Export to PDF

Applies to: anota, all plans Roles required: any workspace member can download a PDF; Editor or above to choose the form's PDF layout Regulatory references: none

Overview

You can download any submission as a PDF document with every answer filled in, and the signature as the signed image. Use it to keep a paper or digital file, print a registration, or send a response to someone who doesn't use anota. Each form has one PDF layout, chosen from nine Templates, that is used for all its PDFs, including the PDF attached to email notifications.

The examples use Valeria Castro's registration in Café Aurora's Barista Workshop Registration.

Key concepts

• PDF layout (template): the design of a form's PDFs. It's set per form, not per submission. A form that never had one chosen uses Classic.
• Accent colour: Templates draw their lines, headings and bands in the form's primary theme colour (see Theme and appearance). Café Aurora's forms use a coffee brown.
• Document language: the built-in texts of the PDF (such as "Submitted", "DATE" or "SUBMISSION SUMMARY") are in the form's base language, whatever language your anota interface is in. Your title, questions and the answers appear as written.

Task 1 — Download a submission as PDF

Prerequisites

• Open the form's inbox (Forms > the form's row > View submissions) and click the submission. See Submissions inbox.

Step-by-step

1. At the top of the submission's panel, click Download PDF.

   Download PDF is only in the panel of an open submission, not in the list.

2. Your browser saves the PDF. The file is named after the form's address and the submission ID, for example barista-workshop-registration-01a0e144bdd2746fb7dd0b638ae5fe79.pdf. Open it to check it.

   The Classic layout: the form title, the submission time and a question-and-answer table.

Result

You have a PDF with the form title, the date and time of the submission, and each question with its answer:

• The submission time is written in UTC, for example "Submitted 2026-09-27 05:09 UTC".
• Signatures appear as the signed image.
• Choice, matrix, name, address and product answers appear as readable text, as in the inbox.
• Uploaded files are not included: the PDF lists their names. Download the files from the submission's panel (see View and manage submissions).
• An empty answer shows a dash (—).

The questions and answers are the ones of the form version the person answered, so a PDF of an older response keeps its original questions.

Task 2 — Choose the form's PDF layout

Prerequisites

• A role of Editor or above.

Step-by-step

3. In any submission's panel, click PDF layout, next to Download PDF.

   The choice applies to the whole form, whichever submission you open it from.

4. The PDF document window opens: "Choose the layout used to generate each submission's PDF." Each card shows a preview of the template with sample answers, in your form's accent colour. The current layout has a check mark.

   Scroll down to see all nine Templates.

5. Click the template you want, here Summary. It's saved at once: you see Saving… and then Saved next to Done.

   There's nothing else to save. "Save failed" means the choice wasn't stored; try again.

6. Click Done (or ✕, or outside the window) to close it.

   Closing the window keeps the layout you chose.

7. Click Download PDF again to get the submission in the new layout.

   The same registration in the Summary layout, which adds the company name after the submission time.

Result

Every PDF of this form, downloaded or attached to an email, uses the new layout from now on. PDFs you downloaded before don't change. The form doesn't need to be published again: the layout isn't part of the form's published version.

Template reference

The names and descriptions are the ones in the PDF document window.

The name is your Company name (or the workspace name when none is set). The logo is the form's own theme logo, or else your company logo; see Company and branding. A theme logo that is only a link to another website is not drawn in the PDF. Every template prints "Generated by anota" in the footer.

Set the layout from Claude or ChatGPT

With the Claude and ChatGPT connector, you can ask the assistant to change a form's PDF layout, for example "Use the Certificate layout for the barista workshop PDFs." Its set_pdf_template tool sets the same layout as the PDF document window.

Roles and permissions

See Roles and permissions.

Troubleshooting

Related features

• Submissions inbox
• View and manage submissions
• Email notifications (attach the PDF to an email)
• Signatures and file uploads
• Theme and appearance
• Connect Claude and ChatGPT (MCP)