Create your first PDF with Previous Report Builder

Create your first PDF and let your respondents download a personalized PDF report, directly after taking your questionnaire. A winning way to increase engagement and a powerful tool to generate more conversions.

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What does this new PDF functionality do?

Just like you can show your respondents a customized outcome screen or send a follow-up email based on results, the PDF feature will formulate a personalized report for your respondent, with customized advice, feedback, tips, or any other content that you have set up, all based on their questionnaire answers.

Here's an example of how a generated PDF report could look like:

This guide will teach you:

1. Create your PDF
2. Widgets
3. Design
4. Extra Options
5. Share your PDF
6. Preview your PDF

1. Create your PDF

Start off by logging in, building your assessment.

Now click ReportR which you'll find in the menu bar at the top of the screen.

You'll see a list of all of your current PDFs. Click Create PDF and in the box that comes up, choose the questionnaire for which you want to create a PDF report. 

If you've already started a PDF report, simply click on the PDF Name that appears in the left-hand column on the page and you can continue editing it.

Alternatively, when you're in the edit questionnaire view, click PDF to access all PDFs you have created for that particular questionnaire.

2. Widgets

Here is what you'll see first.

The most important part of the PDF reports are the widgets, where you can insert text, different charts, and images. But start off your report right, and customize the cover page. Then we'll get down to adding the widgets and customizing the final page.

2.1 Cover Page

2.2 Add widgets

2.3 Final Page

2.1 Cover Page

This video explains how to create your cover page. Note that the layout of some features of the software may differ from how it appears in the video.

Choose what should be written at the top and bottom of the page. You can also upload your company logo or any image you want to use to complete the professional look.

This is the first page that respondents will see so make it look polished and of course, no typos!

1. Show cover page: toggle to make the cover page Active if you want a cover page created for each report.
2. Preview: Click update preview to see how your cover page looks like.
3. Top section (above the logo): type your text here for the top part of the cover page. Learn how to use the editor icons to upgrade the look of your text.
4. Featured image: if you've already uploaded a logo in the Design tab, it will appear here. You can update it if you want by clicking Update logo, otherwise, upload a logo if you haven't done so yet. The maximum logo width is approximately 700 pixels, any image larger than this will be automatically resized.
5. Bottom section (underneath the logo): edit the text that you want to appear at the bottom of the cover page, and use the rich text editor icons to get the right look.
6. Cover page margins: use the arrows or enter a value to set cover page margins to the desired size in mm.
7. Background image: you can add a background image to personalize your cover page.

2.2 Add widgets

Start adding the widgets that allow you to create a fully personalized PDF report for each respondent. Here's where the fun begins!

Now choose the widget you want and click the + sign.

Each section will be added one after the other on the page. Click Save and Test PDF as you go along to see how it's looking.

The first few options of each widget are the same, so we'll look at them now, and then take a look at the in-depth guide for each widget.

1. Click the arrow to hide the widget when you're not currently editing it.
2. This is the widget number. You can always change the order of your widgets by choosing a different widget number.
3. Reusing your PDF for multiple audiences? If the widget is not relevant for your current respondents, easily switch the active button to inactive or vice versa. Click the copy icon to make a copy of the entire widget you've made and click the Trash to delete the widget.
4. You can preview each of the widgets. The preview shows you how your widget is going to look like on your PDF report.

There's a whole range of widgets you can use to create a perfectly professional report! Here is a full list of widgets, to learn how to add amazing personalized charts and content.

2.3 Final Page

When you've added all the widgets that you want to include, it's time to finish the report and create the final page.

1. Show final page: toggle to make the final page Active.
2. Text: type the text to appear on the final page. Learn how to use the editor icons to upgrade the look of your text.
3. Add image: click to add an image that will be shown beneath the final page text.
4. Final page margins: use the arrows or enter a value to set final page margins to the desired size in mm. 

3. Design

The video below takes you through the design basics. Note that the layout of some features of the software may differ from how it appears in the video.

The Design tab contains the settings you need to customize the color scheme, font, and more to create a PDF just the way you want it. Let's take a look at each setting.

3.1 Design Templates

3.2 Colors

3.3 HTML View

3.4 Font

3.5 Header and Footer

3.6 Page Orientation

3.7 Paper Format

3.8 Margins

3.9 Custom CSS

3.10 Logo

3.1 Design Templates

Choose from a selection of design templates to create a stylish set-up in seconds! 

