Power Automate: How to populate a Word Template 📃

In this video, Devin will guide you through leveraging Power Automate to automatically populate a Word template. This could be used for automatically populating a sales quote, invoice, or in this example a certificate of completion for a course. Once the template is created you will email the individual that made the request a PDF copy of the populated template.
*Note* This videos uses Premium features of Power Automate!
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0:00 Intro
01:04 Setting up a Template in Word
05:37 Building the Flow
21:38 Testing the Flow
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[@lucianionica6023]

Devin, can I just say that this is probably one of the easiest to follow PowerAutomate tutorials I've ever come across. You're explaining this spot on and this really makes sometimes daunting tasks look easy. Very well done, one can learn a tone from what you're sharing here. Thank you ever so much!

[@PragmaticWorks]

Wow, thanks!

[@sebenotblank9487]

@@PragmaticWorks Nice and short Guide. One thing that is missing is how to create a table with multiple rows. There are multiple options like using an array or the select action and I guess many people want to create quotes or invoices that need this function. :)

[@HrRonaszeki]

Devin, I have literally spent two days to find out, how to build this flow. And now I found your Tutorial and I not just built my flow, but I understand power automate much much better! Thank you!

[@amydemchak-connell4421]

Devin, this was so incredibly helpful. I just created a successful flow and honestly could never have done it without your help. Thank you so much!!

[@PragmaticWorks]

Great to hear!

[@yuraer]

Dear Pragmatic Works Team, I'd like to thank all of you for your job. I'm watching you in Ukraine and for me, your clips are a way to not think about the war in my country. I always imagine like this war will end and I will go to my job and will try to do all these tricks.

[@JileMeyn]

Devin, this is amazing. This helped me out like you wouldn't believe!

[@PragmaticWorks]

Glad you enjoyed!

[@bernardojacobi6877]

Excellent content Devin, I loved the practical examples without unnecessary dribble or excessive technical detail. 5 stars! would recommend and I have immediately subscribed to the channel. If I had to hire you or your company I wouldn't even consider other competitors. Keep up the good work and all the best.

[@user-jo1uq5xu8n]

Thank you very much for this detailed and comprehensive tutorial. I learned a lot from it.

[@andywright8495]

Agreed, superb narration with clear and simple steps! Thank you

[@PragmaticWorks]

You're very welcome!

[@mikeandhayleyhall]

Devin this is an awesome video. really simple and easy to follow. Loved it!! Thank you so much!

[@rappcu]

This is an incredible tool. I ended up with a computer science degree and hating coding, so I never did it. When the If This Then That app came out I loved it and it made programming a little easier. This though. Power Automate looks really accessible to me. And your instruction was really spot on. Good video. Good content.

[@clearmanlawyers753]

Thank you Devin. What a good, clear and fun tutorial. I had hit a wall with other resources. Thank you especially for mentioning the ".docx" in Create File / File Name. You're a champion and you saved me hours.

[@leahreyna4573]

This was incredibly helpful! Thank you for the video.

[@stewieboy72]

This was so good, easy to understand, very well presented. Kudos.

[@jackdeery]

Thanks for taking the time to do this.

[@shuttlepodone1707]

Exactly what I needed!

[@spicytoasters]

Thanks d-dawg, just saved me hours of time at work

[@hellomranderson]

Amazing class, thank you!

[@juliusmanalo9645]

I know this video is 2 years old, but it would be helpful to disclose up front that this flow requires a Premium Power Automate license.

[@katrinacannizzaro1634]

This is awesome. Thanks so much! I was struggling to nut this out.

[@andymackk99]

Very Helpful - thanks for sharing 👍

[@PragmaticWorks]

Glad it was helpful! Thank you!

[@jagirrathore6628]

Hi Devin, thank you for explaining what I felt was a confusing and challenging task, yet to try the process, however you have armed me with a good foundation of knowledge to tackle this process. Thank you!

[@PragmaticWorks]

Thank you for learning with us!

[@GroovyMisfit]

I liked this video. Please add more.

[@miyu545]

Amazing help on this.

[@leahmoore3015]

Thank you for this video! This is exactly what I'm looking for, and your instructions are so clear. My only complaint is that I didn't see it sooner!

[@IthinkIknew]

Wow Great Video, thanks so much!!

[@PragmaticWorks]

Glad it was helpful!

