pdf-generator-api

Introduction

PDF Generator API allows you easily generate transactional PDF documents and reduce the development and support costs by enabling your users to create and manage their document templates using a browser-based drag-and-drop document editor.

The PDF Generator API features a web API architecture, allowing you to code in the language of your choice. This API supports the JSON media type, and uses UTF-8 character encoding.

Base URL

The base URL for all the API endpoints is https://us1.pdfgeneratorapi.com/api/v4

For example

https://us1.pdfgeneratorapi.com/api/v4/templates
https://us1.pdfgeneratorapi.com/api/v4/workspaces
https://us1.pdfgeneratorapi.com/api/v4/templates/123123

Editor

PDF Generator API comes with a powerful drag & drop editor that allows to create any kind of document templates, from barcode labels to invoices, quotes and reports. You can find tutorials and videos from our Support Portal.

Definitions

Organization

Organization is a group of workspaces owned by your account.

Workspace

Workspace contains templates. Each workspace has access to their own templates and organization default templates.

Master Workspace

Master Workspace is the main/default workspace of your Organization. The Master Workspace identifier is the email you signed up with.

Default Template

Default template is a template that is available for all workspaces by default. You can set the template access type under Page Setup. If template has "Organization" access then your users can use them from the "New" menu in the Editor.

Data Field

Data Field is a placeholder for the specific data in your JSON data set. In this example JSON you can access the buyer name using Data Field {paymentDetails::buyerName}. The separator between depth levels is :: (two colons). When designing the template you don’t have to know every Data Field, our editor automatically extracts all the available fields from your data set and provides an easy way to insert them into the template.

{
"documentNumber": 1,
"paymentDetails": {
"method": "Credit Card",
"buyerName": "John Smith"
},
"items": [
{
"id": 1,
"name": "Item one"
}
]
}

Rate limiting

Our API endpoints use IP-based rate limiting and allow you to make up to 2 requests per second and 60 requests per minute. If you make more requests, you will receive a response with HTTP code 429.

Response headers contain additional values:

Header	Description
X-RateLimit-Limit	Maximum requests per minute
X-RateLimit-Remaining	The requests remaining in the current minute
Retry-After	How many seconds you need to wait until you are allowed to make requests

Libraries and SDKs

Postman Collection

We have created a Postman Collection so you can easily test all the API endpoints without developing and code.

Client Libraries

All our Client Libraries are auto-generated using OpenAPI Generator which uses the OpenAPI v3 specification to automatically generate a client library in specific programming language.

We have validated the generated libraries, but let us know if you find any anomalies in the client code.

Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server

Integrate document generation directly into your AI agents and LLM applications using our official Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server.

The MCP server provides a standardized interface that allows AI assistants (like Claude Desktop and other MCP-compatible clients) to securely interact with the PDF Generator API. With it, your AI applications can automatically fetch workspaces, retrieve templates, merge data, and generate PDF documents on the fly.

Get PDF Generator API MCP Server

Authentication

The PDF Generator API uses JSON Web Tokens (JWT) to authenticate all API requests. These tokens offer a method to establish secure server-to-server authentication by transferring a compact JSON object with a signed payload of your account’s API Key and Secret. When authenticating to the PDF Generator API, a JWT should be generated uniquely by a server-side application and included as a Bearer Token in the header of each request.

Accessing your API Key and Secret

You can find your API Key and API Secret from the Account Settings page after you login to PDF Generator API here.

Creating a JWT

JSON Web Tokens are composed of three sections: a header, a payload (containing a claim set), and a signature. The header and payload are JSON objects, which are serialized to UTF-8 bytes, then encoded using base64url encoding.

The JWT's header, payload, and signature are concatenated with periods (.). As a result, a JWT typically takes the following form:

{Base64url encoded header}.{Base64url encoded payload}.{Base64url encoded signature}

We recommend and support libraries provided on jwt.io. While other libraries can create JWT, these recommended libraries are the most robust.

Header

Property alg defines which signing algorithm is being used. PDF Generator API users HS256. Property typ defines the type of token and it is always JWT.

{
"alg": "HS256",
"typ": "JWT"
}

Payload

The second part of the token is the payload, which contains the claims or the pieces of information being passed about the user and any metadata required. It is mandatory to specify the following claims:

issuer (iss): Your API key
subject (sub): Workspace identifier
expiration time (exp): Timestamp (unix epoch time) until the token is valid. It is highly recommended to set the exp timestamp for a short period, i.e. a matter of seconds. This way, if a token is intercepted or shared, the token will only be valid for a short period of time.

