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348Hi everyone,
Is there anyone here with extensive experience in generating complex PDF documents from a flow?
Some background about the app(s) I'm building:
- In this app, an admin will be able to 'build' a form themselves (e.g. number of rows, text in the rows, etc.).
- The admin will also define process-related settings for how the form should be handled.
- Before confirming their input (form + process data), I want the admin to receive a PDF of the form by email, so they can check whether it looks and behaves as expected.
In a different app, the same form will later be filled in by end-users, and again, the filled-out version of the form needs to be saved/emailed as a PDF.
About the parent-child flows I’ve created:
- There’s a button in the app that triggers a parent flow.
- That flow then calls a child flow for each component (coincidentally, per Dataverse table).
- Each child flow retrieves data from a Dataverse table, appends the necessary details to an array variable (JSON), and returns that array (as text) to the parent flow.
- In the parent flow, I convert it back into a proper array using
json()and inject it into a Word template using Repeating Section Content Controls (RSCCs). - This approach works well — I’ve tested it successfully with 10 RSCCs using this structure.
Previous tests with Repeating Section Content Controls (RSCCs) in Word:
I also tested this outside the app with a Word document containing around 50 RSCCs (filled them with simple self-built arrays in a compose action, just to test it), and that worked just fine.
The main issue so far:
- It's not stable.
- The Word connector is unreliable — content sometimes disappears after re-saving the flow (apparently a known issue; I’ve reported it before).
- Files also tend to become corrupted.
- Now that I need 160 RSCCs in the real-life scenario, it feels like I’m hitting a limit of what’s possible using Power Automate and Word.
My question and what I’m looking for:
What I really need is a stable, robust, future-proof solution that requires minimal maintenance (unlike the Word connector, which often loses all input unexpectedly). I'm currently exploring whether HTML → PDF, JSON → PDF, or even Excel → PDF might be a better option. Perhaps even a paid solution like Encodian (though I’m not sure if my manager would approve the cost).
In short: has anyone here tackled something similar, and could you point me in the right direction?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Kind regards,
Femke
P.S. I’m having some trouble responding to replies on this 'new' platform — any tips on how to properly reply or engage in the thread?
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