PDF from HTML#

Important

This method will process any JavaScript which the webpage triggers when it loads. For example if the the webpage triggers a JavaScript popup window then that will be included in the conversion process. There is no option to disable JavaScript on the supplied HTML page.

Available Methods#

/pdf/convert/from/html#

Create PDF from HTML.

  • Method: POST

  • Endpoint: /v1/pdf/convert/from/html

Attributes#

Note

Attributes are case-sensitive and should be inside JSON for POST request.

Remember to ensure that request sizes are less than 4 mb in file size 3.

Attribute

Description

Required

html

Input HTML code to be converted. To convert the link to a PDF use the /pdf/convert/from/url endpoint instead.

yes unless you are using a templateId instead.

templateId

Set to the ID of your HTML template. You can find and copy the ID from HTML to PDF Templates.

no unless you are are not using html.

templateData

Set it to a string with input JSON data (recommended) or CSV data.

no unless you are using templateId.

margins

Set to CSS style margins like 10px, 5mm, 5in for all sides or 5px 5px 5px 5px (the order of margins is top, right, bottom, left).

no

paperSize

A4 is set by default. Can be Letter, Legal, Tabloid, Ledger, A0, A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6 or a custom size. Custom size can be set in px (pixels), mm or in (inches) with width and height separated by space like this: 200 300, 200px 300px, 200mm 300mm, 20cm 30cm or 6in 8in.

no

orientation

Set to Portrait or Landscape. Portrait by default.

no

printBackground

true by default. Set to false to disable printing of background.

no

mediaType

Uses print by default. Set to screen to convert HTML as it appears in a browser or print to convert as it appears for printing or none to set none as mediaType for CSS styles.

no

DoNotWaitFullLoad

false by default. Set to true to skip waiting for full load (like full video load etc. that may affect the total conversion time).

no

header

User definable HTML for the header to be applied on every page header.

no

footer

User definable HTML for the footer to be applied on every page bottom.

no

async

Set async to true for long processes to run in the background, API will then return a jobId which you can use with the Background Job Check endpoint to check the status of the process and retrieve the output while you can proceed with other tasks.

no

name

File name for the generated output, the input must be in string format.

no

expiration

Set the expiration time for the output link in minutes (default is 60 i.e 60 minutes or 1 hour), After this specified duration, any generated output file(s) will be automatically deleted from PDF.co Temporary Files Storage. The maximum duration for link expiration varies based on your current subscription plan. To store permanent input files (e.g. re-usable images, pdf templates, documents) consider using PDF.co Built-In Files Storage.

no

profiles

Use this parameter to set additional configurations for fine-tuning and extra options. Explore the Profiles section for more.

no

HTML Templates#

Use the dashboard to manage your HTML to PDF Templates.

Templates use {{Mustache}} and Handlebars templating syntax. You just need to insert macros surrounded by double brackets like {{ and }}.

Some Examples of macro inside html template:

  • {{variable1}} will be replaced with test if you set templateData to { "variable1": "test"}

  • {{object1.variable1}} will be replaced with test if you set templateData to { "object1": { "variable1": "test"} }

  • Simple conditions are also supported. For example: {{#if paid}} invoice was paid {{/if}} will show invoice was paid when templateData is set to { "paid": true }.

Sample JSON input#

"templateData": "{ 'paid': true, 'invoice_id': '0002', 'total': '$999.99' }"

Note

If you use JSON as input then make sure to escape it first (with JSON.stringify(dataObject) in JS). Escaping is when every " is replaced with \".

Example with " be escaped as \" then: "templateData": "{ \"paid\": true, \"invoice_id\": \"0002\", \"total\": \"$999.99\" }".

Sample CSV input#

"templateData": "paid,invoice_id,total
true,0002,$999.99"

Query parameters#

No query parameters accepted.

