Pdfcrowd Blog

New:

• Added the setClientCertificate() method.
• Added the setClientCertificatePassword() method.
• Added the setHttpProxy() method.
• Added the setHttpsProxy() method.
• Added the setPageBackgroundColor() method.

Fixes:

• Python API client: correct handling of custom string classes, e.g. SafeText in Django.
• Converter: using the 'pdfcrowd-remove' and 'pdfcrowd-hide' CSS classes with the setElementToConvert() method works correctly now.

• Mobile friendly web.
• The online conversion form offers more customization settings.
• Added example integrations of our API with several web frameworks.
• API client libraries:
  • .NET client is now available on NuGet.
  • Node.js: enhanced error reporting in default handlers.
  • PHP: autodetect availability of file_get_contents and cURL.

• We released an API client library for the Go language. The library supports API v2.
• We fixed an issue with large PDFs caused by suboptimal image encoding.

Changes:

• added the setTag() method
• the Java client library can run on Android

Changes:

• Use a fallback if cURL is not found.

Changes:

• PHP: The client throws an exception if the local file can't be written.
• All: More descriptive SSL error messages.

Changes:

• Added the setDisableSmartShrinking method.

Overview

The Pdfcrowd API v2 is the new generation of our API. It is not 100% backward compatible but the changes are mostly syntactic and the migration from API v1 should be straightforward.

If you want to switch your current API v1 plan to API v2, please follow these steps:

1. Activate the free API v2 trial in your account page.
2. Follow the instructions below and migrate your API v1 implementation to API v2.
3. If the API v2 works to your satisfaction, choose from our API v2 plans.
4. If you no longer need the API v1 implementation, you can cancel the API v1 plan.

API v2 Links

API client libraries

If you use our API client library, install the latest version from the API home page. The library supports both API versions and you can easily run both implementations side by side under your current Pdfcrowd account.

The migration should consist of these steps:

1. Instantiate the API v2 client.
2. Migrate the convert*** method (the one that returns PDF).
3. Migrate the conversion settings.
4. Error handling (important)

API client instantiation

The code below shows how to instantiate API clients. The first line corresponds to what you have in your current API v1 implementation (client_v1). The second line shows how to instantiate the API v2 client (client_v2).

// PHP
client_v1 = new Pdfcrowd("username", "apikey")
client_v2 = new \Pdfcrowd\HtmlToPdfClient("username", "apikey")

// Java
Client client_v1 = new Client("username", "apikey");
Pdfcrowd.HtmlToPdfClient client_v2 = new Pdfcrowd.HtmlToPdfClient("username", "apikey");

// .NET
pdfcrowd.Client client_v1 = new pdfcrowd.Client("username", "apikey");
pdfcrowd.HtmlToPdfClient client_v2 = new pdfcrowd.HtmlToPdfClient("username", "apikey");

# Ruby
client_v1 = Pdfcrowd::Client.new("username", "apikey");
client_v2 = Pdfcrowd::HtmlToPdfClient.new("username", "apikey");

# Python
client_v1 = pdfcrowd.Client("username", "apikey")
client_v2 = pdfcrowd.HtmlToPdfClient("username", "apikey")

// Node.js
var client_v1 = new pdf.Pdfcrowd("username", "apikey")
var client_v2 = new pdfcrowd.HtmlToPdfClient("username", "apikey")

Conversion methods

The following table shows the mapping of conversion methods.

Conversion settings methods

If your API implementation is in Node.js, continue below.

If your API v1 implementation customizes the conversion settings, check the following table to find the corresponding API v2 functionality.

Node.js

API client instantiation:

// Node.js
var client_v1 = new pdf.Pdfcrowd("username", "apikey")
var client_v2 = new pdfcrowd.HtmlToPdfClient("username", "apikey")

The API v1 client uses a dictionary of options. API v2 uses methods on the client object.

