July 12, 2026
How to Generate Hundreds of Personalized PDFs from an Excel File
How PDF mail merge works
A mail merge combines a template — the fixed layout — with a data source, your spreadsheet, which varies. Each row becomes one document: the “Name” column fills the name field, the “Amount” column fills the amount field, and so on, repeated automatically for every row.
The manual way, and what it really costs
Doing it by hand means opening the template, copy-pasting each value from Excel, exporting to PDF, and renaming the file — row after row, starting over at the first typo. Across a hundred documents, that's easily half a day lost, with a real risk of mistakes.
The automatic way with InOneShot
InOneShot is a Windows app built for PDF mail merge. Import a PDF template and an Excel file, place fields by drag and drop — columns, today's date, a signature image, a QR code — then click once: the app generates one PDF per row, names each file automatically, and delivers a ZIP ready to send. Everything runs locally; the data never leaves the machine.
Once the template is set up, running the same batch next month takes seconds.