Payload 3#

{
    "html": "<h1>Hello World!</h1><a href='https://pdf.co'>Go to PDF.co</a>",
    "name": "result.pdf",
    "margins": "5px 5px 5px 5px",
    "paperSize": "Letter",
    "orientation": "Portrait",
    "printBackground": true,
    "header": "",
    "footer": "",
    "mediaType": "print",
    "async": false
}

Response 2#

{
    "url": "https://pdf-temp-files.s3.amazonaws.com/97dc323f32794eae8fa6602f5bd981c1/result.pdf",
    "pageCount": 1,
    "error": false,
    "status": 200,
    "name": "result.pdf",
    "remainingCredits": 60646
}

CURL#

curl --location --request POST 'https://api.pdf.co/v1/pdf/convert/from/html' \
--header 'x-api-key: *******************' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{
    "html": "<h1>Hello World!</h1><a href=\"https://pdf.co\">Go to PDF.co</a>",
    "name": "result.pdf",
    "margins": "5px 5px 5px 5px",
    "paperSize": "Letter",
    "orientation": "Portrait",
    "printBackground": true,
    "header": "",
    "footer": "",
    "mediaType": "print",
    "async": false
}'

Code samples#

var https = require("https");
var path = require("path");
var fs = require("fs");


// The authentication key (API Key).
// Get your own by registering at https://app.pdf.co
const API_KEY = "***************************";

// HTML Input
const inputHtml = "./sample.html";
// Destination PDF file name
const DestinationFile = "./result.pdf";

// Prepare requests params as JSON
var parameters = {};

// Input HTML code to be converted. Required.
parameters["html"] = fs.readFileSync(inputHtml, "utf8");

// Name of resulting file
parameters["name"] = path.basename(DestinationFile);

// Set to css style margins like 10 px or 5px 5px 5px 5px.
parameters["margins"] = "5px 5px 5px 5px";

// Can be Letter, A4, A5, A6 or custom size like 200x200
parameters["paperSize"] = "Letter";

// Set to Portrait or Landscape. Portrait by default.
parameters["orientation"] = "Portrait";

// true by default. Set to false to disbale printing of background.
parameters["printBackground"] = true;

// If large input document, process in async mode by passing true
parameters["async"] = false;

// Set to HTML for header to be applied on every page at the header.
parameters["header"] = "";

// Set to HTML for footer to be applied on every page at the bottom.
parameters["footer"] = "";


// Convert JSON object to string
var jsonPayload = JSON.stringify(parameters);

// Prepare request to `HTML To PDF` API endpoint
var url = '/v1/pdf/convert/from/html';
var reqOptions = {
    host: "api.pdf.co",
    path: url,
    method: "POST",
    headers: {
        "x-api-key": API_KEY,
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
        "Content-Length": Buffer.byteLength(jsonPayload, 'utf8')
    }
};

// Send request
var postRequest = https.request(reqOptions, (response) => {
    response.on("data", (d) => {
        // Parse JSON response
        var data = JSON.parse(d);
        if (data.error == false) {
            // Download PDF file
            var file = fs.createWriteStream(DestinationFile);
            https.get(data.url, (response2) => {
                response2.pipe(file)
                    .on("close", () => {
                        console.log(`Generated PDF file saved as "${DestinationFile}" file.`);
                    });
            });
        }
        else {
            // Service reported error
            console.log(data.message);
        }
    });
}).on("error", (e) => {
    // Request error
    console.log(e);
});

// Write request data
postRequest.write(jsonPayload);
postRequest.end();

import os
import  json
import requests # pip install requests

# The authentication key (API Key).
# Get your own by registering at https://app.pdf.co
API_KEY = "**************************"

# Base URL for PDF.co Web API requests
BASE_URL = "https://api.pdf.co/v1"

# HTML template
file_read = open(".\\sample.html", mode='r', encoding= 'utf-8')
SampleHtml = file_read.read()
file_read.close()

# Destination PDF file name
DestinationFile = ".\\result.pdf"


def main(args = None):
    GeneratePDFFromHtml(SampleHtml, DestinationFile)


def GeneratePDFFromHtml(SampleHtml, destinationFile):
    """Converts HTML to PDF using PDF.co Web API"""

    # Prepare requests params as JSON
    parameters = {}

    # Input HTML code to be converted. Required.
    parameters["html"] = SampleHtml

    #  Name of resulting file
    parameters["name"] = os.path.basename(destinationFile)

    # Set to css style margins like 10 px or 5px 5px 5px 5px.
    parameters["margins"] = "5px 5px 5px 5px"

    # Can be Letter, A4, A5, A6 or custom size like 200x200
    parameters["paperSize"] = "Letter"

    # Set to Portrait or Landscape. Portrait by default.
    parameters["orientation"] = "Portrait"

    # true by default. Set to false to disable printing of background.
    parameters["printBackground"] = "true"

    # If large input document, process in async mode by passing true
    parameters["async"] = "false"

    # Set to HTML for header to be applied on every page at the header.
    parameters["header"] = ""

    # Set to HTML for footer to be applied on every page at the bottom.
    parameters["footer"] = ""

    # Prepare URL for 'HTML To PDF' API request
    url = "{}/pdf/convert/from/html".format(
        BASE_URL
    )

    # Execute request and get response as JSON

    response = requests.post(url, data=parameters, headers={ "x-api-key": API_KEY })
    if (response.status_code == 200):
        json = response.json()

