by Arielle Minicozzi Figueroa

Introduction

This week's post is a PSA about updating your Jotform PDF outputs. Did you know that when you make a change to your Jotform - adding a field or updating the text - those changes are not automatically reflected on the PDF output?

Not to worry! It's super simple to make the changes to the Jotform PDF output after you've updated your form. Follow along with the video or see the transcript below.

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Transcript

Hi everyone, its Arielle from Sphynx automation. Today I am going to be talking about how to reflect changes on your form to the PDF output that Jotform automatically sends with the confirmation emails.

For an example, as you can see on my screen here, I have a template contract for financial advisors open. If I make an update to my contract language, I need to make sure that both the form preview when the person is e-signing the contract, as well as the PDF confirmation with the fully executed contract they receive, has the exact same language on it in order for it to be binding.

One thing that's interesting that you would think maybe wouldn't be a problem, but is often confusing, is that when you make a change to your form, whether that's adding a new field, removing the field or changing the language in a paragraph field, Jotform does not automatically sync those changes on the form to the PDF itself, which could be a good thing, if you don't want those changes to be reflected. Or it could be a bad thing, if you assume it would be. So for example, with our contract, let's say I wanted to change the language about my fee agreement. I need that to be reflected in both places. Let's walk through how we would do that together today.

First, when you come into the Build mode of your form, scroll down to the section that you'd like to edit. We'll start with the fees paragraph, but you'll repeat this process for as many sections as you need to change. Double click the language that you want to update, and then make your changes.

So I'm just going to say "updated here", just so we are aware, and then either check the box on the right to save or click off the field anywhere else on the screen, and your changes will be automatically saved. Do the same thing again if there's additional language you need to change or if you're needing to add additional fields use the form elements menu to add those on.

When you're done making all of your changes, scroll back up to the top or click the "scroll to top" button to automatically go up to the top. Click on the drop down next to "Form Builder" and click "PDF Editor" to go over to the PDF editor.

When it loads, you may see a popup that asks you if you want to automatically apply the changes that have been made. Click "Cancel". By default, this is your best practice.

If you do click on "Update", what will happen is any new fields that you've added, since the last time you worked on the PDF will automatically get added to the PDF editor, but all the way at the bottom of the page, or whatever the last page is if there's multiple pages, it'll jump down to the bottom and then you'll either have to drag it up or delete it and re-edit anyway so we just click "Cancel" just for simplicity's sake.

Once you are in the PDF editor, you can do one of two things, you can either repeat the exact same changes that you made to the form in the PDF editor - Double click the field you need to edit and then type in your changes, click Save on the bottom, and you're good to go.

The other thing you can do, and this is usually the method I use if there's multiple fields that I've updated, is go over to the "Form Fields" menu and scroll down until I find the updated field or newly added field - so in this case, it will be the fees - and I can leave my mouse on the field to see the preview of the text in that field if it exceeds the width available.

So I can see now that this has the "Updated Here" language that I made on the form builder in just a moment ago. I can just simply drag that field onto the PDF where it needs to go and then once it loads, I see both versions. Click on the old version. Click the trashcan icon to delete the old version. and voilà. I have updated my PDF and the language is correct to where it needs to be.

Then again, just repeat that process for any additional fields that I've updated by scrolling down in the form fields menu and dragging them onto the form or double clicking, editing the language and then saving it on the PDF as well.

Hopefully that's helpful. Best of luck to you with all your form endeavors and happy automating!

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