// API v1
client_v1.convertURI(
    'http://example.com',
    pdf.saveToFile("example.pdf"), {
        width: "11in",
        height: "8.5in",
        user_print_media: true,
    }
);

// API v2
client_v2.setPageSize("Letter");
client_v2.setUsePrintMedia(true);

client_v2.convertUrlToFile(
    "http://example.com",
    "example.pdf",
    function(err, fileName) {
        if (err) return console.error("Pdfcrowd Error: " + err);
        // success, pdf was saved to fileName
    });

See the HTML to PDF API v2 - Node.js documentation for more examples.

The following table maps API v1 options to API v2 methods. The mapping of the convert*** methods is here.

HTTP access

The API v2 endpoint is https://api.pdfcrowd.com/convert/
The authentication method for user credentials is HTTP Basic Access Authentication.

Convert URL

# API v1
curl -F "username=username" -F "key=apikey" \
     -F 'src=http://example.com' \
     -o example.pdf \
     https://pdfcrowd.com/api/pdf/convert/uri/

# API v2
curl -f -u "username:apikey" \
     -F "url=http://www.example.com" \
     -o example.pdf \
     https://api.pdfcrowd.com/convert/

Convert file

# API v1
curl -F "username=username" -F "key=apikey" \
     -F 'src=@example.html' \
     -o example.pdf \
      https://pdfcrowd.com/api/pdf/convert/html/

# API v2
curl -f -u "username:apikey" \
     -F "file=@example.html" \
     -o example.pdf \
     https://api.pdfcrowd.com/convert/

Convert string

# API v1
curl -F "username=username" -F "key=apikey" \
     -F "src=<html><body><h1>Hello World!</h1></body></html>" \
     -o hello.pdf \
     https://pdfcrowd.com/api/pdf/convert/html/

# API v2
curl -f -u "username:apikey" \
     -F "text=<html><body><h1>Hello World!</h1></body></html>" \
     -o hello.pdf \
     https://api.pdfcrowd.com/convert/

The following table maps API v1 options to API v2 options.

Miscellaneous

Header and footer

Variables
Replace variables with HTML classes:
%u ⇒ pdfcrowd-source-url
%p ⇒ pdfcrowd-page-number
%n ⇒ pdfcrowd-page-count

<!-- API v1 -->
Page %p of %n.

<!-- API v2 -->
Page <span class='pdfcrowd-page-number'></span> of <span class='pdfcrowd-page-count'></span>.

Placement
API v1 places headers and footers to the margin area. API v2 places them to the printing area. The height of the header and footer can be set with setHeaderHeight and setFooterHeight.

Units

API v1 allows to specify a unit-less numeric value that is interpreted as points (1/72 of an inch). API v2 doesn't allow this, the value must be specified with a mm, in, cm or pt suffix.

Addendum

Changes:

• Fixed an issue in Python and NodeJs libraries.
• All API requests are now encoded as multipart/form-data.

After 8 months in Beta, the new Pdfcrowd API is ready for your production workloads. Thanks to everyone who provided feedback!

The API v2 brings a lot of improvements and solves many issues present in the API v1. It introduces minor backward incompatible changes but the migration from the API v1 should be straightforward.

The API v1 will continue to work for accounts that were opened before introducing the API v2. However, it will no longer receive any updates.

What's new in the API v2?

• Faithful conversions. The API implements the latest HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript specifications.
• No downtime. The API is highly available with automatic capacity scaling and failover. It is hosted in the Google Cloud Platform.
• In addition to HTML to PDF, the new API enables these conversions:
  • HTML to Image
  • PDF to PDF
  • Image to PDF
  • Image to Image
• New features:
  • Linearized PDFs for fast web view.
  • Post-load DOM manipulation via custom JavaScript (remove, add and modify elements).
  • An option to specify a delay to wait before printing if the page loads dynamic content.
  • An option to send session specific information via cookies.
  • An option to print only a part of the HTML document.
  • Multi-page watermarks and backgrounds to allow to fill in scanned PDF forms.
  • Intuitive HTML zoom.
  • Detailed conversion logs that can help with conversion troubleshooting.
  • Exportable conversion statistics.
  • Concurrent conversions.
  • Support for modern JavaScript charting libraries (Google Charts, Highcharts, etc.)
  • Improved remote font support (Google Fonts, Typekit, etc.)
  • CJK languages and complex scripts (Arabic alphabet, Brahmic scripts).