        if json["error"] == False:
            #  Get URL of result file
            resultFileUrl = json["url"]
            # Download result file
            r = requests.get(resultFileUrl, stream=True)
            if (r.status_code == 200):
                with open(destinationFile, 'wb') as file:
                    for chunk in r:
                        file.write(chunk)
                print(f"Result file saved as \"{destinationFile}\" file.")
            else:
                print(f"Request error: {response.status_code} {response.reason}")
        else:
            # Show service reported error
            print(json["message"])
    else:
        print(f"Request error: {response.status_code} {response.reason}")

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Net;
using Newtonsoft.Json;
using Newtonsoft.Json.Linq;

namespace PDFcoApiExample
{
    class Program
    {
        // The authentication key (API Key).
        // Get your own by registering at https://app.pdf.co
        const String API_KEY = "******************************";

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            // HTML input
            string inputSample = File.ReadAllText(@".\sample.html");

            // Destination PDF file name
            string destinationFile = @".\result.pdf";

            // Create standard .NET web client instance
            WebClient webClient = new WebClient();

            // Set API Key
            webClient.Headers.Add("x-api-key", API_KEY);

            // Set JSON content type
            webClient.Headers.Add("Content-Type", "application/json");

            try
            {
                // Prepare requests params as JSON
                Dictionary<string, object> parameters = new Dictionary<string, object>();

                // Input HTML code to be converted. Required.
                parameters.Add("html", inputSample);

                // Name of resulting file
                parameters.Add("name", Path.GetFileName(destinationFile));

                // Set to css style margins like 10 px or 5px 5px 5px 5px.
                parameters.Add("margins", "5px 5px 5px 5px");

                // Can be Letter, A4, A5, A6 or custom size like 200x200
                parameters.Add("paperSize", "Letter");

                // Set to Portrait or Landscape. Portrait by default.
                parameters.Add("orientation", "Portrait");

                // true by default. Set to false to disbale printing of background.
                parameters.Add("printBackground", true);

                // If large input document, process in async mode by passing true
                parameters.Add("async", false);

                // Set to HTML for header to be applied on every page at the header.
                parameters.Add("header", "");

                // Set to HTML for footer to be applied on every page at the bottom.
                parameters.Add("footer", "");


                // Convert dictionary of params to JSON
                string jsonPayload = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(parameters);


                // Prepare URL for `HTML to PDF` API call
                string url = "https://api.pdf.co/v1/pdf/convert/from/html";

                // Execute POST request with JSON payload
                string response = webClient.UploadString(url, jsonPayload);

                // Parse JSON response
                JObject json = JObject.Parse(response);

                if (json["error"].ToObject<bool>() == false)
                {
                    // Get URL of generated PDF file
                    string resultFileUrl = json["url"].ToString();

                    webClient.Headers.Remove("Content-Type"); // remove the header required for only the previous request

                    // Download the PDF file
                    webClient.DownloadFile(resultFileUrl, destinationFile);

                    Console.WriteLine("Generated PDF document saved as \"{0}\" file.", destinationFile);
                }
                else
                {
                    Console.WriteLine(json["message"].ToString());
                }
            }
            catch (WebException e)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(e.ToString());
            }

            webClient.Dispose();

            Console.WriteLine();
            Console.WriteLine("Press any key to exit...");
            Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }
}

package com.company;

import com.google.gson.JsonObject;
import com.google.gson.JsonParser;
import com.google.gson.JsonPrimitive;
import okhttp3.*;

import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.nio.file.Paths;

public class Main
{
    // The authentication key (API Key).
    // Get your own by registering at https://app.pdf.co
    final static String API_KEY = "***********************************";


    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException
    {
        // HTML input
        final String inputSample = new String(Files.readAllBytes(Paths.get(".\\sample.html")));
        // Destination PDF file name
        final Path destinationFile = Paths.get(".\\result.pdf");

        // Create HTTP client instance
        OkHttpClient webClient = new OkHttpClient();

        // Prepare URL for `HTML to PDF` API call
        String apiUrl = "https://api.pdf.co/v1/pdf/convert/from/html";