[@ojoy9304]

thank you so much, it really help my project

[@Supermodoz]

Very useful thank you 🙏

[@birtewee]

Thank you so much! Very helpful for beginners! The flow with forms as a trigger works fine. Now trying to make it work with data from excel :)

[@ziadjadaa6002]

Hi @birtewee, did you manage to add outside data to the word/certificate file from an excel sheet? If so, can you please share the solution? I'm trying to create a Salary Certificate form that gets the main employee data from the MS Form, and just need to add the Salary part from Excel. Much appreciate your input.

[@yooluca6947]

@@ziadjadaa6002 hi, i need it to! Do you have it now?

[@SusanKelly05]

BTW: The Populate Word template is a Premium feature.

[@ThePumaso]

Awesome walk-through Devin! Thank you. I got a proof of concept going successfully with this. NOW, however, I want to populate the WORD document with data from a Dataverse collection in my Power App. Any pointers to good reference material that shows how to do this?

[@jbcca6324]

Great video! The saddest part was realizing my organization doesn't have the Premium licensing to use the Populate a Microsoft Word template. /facepalm. But I learned a lot about Power Automate here, nonetheless. Thank you.

[@josephnasr3385]

Thsnks for the tutorial Devin! What about checkboxes? How can we populate those

[@lisanielsen1814]

GREAT VIDEO! Have you posted the video you talk about at the end? :D Can't find it.

[@nausheensaumtally6588]

Hi, fantastic video thank you. Can this be done with a powerpoint template instead of word template?

[@roboudejans6952]

Nice blog! One question, why aren't you using the premium action "Convert Word Document to PDF"?

[@dariosantiagomoralesammonm5487]

Thank you very much for this Video, you made it really easy to understand. However I have a question, can I do the trigger with an Excel file containing names?

[@DAVIDVAGNETTI]

I had 21 H&H technical reports emailed, I owe you...

[@carlafoote7963]

Great video! Would really like to know how to change the date format.

[@bmb3283]

Hi! Do you have a video on how to use something more dynamic than a form to populate these fields? Like Web Data from ZoomInfo or some kind of web platform like that, for a specific business that would be dependent on, and scrape triggered by, the creation of some kind of new asset (new account plan word doc or contract created) for a new business with a certain identifier?

[@TheOxIshere]

Neat feature. For that Date field, what if I want to use the date when the certificate was generated from Power Automate? Is there a way to do that?

[@andrevandermerwe940]

Hi there! Is there a way to pass numerical values from a completed form to a premade graph, so that the graph and extra text populates before converting to a PDF?

[@gustavomacedo7651]

Devin, this video saved my life, I spent days searching for a way to create this flow. Someone know why the file is not being created in Word type? All files are coming as a blank page, so I have to access each one and transform in word

[@fanzfanzilla]

Thank you for sharing this video. How many characters are allowed in the field? I want to be able to update the whole paragraph. Is it possible?

[@jaggyjut]

What about checkboxes and conditional logic within the word template pls. Thank you 😊

[@catboy721]

Great tutorial -- thanks. I know this wasn't the point of the exercise, but you'd normally generate certificates from a roster or other previously gathered information that validates the attendance. Letting learners request templates with just the form wouldn't pass the audit sniff test. Assume this tassk would be just as easy to complete from a class roster or worksheet??

[@axelitusmx]

Great video Devin! I noticed one of the actions had a tag of "Premium". What kind of licensing or subscription are required for this workflow?

[@bernardojacobi6877]

Hi there mate, I have been through this journey recently. You need a pay as you go / pay per use subscription. I think its about $0.80 per flow run, its a bit pricey but if it saves you or others time then it is worth it. I recently wasted money on a 'per user' licence which doesn't provide access to the Word template functionality.

[@bobbirowlett6728]

This was great Devin. I have two questions though, if you have time or can give me a link to research further. 1) What if you have more than one attachment to send to the user, how do you grab those and add to the e-mail? 2) In the form the person has a multiple choice and you want each choice to go to a different check box in the Word template - how does that happen? Not sure how to parse those so they become a single text rather than (example) ["Option 1","Option 2","Option10"]. I really did like the way you walked through everything. Very good!

[@benseaburg9608]

Hi, this was a great video, thank you! Do you know if it’s possible to pass through a barcode from a SharePoint list? The barcodes are generated via SharePoint when a new recorded is added. I keep on getting errors when trying to pass it through dynamically?

[@bahraini-7707]

Thanks for sharing , Id like to ask about how i can add photo from Mform to word tamplate

[@kamilskwarski5057]

way easier than populating an Excel template (no OfficeScripts etc.)

[@PragmaticWorks]

Glad you enjoyed!

