Word Document Automation Using Power Automate Desktop

Step-by-Step Power Automate Desktop Word Document Automation

Below is a detailed guide on how to populate word documents using power automate desktop: step-by-step automation guide

Step 1: Prepare Your Word Template

Start drafting your Word template and save it as template.docx, make sure to include place holders that correspond to the column headers in your spreadsheet

There are two ways to create placeholders:

Use Bookmarks: Go to Insert, click on Bookmark, give it a name, and then click on Add.

Use Placeholder Text: Go to insert, click on Placeholders, select the one you want, and then click on Add.

Step 2: Prepare Your Excel Sheet (Data source)

Create a spreadsheet with columns like Name, Email, Address, and more. Save this file (Data.xlsx).

Step 3: Launch Power Automate Desktop

Once you have the Excel file and Word template ready, open Power Automate Desktop and click on New Flow → Name it, e.g., Generate Word Letters

Step 4: Add ‘Set Variable’ Action

You have to create and set the variables before the loop begins. For the name, you must mention TemplatePath, and for the value, you have to include the actual path to your template file. For instance: C:\Path\To\Template.docx\

The same is done for the output folder as well; you set a variable, put the name in, and the value, which includes the output path.

Step 5: Add ‘Launch Excel’ Action

Once you click on Launch Excel, select Open Workbook or open the following document and fill in the document path, ensure ‘Make instance visible’ is checked.

Step 6: Add ‘Read from Excel Worksheet’ Action

Make sure to retrieve all available values from the worksheet and store them in ExcelData. Finally, click on add action again, Close Excel → Enable Save changes = No (If you are not modifying the Excel)

Step 7: Add ‘For Each (Loops)’ Action

Click on For Each and the Value to iterate would be %ExcelData%, and store it into CurrentRow.

Step 8: Add ‘Launch Word’ Action

Inside the loop, search for the Launch Word action in the action pane and add the Open Word Document or Open the following document action → Select your Word template and choose “Open as Read-Only” if you don’t plan to save changes. If you do, make sure this option is unchecked.

Step 9: Populate Placeholders

Add ‘Launch Word’ Action, and if your Word template contains bookmarks:

You must use Set Word Bookmark Content for each placeholder. For example, if the bookmark name is CustomerName, then the value should be specified using dynamic text or a variable like %CustomerName%.

If using placeholder text instead (e.g., <>):

You must use “Replace Text in Word Document” and set the Word Instance: %WordInstance%, Text to find and replace it with %CurrentRow[0]%

This assumes that the first column is the name and matches whole words only.

Tip: If multiple placeholders exist, use multiple Find and Replace or Bookmark actions, one per field.

Step 10: Save the New Document

Once you add the Save Word Document As action, you have to fill in %WordInstance% in the Word Instance option. Make sure to set the document format to default (From Extension) and specify the output or destination path, for instance: C:GeneratedDocs%CustomerName%.docx.

Step 11: Close Word

You have to add the Close Word Document action and store it in the same Word instance. Lastly, all that is left is to end the flow.

Optionally, you can add a display message: Documents generated successfully! (This can be done using a Display Message action.)

Here is a sample Workflow that generated documents in bulk!