        // Make correctly escaped (encoded) URL
        URL url = null;
        try
        {
            url = new URI(null, apiUrl, null).toURL();
        }
        catch (URISyntaxException e)
        {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        // Prepare request body in JSON format
        JsonObject jsonBody = new JsonObject();

        // Input HTML code to be converted. Required.
        jsonBody.add("html", new JsonPrimitive(inputSample));

        // Name of resulting file
        jsonBody.add("name", new JsonPrimitive(destinationFile.getFileName().toString()));

        // Set to css style margins like 10 px or 5px 5px 5px 5px.
        jsonBody.add("margins", new JsonPrimitive("5px 5px 5px 5px"));

        // Can be Letter, A4, A5, A6 or custom size like 200x200
        jsonBody.add("paperSize", new JsonPrimitive("Letter"));

        // Set to Portrait or Landscape. Portrait by default.
        jsonBody.add("orientation", new JsonPrimitive("Portrait"));

        // true by default. Set to false to disable printing of background.
        jsonBody.add("printBackground", new JsonPrimitive(true));

        // If large input document, process in async mode by passing true
        jsonBody.add("async", new JsonPrimitive(false));

        // Set to HTML for header to be applied on every page at the header.
        jsonBody.add("header", new JsonPrimitive(""));

        // Set to HTML for footer to be applied on every page at the bottom.
        jsonBody.add("footer", new JsonPrimitive(""));


        RequestBody body = RequestBody.create(MediaType.parse("application/json"), jsonBody.toString());

        // Prepare request
        Request request = new Request.Builder()
                .url(url)
                .addHeader("x-api-key", API_KEY) // (!) Set API Key
                .addHeader("Content-Type", "application/json")
                .post(body)
                .build();
        // Execute request
        Response response = webClient.newCall(request).execute();

        if (response.code() == 200)
        {
            // Parse JSON response
            JsonObject json = new JsonParser().parse(response.body().string()).getAsJsonObject();

            boolean error = json.get("error").getAsBoolean();
            if (!error)
            {
                // Get URL of generated PDF file
                String resultFileUrl = json.get("url").getAsString();

                // Download PDF file
                downloadFile(webClient, resultFileUrl, destinationFile.toFile());

                System.out.printf("Generated PDF file saved as \"%s\" file.", destinationFile.toString());
            }
            else
            {
                // Display service reported error
                System.out.println(json.get("message").getAsString());
            }
        }
        else
        {
            // Display request error
            System.out.println(response.code() + " " + response.message());
        }
    }

    public static void downloadFile(OkHttpClient webClient, String url, File destinationFile) throws IOException
    {
        // Prepare request
        Request request = new Request.Builder()
                .url(url)
                .build();
        // Execute request
        Response response = webClient.newCall(request).execute();

        byte[] fileBytes = response.body().bytes();

        // Save downloaded bytes to file
        OutputStream output = new FileOutputStream(destinationFile);
        output.write(fileBytes);
        output.flush();
        output.close();

        response.close();
    }
}

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title>HTML to PDF Result</title>
</head>
<body>

<?php

// Get submitted form data
$apiKey = $_POST["apiKey"]; // The authentication key (API Key). Get your own by registering at https://app.pdf.co

// HTML input
$inputHtml = file_get_contents("./inputHtml.html");

// Prepare URL for HTML to PDF API call
$url = "https://api.pdf.co/v1/pdf/convert/from/html";


// Prepare requests params
$parameters = array();

// Input HTML code to be converted. Required.
$parameters["html"] = utf8_encode($inputHtml);

// Name of resulting file
$parameters["name"] = "result.pdf";

// Set to css style margins like 10 px or 5px 5px 5px 5px.
$parameters["margins"] =  "5px 5px 5px 5px";

// Can be Letter, A4, A5, A6 or custom size like 200x200
$parameters["paperSize"] = "Letter";

// Set to Portrait or Landscape. Portrait by default.
$parameters["orientation"] = "Portrait";

// true by default. Set to false to disbale printing of background.
$parameters["printBackground"] = true;

// If large input document, process in async mode by passing true
$parameters["async"] = false;

// Set to HTML for header to be applied on every page at the header.
$parameters["header"] = "";

// Set to HTML for footer to be applied on every page at the bottom.
$parameters["footer"] = "";


// Create Json payload
$data = json_encode($parameters);

// Create request
$curl = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array("x-api-key: " . $apiKey, "Content-type: application/json"));
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST, true);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);

