How to create and extract data from PDFs

Many meetings could have been an email—and many emails could be shorter. Sometimes, you just need to boil down things like emails, forms, and reports to their most important information. Thankfully, document management apps like PDF.co and Docparser can handle that for you. These tools not only parse documents, but also convert file formats, create and fill PDFs from a template, and more. 

And when you pair these tools with automation, you can streamline your document management even more. Here are the best ways to parse, create, fill, and use PDFs with automation—saving your team time while cutting down on human error.

Skip ahead

Convert files to PDFs automatically

If you spend a good chunk of your day Googling “[X] to PDF converter” and then manually uploading and downloading your files, just know: There’s a better way. 

PDFs help streamline your record-keeping process by showing a static version of a file—whether it’s a Google Doc, form submission, spreadsheet entry, or email. They’re also a universal file format that makes it easier to share and access files both internally and externally. But manually converting each type of file to a PDF is a slog.

No matter how you get a new file, you can use PDF.co and Zapier to convert each to the proper format. These Zaps detect new files, records, and emails and turn them into PDFs automatically. 

Create and fill PDFs

Filling PDF forms is a tedious—but often inescapable—part of life, whether your job is client-facing or not. Maybe your law firm or accounting service uses forms to collect customer information, which you then input into a fillable PDF. Or, maybe you need to populate a report based on spreadsheet data from Google Sheets or Airtable. 

If you fill out the same PDF form repeatedly, it’s worth setting up an automated workflow to pull information from other sources and fill PDF fields instantly. Save yourself time and avoid typos, all in one go.

Parse new files

Too often, tracking down the information you need is a headache. Instead of scrolling through pages of text or searching your email inbox for that important information, why not create your own Zapier PDF parser? 

Whenever a new file is detected in your cloud storage service or email inbox, these Zaps will automatically upload them to Docparser or PDF.co. These tools can then extract text from PDFs and other documents based on your specifications. Just set up parsing rules for whatever types of documents you need, from invoices to contracts and beyond. Then, you’ll get the information you need from each file, neatly formatted, in a few seconds.

Do something with those PDFs and parsed data

Of course, once you use automation to create and parse PDFs, you’ll still need to do something with them. You can always add another step to the Zap templates above, designating where to send the new document or parsed data. Or, your PDF tool might have a built-in integration that lets you send all completed tasks to apps like Google Sheets or Dropbox. 

If it doesn’t (or you just want more control over the workflow), you can use one of these Zaps to connect your PDF manager to a spreadsheet, cloud storage, or accounting tool. That way, you can be sure every new or parsed document lands in a place where you’ll actually be able to find and use it.

Or, use these Zaps to send notifications to yourself or your team whenever a new document is ready in your PDF manager. You can even include an attachment or link to the file to make it easy to act on new documents right away.

Pro tip: If you have different parsing rules for different documents—like invoices, client forms, and reports—you can set up unique workflows for each document type. That way, you can send all invoice data to a spreadsheet, while saving client forms as PDFs in Google Drive. Just use a filter step to tell each Zap which documents to watch for.

Use AI to summarize and repurpose text

Large language models like ChatGPT can help you do more with your PDFs. For example, maybe you want to convert new Dropbox files to PDFs, and then get a document summary from ChatGPT—or send that summary to a Slack channel. These Zaps can help you connect all three tools.

Or, maybe you want to use AI to generate PDF invoices and proposals for clients. After setting up this Zap, you can just send a message to your designated Slack channel (such as, “Quote Sally Smith from Acme Co. $1500 for IT services this month”). The Zap will send your message through ChatGPT to generate a formatted quote in PDF.co. 

Use webhooks to connect almost any app to your PDF tool

If the app you want to use with a document management tool doesn’t integrate with Zapier (yet), you can use webhooks instead. 

A webhook is a message sent from one app to another based on a trigger event—in this case, maybe it’s a new message or form submission. Or maybe you want to use the PDF tool as your trigger app, like by sending parsed documents from Parsio to your bespoke database app. As long as your app supports webhooks, you can use these templates to get started building your own custom workflow in either direction.

Use Zapier to create PDFs and streamline your document management  

Keeping your documents organized and easily accessible could be its own full-time job. Converting file formats, populating forms, and parsing documents for important information are all monotonous—but crucial—tasks. Thankfully, you can pair Zapier with a PDF tool to automate some of that busywork, reducing human error while freeing up time you could spend actually putting those documents to use.

And that’s just the start of what you can do with document management tools and Zapier. What will you automate first?