Can I fill out PDFs automatically when an email with form data comes in?

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Posted on by nellygig

Hi all,

I’m trying to create a workflow with Power Automate where clients email us with information and I need that data to automatically be used to fill out a standard PDF form we use. Ideally the filled PDF would then be sent back by email, and maybe some of the key fields could also go into a SharePoint list.

Is this doable with Power Automate directly, or would we need an external tool that handles the PDF filling?

Thanks in advance.

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Tomac 4,048 Moderator on at

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There are 3rd party actions to accomplish this, such as PlumSail's Fill PDF Form action or Encodian's PDF Fill Form. These are both paid options, though. I'm sure there are more, these two are the most prevalent.

There are no built-in free actions to fill in PDF forms

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KaptainLady 12 on at

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If you've created a fillable form in Adobe, you can export that data to a .csv file and use a trigger to add new rows to an Excel table and then populate the SP list. I haven't done it before, but that is the approach I would take.

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ES-06081130-0 15 on at

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We’ve handled a similar use case where clients send emails with form data, either in the message or attached as documents. We set it up so that those emails get forwarded to a specific address where the content is automatically processed and used to fill a standard PDF. The filled PDF is then emailed back, usually within a minute.

To get the data into SharePoint, we just use Power Automate to monitor that inbox and extract the fields from the returned message. It’s worked well for repetitive forms like HR or legal paperwork, where the format doesn’t change.

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nellygig 14 on at

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@Tomac, thanks. I came across both llumsail and encodian while searching, but I’m not 100% sure if they can handle the part where the data comes in through email. Do these tools only work with structured inputs, or can they actually parse the content from an email and then fill the form?

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nellygig 14 on at

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@ES-06081130-0, thank you. This sounds very close to what we're trying to build. Can I ask how exactly is the data being extracted from the email? Is it just reading plain text, or can it also handle attachments like filled-out forms or Word docs? how you’d approach that part without setting up custom parsing logic. Also, when the filled PDF is sent back, is there a specific format for the summary that Power Automate picks up to send to SharePoint?

Appreciate any insight!

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ES-06081130-0 15 on at

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@nellygig, in this case, the data comes as plain text in the email or as an attachment. We set it up so that the email is forwarded to a specific address managed by Instafill. It watches for incoming emails, extracts the data, fills out the PDF form, and replies with the completed file automatically.

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