Autocrat is a long-standing free add-on that merges Google Sheets rows into Docs templates, and many schools and offices rely on it. It’s free to use but closed source (AlternativeTo lists it as proprietary, checked October 2026). Other doc-merge add-ons often cap free use: one popular alternative’s free plan stops at 10 documents at a time and 150 a month.
If you’d rather run something you can read, change and keep, Sheets Doc Merge does the core job in one MIT-licensed Apps Script file.
{{Column Name}} placeholders in a Google Docs template (body, header, footer and tables), keeping the template’s formatting| Autocrat | Sheets Doc Merge | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free (MIT) |
| Source | Closed | Open: one readable file in your own sheet |
| Setup | Job wizard inside the add-on | A menu; paste the template link |
| Output | Docs and PDFs, many options | PDFs (keep the Docs with a one-line change) |
| Triggers on form submit / schedule | Yes | No: you run it from the menu |
| Placeholder syntax | <<Column>> |
{{Column}} |
Autocrat has more options, especially form-submit triggers. Sheets Doc Merge is simpler and fully under your control. If you use Autocrat’s <<Column>> tags, find-and-replace them to {{Column}} in your template.
The step-by-step guide covers the setup in about 5 minutes. For invoices specifically, see creating invoices from Google Sheets.