Free Doc Merge for Google Sheets

How to generate PDFs and certificates from Google Sheets (free)

You have a list in Google Sheets (course attendees, clients, employees) and you need one document per person: a certificate, an invoice, a letter. Google Sheets and Google Docs can do this together with one short Apps Script file. You don’t need Autocrat or a paid add-on, and there’s no monthly document cap.

This guide uses Sheets Doc Merge, a free, MIT-licensed script. Setup takes about 5 minutes.

What you need

• A Google account (personal Gmail or Google Workspace)
• A Google Sheet with one row per document
• A Google Doc to use as the template

Step 1: Make the template in Google Docs

Design the document the way you want every copy to look: logo, fonts, borders, signature image. Wherever a value should change per row, type the column name in double braces:

This certifies that {{Name}} completed {{Course}} on {{Date}}.

Placeholders work in the body, header and footer, and they keep the formatting you give them. For a certificate, set File → Page setup to landscape.

Step 2: Set up your sheet

Put headers in row 1 that match your placeholders exactly. Two optional columns do extra work:

Name	Course	Date	File Name	Email
Ana Lopez	First Aid	Oct 24, 2026	Certificate - Ana Lopez	ana@example.com
Ben Okafor	First Aid	Oct 24, 2026	Certificate - Ben Okafor	ben@example.com

• File Name names each PDF. Without it, files are named after the template and row number.
• Email is where each PDF is sent, if you choose to email them.

Values come through exactly as the sheet displays them, so format dates and amounts in the sheet first.

Step 3: Add the script

1. In the sheet, open Extensions → Apps Script.
2. Delete the placeholder code.
3. Paste in the contents of Code.gs and click Save.
4. Reload the sheet. A 📄 Doc Merge menu appears.

Step 4: Create the PDFs

Choose 📄 Doc Merge → Create PDFs and paste the link to your template. The first time, Google asks for permission. Because it’s your own unpublished script, it shows “Google hasn’t verified this app”: click Advanced → Go to (your project name) → Allow.

The PDFs are saved in a new Drive folder next to the template, and a Merged PDF column in the sheet links to each one.

Step 5 (optional): Email each PDF

1. In Gmail, compose the email as a draft. Placeholders work here too: Your {{Course}} certificate.
2. Choose 📄 Doc Merge → Create PDFs and Email Them and type the draft’s subject line.

Every row with an email address gets its own PDF attached.

Large lists

• Google stops a script after 6 minutes, which is roughly 100 PDFs. The script stops just before that and asks you to run it again. Rows that already have a PDF are skipped, so nothing is made twice.
• Gmail limits scripts to about 100 recipients a day on a personal account and 1,500 on Google Workspace (Google’s quotas).
• A row marked ERROR: ... is retried on the next run.

FAQ

Is it free? Yes. It’s MIT licensed and runs on your own Google account.

How is it different from Autocrat? Autocrat is a free but closed-source add-on with its own job setup screens. This is one readable script inside your sheet: no add-on gets access to your Drive, and you can change anything. See the full comparison.

Can I make invoices with it? Yes. Put {{Invoice Number}}, {{Amount}} and similar placeholders in the Doc and give each row a File Name like Invoice 1042.

Can I keep Google Docs instead of PDFs? The script exports PDFs and removes the temporary Doc. To keep the Docs, delete the copy.setTrashed(true); line.

Can I redo one row? Clear its Merged PDF cell and run it again.

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Get the script on GitHub · Also free: Mail Merge for Google Sheets · Deadline reminders from Google Sheets

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