheet = e.range.getSheet();
  const lastCol = sheet.getLastColumn();
  const headers = sheet.getRange(1, 1, 1, lastCol).getValues()[0];
  const values = sheet.getRange(e.range.getRow(), 1, 1, lastCol).getValues()[0];
  const pdf = renderPdf_(reportBody(headers, values));
  const to = (e.namedValues['Email'] || [])[0];
  GmailApp.sendEmail(to, 'Your submission as a PDF', 'Attached is a copy of what you submitted.', { attachments: [pdf] });
}

The first column of a form-linked sheet is the timestamp, so the report title is the submission time; move the title column first or set title explicitly if you want a name there. This path was not exercised end to end (it needs a Google account); the request it builds is the same reportBody request shown above, which was.

Limits that matter in Sheets

• Apps Script quotas (Google's quota page, October 2026): URL Fetch calls 20,000 per day on consumer accounts and 100,000 on Google Workspace accounts; 50 MB per response; 6 minutes per execution. One row is one call, well inside all three.
• Our quota. Free-plan output carries a small papertype.dev footer mark. Paid plans (from $9/month) do not. The free plan is 50 documents a month; the API returns 429 at the limit, never overage. A form that gets 200 submissions a month needs the $9 plan.
• Images. The renderer has no network access. Images, fonts and stylesheets at external URLs are never fetched; inline them as data: URIs. A request that references an external URL fails with a 422 that names the URL, rather than silently dropping the asset. For a logo, read the file from Drive and inline it: 'data:image/png;base64,' + Utilities.base64Encode(DriveApp.getFileById(id).getBlob().getBytes()) (both methods are in Google's reference) into the template's logo field or an <img>.
• 2 MB of source per request, 300 pages per document, 2 concurrent renders per account. A single row is nowhere near 2 MB; a whole sheet rendered as one document can be, so render per row.
• Errors. 401 (key missing or wrong), 413, 422 (invalid Markdown options or a missing template field, named in the message) and 429 come back as JSON with a detail field; the script throws it as the alert text. Failed renders are not counted against the quota.

Related

• Generate a PDF in Zapier or Make
• Generate invoice PDFs from JSON
• Markdown to PDF API
• Generate a PDF in n8n