HTML to PDF with HTTP POST

Overview

The Pdfcrowd API is HTTP-based, the communication is made through normal HTTP requests. You can call the API by sending an HTTP request to the API server address with options passed as POST data.

You can also check out our API client libraries if you want to implement the API in your favorite programming language.

Below are sample PDFs generated by the API.
sample
JavaScript Chart sample
Invoice
sample
Newsletter sample
Fillable Form

Quick Start

Here are HTTP POST examples for quickly getting started with the API. See more examples. 

curl -f -u "demo:ce544b6ea52a5621fb9d55f8b542d14d" \
    -o "MyLayout.pdf" \
    -F "file=@/path/to/MyLayout.html" \
    https://api.pdfcrowd.com/convert/20.10/
curl -f -u "demo:ce544b6ea52a5621fb9d55f8b542d14d" \
    -o "HelloWorld.pdf" \
    --form-string "text=<html><body><h1>Hello World!</h1></body></html>" \
    https://api.pdfcrowd.com/convert/20.10/

# or read HTML from a pipe
html_producer | curl -u "demo:ce544b6ea52a5621fb9d55f8b542d14d" \
    -o "HelloWorld.pdf" \
    -F "text=<-" \
    https://api.pdfcrowd.com/convert/20.10/

Authentication

The credentials to access the API are your Pdfcrowd username and the API key. You can try out the API without registering using the following demo credentials:

  • Username: demo
  • API key: ce544b6ea52a5621fb9d55f8b542d14d

To get your personal API credentials, you can start a free API trial or buy the API license.

The authentication method for user credentials is HTTP Basic Access Authentication. You provide your credentials every time you make a request.

Server Address

The server address is https://api.pdfcrowd.com/convert/20.10/

Other addresses can be used:

  • https://api.pdfcrowd.com/convert/latest/ is for the latest converter version.
  • https://api.pdfcrowd.com/convert/20.10/ is for version 20.10.
  • https://api.pdfcrowd.com/convert/18.10/ is for version 18.10.
  • https://api.pdfcrowd.com/convert/ is a shortcut for version 18.10.

The POST request content type must be multipart/form-data if the request includes any local files. Otherwise application/x-www-form-urlencoded can also be used.

API Output Preview

To get a quick idea of what the API output will look like, enter a web page or upload an HTML file using the form below. It will generate several API output previews with different conversion settings. You can then choose the one that looks best, and use the auto-generated API settings in your application.

Common Customizations

The API enables conversion of a web page, a local HTML file, or a string containing HTML.

The table below lists the most common customizations. You can also interactively explore the API in the API Playground.

Page size Change the page size with page_size . Pass -1 to page_height to get a single page PDF containing the whole document.
Page orientation Change the page orientation to landscape with orientation.
Page margins Adjust the page margins with margin_top, margin_bottom, margin_left, and margin_right.
Headers and footers Add headers and footers with header_html and footer_html. Set the height with footer_height and header_height.
You can learn more in this tutorial.
Zoom Scale the HTML contents with scale_factor.
Hide or remove elements You can use the following classes in your HTML code to hide or remove elements from the output:
  • pdfcrowd-remove - sets display:none!important on the element
  • pdfcrowd-hide - sets visibility:hidden!important on the element
Learn about other options.
Use @media print You can switch to the print version of the page (if it exists) with use_print_media.
Force page break You can force a page break with
<div style="page-break-before:always"></div>
Avoid page break You can avoid a page break inside an element with the following CSS
th, td, img { page-break-inside:avoid }
Run custom JavaScript You can use on_load_javascript or custom_javascript to alter the HTML contents with a custom JavaScript. In addition to the standard browser APIs, the custom JavaScript code can use helper functions from our JavaScript library .
Custom CSS styling You can alter CSS styling used during conversion with a custom JavaScript or using the pdfcrowd-body CSS class, which is automatically set on the HTML <body> element. You can, for example, set the H1 height to 48px by adding the following line to your CSS:
.pdfcrowd-body h1 { font-size: 48px; }
Add PDF signature You can create PDF containing a digital signature field. Such PDF can be digitally signed in, for example, Adobe Acrobat or Preview. Learn more in Create Digital Signature in PDF .
Fillable PDF form You can create fillable PDF containing interactive fields and buttons. Learn more in Create Fillable PDF Form.
HTML Templates Add data to your HTML template and convert it to PDF. Learn more in HTML Template to PDF.

Response Headers

HTTP response can contain the following headers.
You can find details about each conversion in your conversion log.

Name Description
x-pdfcrowd-debug-log URL to the debug log
x-pdfcrowd-remaining-credits the number of available conversion credits in your account
x-pdfcrowd-consumed-credits the number of credits consumed by the conversion
x-pdfcrowd-job-id the unique ID of the conversion
x-pdfcrowd-pages the total number of pages in the output document
x-pdfcrowd-total-pages the total number of pages in the original output document, including the pages excluded by print_page_range option
x-pdfcrowd-output-size the size of the output in bytes

Troubleshooting

POST Parameter Reference

Refer to the HTML to PDF POST Reference for a description of all options.