WordPress: Generating PDFs from Form Data Made Easy

Planned workflow: The customer visits the specified website, e.g., https://sepa-mandat.meine-website.tld, and enters a password to access the desired page. There, they will find all the necessary information and a form to grant their mandate. They should then be able to download the entered data as a PDF. As the operator, we want to be informed that the customer has filled out the form and save the data (especially the date of issuance, as it is required, for example, for creating direct debits in online banking).

For this small project, we will implement the following:

• Create a mini WordPress website (1 page) with information on SEPA and a form
• Create a form with Gravity Forms
• Configure form and PDF settings

We use Gravity Forms because it is a truly easy-to-use plugin. Although it is a paid service (as of 2026: starting at 59 US dollars per year for one website, there is no free version), it is included free of charge for SaaS Web customers on the Premium Managed WordPress Hosting plan. With Gravity Forms, forms – even complex ones – can be created via drag & drop. I should also mention that there are free form plugins available, such as Contact Form 7.

I assume that setting up a WordPress website is not a problem – otherwise, you are welcome to ask your trusted agency 😉

This is not about seamless integration into an existing website or adopting the corporate identity. Further steps are necessary for that, depending on the technology already in use…

The homepage is set as a static page (Settings > Reading > Your homepage displays: A static page – we leave the Posts page empty) and edited. Let’s set the password protection right away: in the sidebar on the right under “Status” (in older WordPress versions “Visibility”), select the Password Protected option and set a password. Update/publish immediately so that this setting is established.

Data privacy status as of 2026: Since bank details are collected here, the site naturally runs only via HTTPS, and a reference to your privacy policy belongs on the form. Additionally, specify how long the entries remain stored (Gravity Forms: Form Settings, “Personal Data” section). WordPress password protection is only a basic form of access control.

I like to use the (free) Page Builder by SiteOrigin because it is simple yet allows for highly individual layouts. Furthermore, it integrates perfectly into all kinds of themes and existing WordPress installations. You populate it with widgets, which is why plugins not necessarily developed for SiteOrigin can also be used wonderfully. (As of 2026: The Page Builder is still being maintained; however, a simple layout like this can now also be built without an additional plugin using the Column block of the WordPress Block Editor.)

For our project, I am creating 2 rows: the first to display a simple introduction for the customer, and the other with the actual content. The second row is divided into 2 columns, the left one with the form and the right one with our company information.

To display the form in the left column, I have 2 options: I can either use the Gravity Forms widget or write the shortcode into an Editor widget. I have chosen the second option. Either way, we now need to create a form.

Using drag & drop, we create our form: Company, First and Last Name, Address, IBAN, SWIFT/BIC (no longer strictly necessary in the SEPA area since 2016, therefore optional), and Name of the Credit Institution. To also validate an IBAN semantically, there is an extension: Gravity Forms IBAN (free). The plugin creates a field of the IBAN type, against which the user input is checked. As of 2026: The plugin has not been updated since 2015 and was only tested up to WordPress 4.2 – we advise against it for new projects. IBAN validation can also be implemented with a few lines of code via the Gravity Forms filter gform_field_validation. Once the form is fully set up, the shortcode is inserted into the Editor widget:

In addition to the fields that are to be output again in the confirmation text, we create a link that the user can click. This is easiest to do with the Gravity PDF shortcode:
[gravitypdf id="DEINE-PDF-ID" text="DOWNLOAD PDF" class="pdf-download-button"]
You can find the PDF ID and the finished shortcode in the PDF settings of the created form (Form > Settings > PDF). As of 2026: The link in the format ?gf_pdf=1&fid=… previously shown here originates from Gravity PDF 3 and will be discontinued with Gravity PDF 7.

In this example, we took the quick route: no special settings, no complications. The PDF plugin offers numerous options for formatting and styling the PDF, etc. For that, you should read the Gravity PDF documentation yourself. The plugin itself is free; additional PDF templates and extensions are available for a fee.

As already mentioned in the article, Gravity Forms is included free of charge in the Premium plan of our Managed WordPress Hosting. There, you can also use other licensed plugins free of charge, such as: WPML (multilingual plugin), SearchWP (enhanced search function for WordPress), or Newsletter Pro (including WooCommerce integration for newsletters). You can find our Managed WordPress Hosting offers here.