Can I generate a PDF from a form submission?

PDF generation isn’t a built-in feature of Advanced Forms, but it’s straightforward to wire up with a bit of custom code. The standard pattern is to hook into the form submission, generate a PDF from the submitted field values, save it to the server, and attach it to the notification email.

The basic process:

1. Generate a PDF via PHP, pulling field values with af_get_field().
2. Save the PDF to a file on the server (somewhere under wp-content/uploads/ works well).
3. Return the absolute file path from the af/form/email/attachments filter to attach it to the notification email.

For the attachment step, see How to add attachments to a notification email — the pattern is the same as attaching any other file, the only difference is that you’re generating the file on the fly during submission rather than pointing at a pre-existing one.

Picking a PDF library

Advanced Forms doesn’t ship a PDF generator, so you’ll need to bring your own. Popular PHP options include:

• Dompdf — renders HTML/CSS to PDF; convenient if you’re comfortable templating with HTML.
• mPDF — also HTML/CSS-driven, with strong Unicode and right-to-left support.
• TCPDF — long-established, lower-level API for building PDFs programmatically.

Any of them will get the job done; pick the one whose API and output style suits your project. Install via Composer in your theme or a small custom plugin, then call it inside the attachments filter (or earlier, in af/form/submission, if you want the PDF available beyond just the email).