[@ammarahmed2123]

Devin, if we have created for example a report card in the word template, the forms will have and option to select multiple subjects and then give their marks, how can we automate for different number of subjects. Some can have 4 subjects while others can have more or less subject. Is there a way that we can adjust the template table according to the selected number of subjects?

[@meng-xiuwu2443]

"Thank you for your sharing. I'd like to inquire if it's only possible to create one certificate at a time. For instance, if an organizing unit intends to produce multiple certificates at once, where can I input the names for multiple certificates?

[@torgelilienthal4366]

Hey guys, Question: I have a mac! and also want to populate word document in power automate. I think the steps in power automate are correct. In word on the other hand, I can’t follow the steps from the video, what do I have to do? I thought I just mark it as a text field and I probably changed the wrong thing in options…

[@hendrikkwok4550]

Hi Pragmatic Works! Thank you once again for the amazing breakdown and the reply to my earlier comment! I would like to ask if its possible to combine the responses of 2 different microsoft forms to populate the same word document only when an answer within the forms are the same?

[@desktopdatacrunching4032]

I'm not sure how you could pull that off actually. The action to return items from a form requires a Response ID that you'd typically get from a Trigger. Since you can only have 1 trigger in a flow i'm not sure how you could pull off fields from multiple forms.

[@johnhollis3979]

Is it possible to do something larger than these documents?? I would like to use Forms to collect a comprehensive amount of information. On the back of this I would like to save this data (which i think would be via Excel) and then create various Word documents / PDFs. Is it possible to use Power Automate on this scale? Everything I have seen so far is just solutions smaller tasks.

[@gates1978]

this is very helpful. But, what if we have many rows to add into template file , for example we have a collection from Powerapps to push as JSON . Could you please explain how to create the word doc. Thank you

[@LC-tx3vn]

Hi there, how do you format a date that is coming in as a long number? thanks

[@eriks707]

Can this be done with JSON data passed from powerapps? For example have the template uploaded like you do, then on the press of a button pass the data from 10 or so fields in JSON to power automate, then use that data to populate the fields in the template?

[@robh2489]

it would be great to see this with a non premium connector being used.

[@palmstromful]

I figured out the flow and all my answers populate. However, the emailed PDF displays the labels of the active x control. Any solutions would be appreciated Awesome tutorial!

[@lordlickorice]

Does the HTML part of this process in Power Automate also accept CSS styling? My team has to use MS Word docs for our Project Briefs, which are sent to team members and clients. Those Word docs are formatted with table layouts, background colors for specific table cells, font sizes, etc. We do not have MS Forms or Power Automate yet. I'm still researching all they can do. I need to confirm if I can create a table layout with custom styling in Power Automate to match our Project Brief template. That way, clients can fill out all project details in a MS Form, and Power Automate will export that form data to a Word doc that looks exactly the way we want.

[@ratanmishra3513]

hi, can you please help me in removing the blank spaces while using the Repeater control. If the value is blank, its creating a 2 line space between tables

[@dhavalpatel4175]

Great video. I have a queston for you. How to export the MS Forms likert responses to word and then convert to pdf?

[@gsantanaz]

Hello, I need to populate a word template with contact information from the dataverse, and finally to send the file to the contact's mail with an manual action, for example a click in a ribbon button in the main contact's form

[@mielkew27]

just what I'm looking for thanks for sharing... I have the same scenario but I have several templates, how can we initialize variable based on user selected value in the forms.

[@desktopdatacrunching4032]

You can do an initialize variable and then write values to it based on what's coming from your Form using Dynamic Content

[@MP-kj5ur]

Anyway of doing this without the premium subscription?

[@raydeg6768]

Great tutorial to get started with PA. I'm having some trouble though. The file created, either PDF or Word is fine, however, once received by email, the attached PDF is unreadable. Anyone else having the same issue?

[@Esmithy1899]

Is there a way to do this with multiple-choice questions from a Microsoft form?

[@agenceyu]

yu save me thank's

[@markyaney9820]

does this work the same using the Power Automate app in Teams

[@Lukas-qs6hh]

Unfortunately I do not have the "Word online" operation to integrate in Power Automate. Is this a premium feature or something similar?

[@patrickfillion7193]

Is there a way with this template to create a list? Let's say my power automate will connect to my dataverse. I want to add values from my main entity, and create a table with a 1:N relationship to another entity.

