Document Builder: Map Columns to Your Fillable PDF

Applies to

Smartsheet

Capabilities

Who can use this capability?

Permission requirements icon The Owner and Admins can edit all mappings on the sheet, including mappings created by others. Owners, Editors, and Admins can create mappings and edit their own mappings. Viewers can see the mappings and build documents for download, but cannot attach documents to rows.

plan typesBusiness, Enterprise, and Premier

 

With Document Builder, you can map columns to a fillable PDF.

Create a mapping

Before you can generate documents, you first need to upload a fillable PDF and map your sheet columns to its fillable fields to create a mapping.

If you want to create a mapping that can be used to send out documents for signatures from DocuSign, see Create and Edit a DocuSign Mapping or Configuration.

To create a mapping: 

  1. Right-click any row containing data in your sheet to open the row menu, and select Generate Documents.

    The document builder opens. The columns in your sheet will be displayed as fields on the left of the document builder.
     
  2. Upload your fillable PDF by selecting the PDF icon (or use the drag-and-drop PDF Upload option).

    The PDF will appear on the right of the document builder.
     
  3. Drag and drop the Smartsheet fields from the left into the associated fillable PDF fields on the right to map fields.

    TIP: Type into any fillable field to enter a static value. The entered value will appear in the field for all generated documents.
     
  4. Once all of the fields are mapped, name your mapping and select Save or Generate.

Now that you’ve created your mapping, you can generate documents using your row data which will allow you to download the documents to your device in a .zip file or attach each document to its associated row in the sheet. See Document Generation: Generate Documents with Your Row Data for more information about generating documents with your mappings.

Additional information

Keep the following in mind when creating mappings

  • You must use a PDF with fillable fields to create a mapping. 
  • If you’re editing a mapping and decide to discard your changes, you can refresh the page or press the back button in your browser to do so.
  • By default, mappings are named after the file name of the fillable PDF you uploaded. To change the name of a mapping, select the pencil icon to open the mapping editor, and type the desired name into the Name box at the top of the page.