{
"iss": "ad54aaff89ffdfeff178bb8a8f359b29fcb20edb56250b9f584aa2cb0162ed4a",
"sub": "demo.example@actualreports.com",
"exp": 1586112639
}

Payload for Partners

Our partners can send their unique identifier (provided by us) in JWT's partner_id claim. If the partner_id value is specified in the JWT, the organization making the request is automatically connected to the partner account.

Partner ID (partner_id): Unique identifier provide by PDF Generator API team

{
"iss": "ad54aaff89ffdfeff178bb8a8f359b29fcb20edb56250b9f584aa2cb0162ed4a",
"sub": "demo.example@actualreports.com",
"partner_id": "my-partner-identifier",
"exp": 1586112639
}

Signature

To create the signature part you have to take the encoded header, the encoded payload, a secret, the algorithm specified in the header, and sign that. The signature is used to verify the message wasn't changed along the way, and, in the case of tokens signed with a private key, it can also verify that the sender of the JWT is who it says it is.

HMACSHA256(
base64UrlEncode(header) + "." +
base64UrlEncode(payload),
API_SECRET)

Putting all together

The output is three Base64-URL strings separated by dots. The following shows a JWT that has the previous header and payload encoded, and it is signed with a secret.

eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpc3MiOiJhZDU0YWFmZjg5ZmZkZmVmZjE3OGJiOGE4ZjM1OWIyOWZjYjIwZWRiNTYyNTBiOWY1ODRhYTJjYjAxNjJlZDRhIiwic3ViIjoiZGVtby5leGFtcGxlQGFjdHVhbHJlcG9ydHMuY29tIn0.SxO-H7UYYYsclS8RGWO1qf0z1cB1m73wF9FLl9RCc1Q
// Base64 encoded header: eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9
// Base64 encoded payload: eyJpc3MiOiJhZDU0YWFmZjg5ZmZkZmVmZjE3OGJiOGE4ZjM1OWIyOWZjYjIwZWRiNTYyNTBiOWY1ODRhYTJjYjAxNjJlZDRhIiwic3ViIjoiZGVtby5leGFtcGxlQGFjdHVhbHJlcG9ydHMuY29tIn0
// Signature: SxO-H7UYYYsclS8RGWO1qf0z1cB1m73wF9FLl9RCc1Q

Temporary JWTs

You can create a temporary token in Account Settings page after you login to PDF Generator API. The generated token uses your email address as the subject (sub) value and is valid for 15 minutes. You can also use jwt.io to generate test tokens for your API calls. These test tokens should never be used in production applications.

Error codes

Code	Description
401	Unauthorized
402	Payment Required
403	Forbidden
404	Not Found
422	Unprocessable Entity
429	Too Many Requests
500	Internal Server Error

401 Unauthorized

Description
Authentication failed: request expired
Authentication failed: workspace missing
Authentication failed: key missing
Authentication failed: property 'iss' (issuer) missing in JWT
Authentication failed: property 'sub' (subject) missing in JWT
Authentication failed: property 'exp' (expiration time) missing in JWT
Authentication failed: incorrect signature

402 Payment Required

Description
Your account is suspended, please upgrade your account

403 Forbidden

Description
Your account has exceeded the monthly document generation limit.
Access not granted: You cannot delete master workspace via API
Access not granted: Template is not accessible by this organization
Your session has expired, please close and reopen the editor.

404 Entity not found

Description
Entity not found
Resource not found
None of the templates is available for the workspace.

422 Unprocessable Entity

Description
Unable to parse JSON, please check formatting
Required parameter missing
Required parameter missing: template definition not defined
Required parameter missing: template not defined

429 Too Many Requests

Description
You can make up to 2 requests per second and 60 requests per minute.

This Python package is automatically generated by the OpenAPI Generator project:

API version: 4.0.28
Package version: 8.0.28
Generator version: 7.14.0
Build package: org.openapitools.codegen.languages.PythonClientCodegen For more information, please visit https://support.pdfgeneratorapi.com

Requirements.

Python 3.9+

Installation & Usage

pip install

If the python package is hosted on a repository, you can install directly using:

pip install git+https://github.com/pdfgeneratorapi/python-client.git

(you may need to run pip with root permission: sudo pip install git+https://github.com/pdfgeneratorapi/python-client.git)

Then import the package:

importpdf_generator_api_client

Setuptools

Install via Setuptools.

python setup.py install --user

(or sudo python setup.py install to install the package for all users)