📄PDFik Docs

Quickstart

Your first PDF in about 60 seconds, then the production pattern. You need an API key — create one in the dashboard (a card is verified at key creation and never charged on the Free plan).

1. Your first PDF in 60 seconds (training wheels)

Submit a URL, poll the status, download the file. Fine for trying things out — the production pattern comes next.

curl -X POST https://api.pdfik.net/url-to-pdf \
  -H "X-API-Key: sk_live_YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com"}'

The API answers 202 Accepted immediately — rendering happens asynchronously:

{
  "job_id": "9b2f6c1e-4a7d-4f0e-b2c9-1d8e5a3f7b21",
  "status": "queued",
  "detail": "Job successfully sent to processing queue."
}

Poll the job until it is done:

curl https://api.pdfik.net/jobs/9b2f6c1e-4a7d-4f0e-b2c9-1d8e5a3f7b21 \
  -H "X-API-Key: sk_live_YOUR_KEY"

{
  "status": "done",
  "created_at": "2026-08-04T12:00:01Z",
  "finished_at": "2026-08-04T12:00:04Z",
  "expires_at": "2026-08-05T12:00:04Z",
  "test": false,
  "pages_count": 1
}

Then download it:

curl -o my-first.pdf \
  https://api.pdfik.net/jobs/9b2f6c1e-4a7d-4f0e-b2c9-1d8e5a3f7b21/download \
  -H "X-API-Key: sk_live_YOUR_KEY"

Two limits worth knowing from day one: a finished file is downloadable for 24 hours (expires_at tells you exactly when it stops), and each file allows 3 download attempts with one active stream at a time — see Rate Limits for the full list.

2. The production pattern: webhooks

Polling wastes requests and adds latency. In production you pass a webhook_url and forget about the job — PDFik POSTs you a signed notification when the PDF is ready:

curl -X POST https://api.pdfik.net/url-to-pdf \
  -H "X-API-Key: sk_live_YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "url": "https://example.com/invoice/42",
    "webhook_url": "https://your-app.com/hooks/pdfik"
  }'

Your endpoint receives a JSON notification (not the file itself):

{
  "job_id": "9b2f6c1e-4a7d-4f0e-b2c9-1d8e5a3f7b21",
  "status": "done",
  "test": false,
  "file_url": "https://api.pdfik.net/jobs/9b2f6c1e-4a7d-4f0e-b2c9-1d8e5a3f7b21/download",
  "pages_count": 2,
  "finished_at": "2026-08-04T12:00:04Z",
  "expires_at": "2026-08-05T12:00:04Z"
}

Delivery is retried on a 2/5/15/30/60-second ladder (6 attempts in total) and then parked in a dead-letter queue — a lost callback is an incident on our side, not silence on yours. Every delivery carries X-PDFik-Signature (HMAC-SHA256) and X-PDFik-Timestamp headers — verify them with a few lines of code, see Webhooks & Signatures.

3. Fetch the file into your own storage

PDFik is a delivery pipeline, not a file archive: generated documents are deleted after 24 hours. The robust production loop is therefore:

  1. Receive the webhook.
  2. GET the file_url once.
  3. Store the PDF in your own storage (S3, GCS, database — anywhere).

This makes the 24-hour window and the 3-attempt limit irrelevant to your architecture — and it is the pattern our own SDKs encourage.

4. Next