[@user-np9bs8wz8g]

i am having issues with multichoice answers populating in my dynamic content with brackets and quotes, how can I automate this removal for a clean text

[@jhonatanmarcelotoribio1539]

hola hay una posibilidad que ala accion del wor populate template lo tome uno de sus campos el nombre de la persona pero no escrito en form si no que hay una columna de lo que crea el form en el excel llamar ala columna de acuerdo su dni, en la columna mostrarias sus nombres completos pero yo intento llamarlo con items()?['Nombre'] pero me bota erroro si no su nota final que eso no se pide escribir en el form

[@charlenebergeron8344]

This is great but is there a way to do this without a premium license?? Any workaround is much appreciated

[@user-jh3iy8gi4o]

Is there a work around if you don't have premium to use the Word templates? or is it just worth getting a premium account?

[@victorgarcialiegeois9413]

Hello, Could you explain me how to do so with a multiple choice question in the forms ? I strugle to find the way to convert the multiple choice answer in the pdf document Thanks a lot, great vidéo !

[@victorgarcialiegeois9413]

Same question to add a scan of the Id card to the forms but again I don't find a way to convert the scan of the id in the word template. I would be very grateful if you could help me hehe !

[@hendrikkwok4550]

Hi Pragmatic Works! Thank you for this amazing breakdown of how-to steps! I would like to know if it is possible to not convert to pdf but still send it out as a microsoft word docx instead?

[@PragmaticWorks]

Hi Hendrik, this would be a local setting for each user. They could set PDFs to open in MS word.

[@hendrikkwok4550]

@@PragmaticWorks Much Appreciated! Thank you!

[@Preacherboy03]

Yes! Thank you for your clear instruction--so very helpful. Not sure if anyone is checking this thread, but when we added the "Create a Word document" PowerAutomate promoted for Premium subscription. My licensing includes "Microsoft 365 Business Premium" and "Power Apps for Office 365". Any thoughts or suggestions?

[@FlorianRemy]

You need a Word Online (Business) premium license. I just followed this tutorial, to find out that I can't use it because of this restriction..

[@iggyharrison]

Since the Class Name never changes, could you use a compose action instead? I tend to use a lot of variables in my flows that change so I try to keep static information in compose actions, is there a pitfall I haven't seen yet?

[@desktopdatacrunching4032]

Yeah totally makes sense to do it that with how this one was designed for only handling a single class.

[@griffinmcdowell70]

Can something similar be done with an email in Outlook?

[@giuseppecappuccio207]

in mac os on word for business it is impossible to add tag to single word... how can i do this?? thanks

[@JeevanKumar-ir3io]

Hi Great video and thanks for the detailed explanation. However, could you please explain how to convert populated word document in SharePoint to Pdf. I tried with "Convert Word Document to PDF" and it is not working. Kindly help.

[@zr0114]

Okay, I got lost on the Form Link... where do I go to make a form and to get the link?

[@tcreson]

How can I add a hyperlink into the Word document in similar fashion?

[@Pride_Of_Ultras]

You are G R E A T!

[@PragmaticWorks]

Thank you for watching!

[@guilhermeleite3665]

Can i add a hyperlink in the text?

[@yewchoob85]

Is there an alternative to this? The Populate Word Doc action is premium. I can't use it.

[@kellytaylor8861]

Hi, Can anyone pls help me with why I cannot locate my fillable word doc in the step "CREATE FILE" ?

[@barcleywest6720]

Great video 👏 Consider me subscribed

[@obi-wankenobi2715]

How can i make one document with multiple documents

[@oluwatobiyusuf]

Thanks for this video. My question is about populating the word template but from a rich text editor. Is it possible to populate the word template with html text and get only the text?

[@desktopdatacrunching4032]

I've only been able to get Power Automate to recognize the fields when they're plan text.

[@haoz7529]

Can you make a field editable in pdf?

[@beladuarte9218]

How to insert line breaks?

[@gulatinaveen]

Thanks for this video. Its super informative. However i am facing an issue. I have over 20 fields in the form, but when i populate these in the form only about 6 fields show up not all. Where possibly i am going wrong?

[@gulatinaveen]

Sorry, This is solved. I overlooked a few things.

[@farsfuad3002]

I get error in output doc, It can't be opened

[@janetvandenk]

Do I save as a word document or word template?

[@desktopdatacrunching4032]

You'll save it as a word doc. Thanks!

[@babypooful]

What happens if there's say 5 different questions and answers on a form and you want to populate the questions and answers on two different columns?

[@kenanderson5739]

On your word doc template build, insert a 2x5 table. I have 5 series of questions and 5 different columns to keep the data organized.

[@danielxD70]

How put you an image in a word template?

[@LearnloomSHM]

Hi can you guide on how to change the date format

[@desktopdatacrunching4032]

Check out this video for formatting dates. kzbin.info/www/bejne/nYCVkKOvfN-Zaqc