PDF Quote template

Create a pdf document quote with this template and a ConvertCalculator Table. To create the pdf-quote, the values from the quote calculator, that are saved in a Table, are loaded into this template.

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What is a pdf-quote?

A pdf-quote gives your leads a summary and details about products and services that they are considering. It can give a breakdown of prices, discounts, and totals of those items. With a professional pdf-quote, you can also make sure you give accurate information to your customers and give them the information quickly in a standard format. A typical PDF quote contains the following items:

  • a list of products and services you’re quoting
  • the prices and discounts on those items
  • the totals and subtotals
  • a summary of products and services
  • any important terms and conditions
  • (optional) additional specification documents for review
  • (optional) a signature block

Steps to create a pdf-quote in ConvertCalculator

You can create a pdf-quote by following the following steps:

  1. create your price quote calculator
  2. create a new table that contains columns for all elements that you want to display in the pdf-quote
  3. create a document calculator, or use this template as a starting point
  4. connect your price quote calculator to your table, so submission data is sent to the table when clicking a button
  5. connect the table to the document calculator with table functions
  6. connect your quote calculator to your document calculator via a query parameter

Step 1 - Create your quote calculator

You can use any quote calculator in combination with a pdf-quote. You can create a price quote calculator from scratch or use one of our price quote templates.

Step 2 - Create a new table

When you create a new table, it by default comes with only three columns for email, name, and price. You can change the label and data type by clicking the column header. You can add columns by pressing the + button on the right side of the table. Make sure you create a column for all elements that you want to dynamically load into the pdf-quote. You can change the data type of each column to match the data type of your question. Do not forget to include a column for the quote identifier variable.

Step 3 - Create the document calculator

The document calculator has static standard elements and dynamic quote-dependent elements. The static elements are basic text, header, or image elements. While the dynamic elements are formula elements. You can organize your document in any shape or form you like. This template is structured as a quote, but you could also create a more extensive report-style document calculator.

Step 4 - Connect your quote calculator to your table

This step is straightforward. In your calculator, click settings in the primary menu, select connect from the secondary menu and navigate to the table via the tertiary menu. You can then select the Table and connect table fields with calculator elements (you can connect questions, formulas, and variables).

Step 5 - load the table data in the document calculator

To do this successfully you need to:

  1. load the correct submission data into the document calculator
  2. display the correct value in each of the dynamic formula elements

You can retrieve the submission data by creating a variable (e.g. VA) with the TABLEFINDFIRST() function:

FS
TABLEFINDFIRST(table_reference, find_column_reference, find_column_value, sort_column_reference, sort_column_order)
  • table_reference, e.g. TA
  • find_column_reference, the column reference - indicated as a number or a letter - that contains the quote identifier
  • find_column_value, this is a hidden question in the document calculator that contains the quote identifier. This question is pre-filled by a query parameter when the page is loaded
  • optional: sort_column_reference, in theory, multiple rows can have the same identifier. The column reference tells the function on which column to sort the results
  • optional: sort_column_order, sorts the column ascending (1) or descending (-1)

The final function will look something like this:

FS
TABLEFINDFIRST(TA, H, QA_label, A, 0)

*since the quote-identifier is loaded from a text field, we need to use QA_label instead of QA

The second step is to connect each formula to the right column via the INDEX() function. To get the INDEX function to work, you only need two arguments:

FS
INDEX(VA, A)

The INDEX() function's first argument is the variable containing the TABLEFINDFIRST() function. The second argument is the column identifier to retrieve the correct value. You can use both numerical values (eg, 0, 1, 2, 3, etc) or text values (eg, A, B, C, D, etc).

Step 6 - Connect your quote calculator to your document calculator

A unique quote identifier is a critical element to include in the quote calculator. This quote identifier is passed in the pdf-quote's URL, to tell the pdf-quote which values to retrieve from the table. For privacy reasons, we suggest you create a variable that contains a hash of the email (or similar) and use this as the ID:

FS
SHA1(QA_email) // when you reference an email question or SHA1(QB_text) // when you reference a text question or RANDOMID() // this will generate a unique ID per visit

You have 2 options to show the pdf-quote after your lead submits the quote form:

  1. redirect to a custom page after submission, and/or
  2. include the pdf-quote link in the submission email

For both options, you need to add a query parameter to the quote-pdf page URL:

HTML
URL + Query parameter yourcompany.convertcalculator.com/yourcalculator?id={{#formula}}VA{{/formula}}
Or when you use the RANDOMID function:
FS
yourcompany.convertcalculator.com/yourcalculator?id={{VA}}

Where VA is the variable containing the encrypted email or RandomID we created in step 1.

You can use this URL in both the button redirect and the submission email.

Testing your document calculator

The TABLEFINDFIRST() function is part of our Platinum plan. If you are not subscribed to our Platinum plan, you will not be able to Publish your document calculator, which is necessary to view your pdf document after submission.

You can still test the flow by using the preview link as the URL:

https://www.convertcalculator.com/app/calculators/hk7zTNjGgpcHbH5/preview/

Including the query parameter:

HTML
https://www.convertcalculator.com/app/calculators/hk7zTNjGgpcHbH5/preview/id={{#formula}}VA{{/formula}}
*make sure you have an active session / you are logged in to ConvertCalculator when testing.

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