// Execute request
$result = curl_exec($curl);

if (curl_errno($curl) == 0)
{
    $status_code = curl_getinfo($curl, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);

    if ($status_code == 200)
    {
        $json = json_decode($result, true);

        if (isset($json["error"]) && $json["error"] == true)
        {
            // Display service reported error
            echo "<p>Error: " . $json["message"] . "</p>";
        }
        else
        {
            $resultFileUrl = $json["url"];

            // Display link to the file with conversion results
            echo "<div><h2>Conversion Result:</h2><a href='" . $resultFileUrl . "' target='_blank'>" . $resultFileUrl . "</a></div>";
        }
    }
    else
    {
        // Display request error
        echo "<p>Status code: " . $status_code . "</p>";
        echo "<p>" . $result . "</p>";
    }
}
else
{
    // Display CURL error
    echo "Error: " . curl_error($curl);
}

// Cleanup
curl_close($curl);

?>

</body>
</html>



var https = require("https");
var path = require("path");
var fs = require("fs");


// The authentication key (API Key).
// Get your own by registering at https://app.pdf.co
const API_KEY = "***************************";

// HTML Input
const inputHtml = "./sample.html";
// Destination PDF file name
const DestinationFile = "./result.pdf";

// Prepare requests params as JSON
var parameters = {};

// Input HTML code to be converted. Required.
parameters["html"] = fs.readFileSync(inputHtml, "utf8");

// Name of resulting file
parameters["name"] = path.basename(DestinationFile);

// Set to css style margins like 10 px or 5px 5px 5px 5px.
parameters["margins"] = "5px 5px 5px 5px";

// Can be Letter, A4, A5, A6 or custom size like 200x200
parameters["paperSize"] = "Letter";

// Set to Portrait or Landscape. Portrait by default.
parameters["orientation"] = "Portrait";

// true by default. Set to false to disbale printing of background.
parameters["printBackground"] = true;

// If large input document, process in async mode by passing true
parameters["async"] = false;

// Set to HTML for header to be applied on every page at the header.
parameters["header"] = "";

// Set to HTML for footer to be applied on every page at the bottom.
parameters["footer"] = "";


// Convert JSON object to string
var jsonPayload = JSON.stringify(parameters);

// Prepare request to `HTML To PDF` API endpoint
var url = '/v1/pdf/convert/from/html';
var reqOptions = {
    host: "api.pdf.co",
    path: url,
    method: "POST",
    headers: {
        "x-api-key": API_KEY,
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
        "Content-Length": Buffer.byteLength(jsonPayload, 'utf8')
    }
};

// Send request
var postRequest = https.request(reqOptions, (response) => {
    response.on("data", (d) => {
        // Parse JSON response
        var data = JSON.parse(d);
        if (data.error == false) {
            // Download PDF file
            var file = fs.createWriteStream(DestinationFile);
            https.get(data.url, (response2) => {
                response2.pipe(file)
                    .on("close", () => {
                        console.log(`Generated PDF file saved as "${DestinationFile}" file.`);
                    });
            });
        }
        else {
            // Service reported error
            console.log(data.message);
        }
    });
}).on("error", (e) => {
    // Request error
    console.log(e);
});

// Write request data
postRequest.write(jsonPayload);
postRequest.end();

On Github#

Footnotes

1

Supports publicly accessible links from any source, including Google Drive, Dropbox, and PDF.co Built-In Files Storage. To upload files via the API, check out the File Upload section. Note: If you experience intermittent Access Denied or Too Many Requests errors, please try adding cache: to enable built-in URL caching (e.g., cache:https://example.com/file1.pdf). For data security, you have the option to encrypt output files and decrypt input files. Learn more about user-controlled data encryption.

2

Main response codes as follows:

Code

Description

200

Success

400

Bad request. Typically happens because of bad input parameters, or because the input URLs can’t be reached, possibly due to access restrictions like needing a login or password.

401

Unauthorized

402

Not enough credits

445

Timeout error. To process large documents or files please use asynchronous mode (set the async parameter to true) and then check status using the /job/check endpoint. If a file contains many pages then specify a page range using the pages parameter. The number of pages of the document can be obtained using the /pdf/info endpoint.

Note

For more see the complete list of available response codes.

3(1,2)

PDF.co Request size: API requests do not support request sizes of more than 4 megabytes in size. Please ensure that request sizes do not exceed this limit.