ActiveMerge turns a template and a data file into finished documents — one document per row, generated automatically. This guide walks through your first document from signup to download, in about five minutes.

Create your account

Sign up at activemerge.com with email, Google, or Microsoft. No credit card is required — the free plan includes 25 documents, one time, so you can try the full workflow before paying for anything.

Upload a template

A template is a normal Word, PowerPoint, or Excel file with placeholders — small tags marking the parts that change for each document.

Dear {first_name},
Thank you for completing {course_name} on {completion_date}.

Already have a template with fields defined? Upload it and ActiveMerge auto-detects the placeholders. Starting from scratch? Build the layout in Word, PowerPoint, or Excel first, add your {placeholders}, then upload.

Tip: Placeholder names should use letters, numbers, underscores, or hyphens — no spaces or symbols. See How to create templates for the full syntax, including repeating tables and images.

Add your data

Every row in your data becomes one generated document. ActiveMerge accepts data from several sources:

Excel, CSV, or JSON

A one-off list you already have on your device

Airtable

Data you manage in a base, with optional auto-trigger on status change

Notion

Data you manage in a Notion database

Google Drive

Files stored in Drive

AI-powered OCR

Extracting data from existing PDFs or images

A public form

Letting people submit their own data

Upload or connect your source, and ActiveMerge reads the column headers automatically.

Match placeholders to your data

ActiveMerge compares your template’s placeholders to your data’s column headers and matches them automatically — for example, {first_name} to a “First Name” column. Anything it couldn’t confidently match is flagged so you can set it manually before generating.

Preview before you commit

Generate a single preview document, watermarked, before running the full batch. This is the fastest way to catch a mismatched field or formatting issue before it shows up across hundreds of files.

Generate and download

Once the preview looks right, run the job. ActiveMerge generates one document per row and gives you:

See it in action

Document generation walkthrough

Use Airtable to generate documents

What's next

Once your first template works, these features turn a one-off batch into a repeatable pipeline:

Automations

Trigger generation automatically when an Airtable or Notion record changes status, on a schedule, or via an incoming webhook

Forms

Turn any template into a public form link so people fill in their own data and receive the finished document by email

Workflows

Chain multiple templates together into one reusable pipeline

E-signatures

Collect legally binding signatures on generated documents, with a full audit trail (ESIGN, UETA, and eIDAS compliant)

Email campaigns

Send a batch of generated documents to a list of recipients directly from ActiveMerge

API

A full REST API for generation, merging, and image generation, if you want to trigger everything from your own app

Integrations

Connect Zapier, Make, WordPress forms, Google Drive, and more from the Integrations page

Getting started with ActiveMerge