Quick overview
This workflow collects a research paper PDF via an n8n Form, uses an AI agent (with schema validation) to generate a seminar-ready teaching pack and slide plan, renders it to a PDF with Gotenberg, and emails the finished pack to the requester via Gmail.
How it works
- Starts when someone submits an n8n Form with a paper PDF, their email address, session length, student level, and optional focus.
- Extracts text from the uploaded PDF and stops with a “no text” message if the file appears to be image-only or too short.
- Sends the paper text plus the session parameters to a LangChain AI agent to produce a structured teaching pack JSON that is validated and auto-fixed against a predefined schema.
- Converts the structured teaching pack into print-ready HTML for an A4 handout and slide-by-slide delivery plan.
- Posts the HTML to a self-hosted Gotenberg endpoint to render it into a PDF file.
- Emails the generated PDF teaching pack to the submitted email address using Gmail and shows a completion message in the form.
Setup
- Provide credentials for the chat model used by the AI agent (Alibaba Cloud Qwen) and for Mistral (used for fallback and JSON auto-fix), or swap these model nodes for your preferred provider.
- Connect a Gmail account in the Gmail node so the workflow can send the PDF as an email attachment.
- Make Gotenberg reachable from n8n and confirm the render URL (default
http://gotenberg:3000/forms/chromium/convert/html), or replace the rendering steps with a different PDF service.
- Share the n8n Form production URL from the “Upload a paper” trigger so users can submit papers.