Seeking Best Plugins for Legal Document Formatting & PDF Export

Questions
1

Hi community!

I’m developing an app for legal document generation, and I understand that legal documents are inherently complex in terms of text formatting. While I know BBCode has limitations, I’m actively looking for a better combination of tools that can improve upon my current setup.

Challenges I’m Facing

Paragraph Indentation & Formatting

Word and Google Docs have rulers for paragraph indentation, which don’t exist in most Rich Text Editors for Bubble. As a workaround, I use Tab for indentation, since there’s no built-in ruler control. While this works in the Rich Text Editor, PDF Conjurer, for example, does not always preserve these indentations in the exported document. I don’t need something as advanced as full ruler control, but at least an editor that respects manual formatting (e.g., spaces, tab-based indents) when exporting.

PDF Generation Issues

BBCode may work in Bubble, but fails in PDF exports when too complex. Using PDF Conjurer, some text styles (like indentation and spacing) don’t render as expected.

What I’m Looking For

I am looking for a more effective set of tools that will enable me to format legal documents in a Rich Text Editor while ensuring that the PDF export maintains that formatting as closely as possible. It’s important to note that in my workflow, the content to be exported is not always visible on the page.

I haven’t tested any advanced rich text editor, so I’m not sure if it would handle my formatting needs better than Bubble’s RTE (which definitely does). However, even if it does, I still require a PDF generator that can export with high fidelity, preserving all the formatting applied in the editor and respecting page breaks.

I’m not sure if I need to work with HTML instead of BBCode.

If anyone has recommendations for plugins (Rich Text Editors or PDF generators) that handle legal-style formatting better than my current setup, I’d greatly appreciate your input!

I’ve attached two example images of legal document formatting that I need to replicate.

Thanks in advance for your help!

legal_doc2
legal_doc2721×840 168 KB

legal_doc1
legal_doc1718×838 172 KB

1 Like
2

Hi @AloysioFranca,
I normally use https://apitemplate.io/ and it has a free version that let you create up to 50 images/pdf per month.

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3

Hi! I understand your challenges with generating legal documents in Bubble. I could develop a custom plugin that combines an advanced rich text editor with a high-fidelity PDF generator, ensuring that indentations, spaces, and page breaks are preserved correctly. If you’re interested, we can discuss more details about your specific requirements. I’d love to know which text editor you’re currently using and what features you’d like to add to make it work the way you want. From there, I can start working on a solution.

4

Thank you, @esardila !

In my case, users will be using the rich text editor freely, so the documents won’t follow a standardized format. That’s why I believe a template-based system wouldn’t work.

5

Thank you, @proteuscrypto

I switched to using Zeroqode’s Advanced Rich Text Editor, so now my outputs are in HTML. With BBCode, even Bubble couldn’t interpret indentations correctly. It’s very limited.

I know there are many options for generating PDFs from HTML through integrations, but most of them are quite expensive for an app that’s still in the testing phase. I’m from Brazil, and here, anything priced in dollars is extremely expensive.

On the Zeroqode forum, one of the support agents mentioned that PDF Conjurer can work with HTML. I’ve never seen that before and don’t know how to make it work. I’m also not sure if he was mistaken. He hasn’t responded to me since yesterday.

Anyway, I don’t think developing a new plugin just for this would be necessary, but I really appreciate your willingness to help!

1 Like
6

The good thing is you can send HTML code and it will be render perfectly. Basically you only need to set the template with margins, header, and footer.

I’m not being sponsored, but we were having a lot of clients asking for PDF documents and, after testing a bunch of options, this has been the best one so far.

7

Understood, @esardila. I will consider it and run some tests. In the beginning, I will probably look for a more affordable option, but it’s good to know that this is possible. Thank you very much for the advice!

8

Hey @AloysioFranca, I agree with @esardila that apitemplate.io is a good solution but I can see why it might not suit your use case.

I’m not sure if it will work for you price-wise but PDF Potion should be able to do the job for you.

You can design the contact in a separate page of your app (that the user never sees):

2025-02-20 13.49.33

And then generate a PDF of that page:

2025-02-20 13.51.12

The PDF will look exactly like the what you have on your Bubble page and works nicely with bbcode :slight_smile:

If you have any questions just let me know.

9

Hi @alexcooney5 !
Yeah, I saw some videos of PDF Potion. It looks awesome. The price is exactly the same as API Template.

My concern is that my app is a digital signature system where one single journey can generate multiple PDFs.

  • There’s the preview PDF with formatted text.
  • There’s the first issuance PDF.
  • There’s the updated data PDF.
  • There’s the signed document PDF.

For just one user flow, several PDFs can be generated. And I can’t invest too much until (or IF) I have paying users.

In any case, I can’t escape from using one of these paid tools. PDF Conjurer would be perfect, but BBCode is PAINFULLY limited. The solution is in HTML.

Thank you very much for your advice!

1 Like
10

No problem @AloysioFranca, if there’s any other way I can help just let me know :slight_smile:

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11

I’ve built 3 different contract builders, all drag and drop customization, all with online signatures, and all with PDF generation. One was pretty much like pandadocs and another a bit more simple editing like docusign

There are multiple ways of accomplishing what you’re trying to do both template and non template based. Feel free to shoot me a message and we can setup a call to discuss the best route for you.

The base of one was my email builder however, it’s not the route I would recommend most people go.

2 Likes
12

Hi @chris.williamson1996 ! What an amazing app! I have never seen anything like this created with Bubble.

For now, I solved my problem using the iLovePDF API along with the advanced rich text editor from ZQ. For my target audience of lawyers, this text editor seems to be the best option, as it is most similar to Google Docs. However, I will definitely look into your editor to explore additional options.

Thank you very much for sharing!

2 Likes