Populate optional images on a Word template from a Form

[ChrisCollao]

Hi everyone,

I would like to ask if theres a way to build a Flow that allows to put an image in a Word template pulled from an optional (it must be optional) question from Forms.

Basically... I have a Form where users can answer some questions, and load an image (optional).

This answers are being loaded to a Word template.

This word template has a field where the image can be loaded. But the image must be optional.

Any ideas?

Thanks a lot.

If you need pictures, schemas or more info, just let me know.

[v-litu-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @ChrisCollao,

At first, we should use empty() function to determine the answer of Optional image whether is empty, if there is no image upload, the answer will return null, empty() function will return true. If it not return true, get the uploaded file content and populate it into the Word template:

About get the upload file content in the MS Form, please refer to this post:

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Flows/Working-with-files-from-the-Forms-quot-File-Uploa...

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Lin Tu
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[ChrisCollao]

Hi @v-litu-msft  , thanks for your help.

With your way I should create 2 word templates? One when there's an imagen, and another for when there is not?

[v-litu-msft]

Hi @ChrisCollao,

Yes, if the image exists, go to the branch to append the image into Word template, if not, go to the brach not append image.

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Lin Tu
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[ChrisCollao]

Hi @v-litu-msft thanks again... 

Hmmm... Okay, not a very elegant way to solve it. Because if I need 3 optional images, then I should create 9 different word templates to satisfy all the possible branches. Right?

Will try this option and let you know.

Best regards.

[Digital]

Did you solve this by using multiple word templates with and without images? I'm have the same problem and this just seems absurd that you can't pass a blank value so that field is ignored in the template.

[ChrisCollao]

Hi @Digital , sorry for the late.

Yes, I couldn't find another way, there's not much material online about this kind of use for that function.

Here you can see the tree with just 2 images:

Basically on each condition I do check if the output of the question where should be an image is empty, one for each output. When is not empty, I use compose to obtain the name of the file and then I use the "get file using path" onedrive connector. After you populate the template you must create the file, so to "merge" all the outputs I did this:

In the *Field Content I used an "if" where I check on every Populate template output if it's empty, if empty it checks the next one and so on.

It's not fancy but it works. If you have 3 optional images then you must create a tree with 9 templates.

The 0s and 1s makes reference to if there's image or not. Just a way of name I managed to not go crazy. 0.0 means the file where are no image fields, 1.1 is where are two images.

Finally... Some notes apart that you should know:

- The populate word template step crush if the file size it's greater than 10 MB. It kind of sucks because in Forms the smaller maximum file size you can set it's 10MB. So... if a user uploads 2 or 3 pictures bigger than 4-5 MB, your flow will crush in that step. There's some services that can resize the files, but they are external.

- You should use error management in the create file and convert file steps. Sometimes they crush because they "can't reach the file" or the URL is not correct. It's a onedrive lapsus and you can solve them if you set some retry mechanism. I did a "do until" where the flow retries every 5 minutes up to 1200 times until a variable is changed after the succesful step.

Let me know if you could make it or if you have any other question 🙂

Best regards.

[tyhoffmann]

Better late than never!

This won't work for everyone but I had the idea to create a variable in my power automate flow for an essentially invisible base64 encoded image that I could pass into the Word template in place of null. 

When I populate my Word template I do a simple conditional check for if I have an image and if so use it it, otherwise just pass in the blank base64 encoded image. This way I'm not passing the Word template "null" which as we all have found results in an error, but still effectively don't see an image in the Word document itself.

[ChrisCollao]

Interesting walk around, @tyhoffmann . Do you have screenshots about that step?

On my last iteration of this problem I've avoided the nested ifs, and made an image counter that after checking all the images, it passes the counter to a switch that selects the word template for the specific counter.

Best regards 🙂

[tyhoffmann]

At the beginning of my Flow I've initialized a variable that houses the seemingly invisible image as a base64 encoded image.

From there, within my word template, I can simply check my condition however I like and in the case I don't have an image to use I can use my blank image variable instead. In my case I chose to do it all with a formula but you could use branching logic, more variables, etc.

Specifically, I had an array of potential images and I just check if the array at the appropriate index has a value and if not to use the blank image.

The following is an example of how I'm setting the image placeholder in the word template:

if 
(
    equals
    (
        variables('ImagesList')?[0]?['Image'], 
        null
    ), 
    variables('BlankImage'), 
    variables('ImagesList')?[0]?['Image']
)

[Amapola188]

@tyhoffmann Would you please have the JSON to copy for that blank image variable? I tried to copy it out of the image but I don't think there will ever be a time that OCR can tell an I from an l ... 

Thanks.