Simply click on one of the three designs:

1. Blank: No layout settings will be set up.
2. Minimal: A minimalist look for your report.
3. Stylish: Makes use of a template (currently limited to 1 template - more coming soon!).

3.2 Colors

Click on the color selector to choose the shade for the primary and secondary colors used throughout the report.

The primary color will be used in the header and footer and the secondary color will be used as the font color on the cover page, and other instances in the report such as question block KPI thresholds.

3.3 HTML View

Click the arrow to choose which parts of the PDF you want to preview, then click Generate HTML to view the source code. The report you have created will appear and you can select a section and right-click to view the source code.

Why view your report in HTML?

• You can see which classes are used in the PDF (in order to use these classes in your custom CSS file, see section 2.6).
• To get a preview of their PDF (other than when pressing "Save and test PDF").

Learn more about HTML code and CSS code and read the help guide about using CSS in your PDF report.

3.4 Font

Font: simply click the arrow and scroll down the list to select the font you want.

Font Sizes: you can change the font sizes by clicking on the number and using the arrows that appear, or type the font size in yourself. When you type text in the PDF editor, the sizes (small, medium, etc.) will be the font sizes you have set here.

3.5 Header and Footer

Each page of your report can have a header and footer if you want. Type your own text and format it using the Rich Text Editor icons. With the default header layout, you should use 40 characters or less. For the footer, you can use up to 50 characters. 

If you prefer not to have a header and footer, delete the text that appears automatically in the text boxes and leave the boxes empty.

3.6 Page Orientation

By default, the page orientation of the report is Portrait. Here you can change it to Landscape if you wish.

3.7 Paper Format

You can change the report paper size to Letter. A4 is set by default.

3.8 Margins

Adjust the page margins by using the arrows to increase or decrease margin size or enter the required value. Margins will be the same on all pages excluding the cover and final page.

3.9 Custom CSS

Use the CSS editor located at the Design tab, to style your PDF using your own custom CSS. 

3.10 Logo

Click Add logo to upload a logo that will be shown on the download screen that respondents see when downloading the PDF directly from the survey, or scheduled email.

4. Extra Options

Click on the Extra Options tab to access the General Settings that you can change.

1. Template Name: the template name will show in the tab when you open the PDF in a browser.
2. PDF filename: choose what the PDF file will be called when it is downloaded. Click on Variables to add more variables to the name, or to change the variable to be used in the file name.
3. Page Numbers: toggle to Show page numbers at the bottom of each page of the PDF.

Don't forget to periodically click Save changes so your changes will be saved. Nearly done...

5. Share your PDF

The video below explains how to share your PDF. Note that the layout of some features of the software may differ from how it appears in the video.

Once you've got your PDF looking just right, it's time to share it with the world. Click on the Share tab to access Share settings. Toggle the button to activate the PDF template and click on Copy so you'll have the link to provide for downloading the report.

Use the button on the final screen to allow respondents to access their personalized report, like in the example below:

To do this, save the PDF and then click on the Questionnaire tab to head back to the questionnaire editor. In the final screen message options, you can toggle to add a download button to the final screen.

Now you can edit the download button label as well as paste the download link you have copied from the PDF share settings. Note that the download button label cannot exceed 20 characters.

Alternatively, you can send the share link to respondents in a follow-up email after they have completed the questionnaire.

Another way to share the reports is by sending aggregate PDF reports to your contacts, using the PDF Scheduler.

6. Previewing your PDF

Just click Save and Test PDF anytime you want to test what you've done so far.

What's next?

• You can use PDF scheduler if you want to send a PDF report to specified contacts on a regular basis, send team members a weekly report, email the marketing department with a report every Sunday etc. The reports sent out by the scheduler are aggregate reports with all data totaled, as opposed to personalized reports with just one set of information. 
• Conditional Rendering is a way of displaying elements based on a condition. It allows you to create simple conditions inside a widget and reduce the number of widgets and rules. With Conditional Rendering, you can render different UI markups based on certain conditions.

• Custom CSS allows you to change other elements of your design (make answers larger, make buttons out of links, etc.) that are not included in the Design tab. You can make use of the HTML view to preview your changes. Use the inline CSS editor to style your PDF using your own custom CSS.