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PDF UA API

Quick Start

This guide gets a PDF out of the API in two steps: start the server, then send it some HTML.

Run the API

Section titled “Run the API”

The quickest way to run the API is the published Docker image, which bundles the JVM, the fonts, and everything else it needs. Start it and expose port 8080:

Terminal window
docker run -p 8080:8080 ghcr.io/bambamboole/pdf-ua-api:latest

The API is now listening on http://localhost:8080. By default it runs without authentication and with rate limiting enabled — see Authentication and Rate Limiting to change either.

Convert your first PDF

Section titled “Convert your first PDF”

Send a complete HTML document to POST /convert. The response body is the binary PDF, so write it straight to a file with --output:

Terminal window
curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/convert \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"html":"<html lang=\"en\"><head><title>Hello</title></head><body><h1>Hello PDF</h1></body></html>"}' \
  --output output.pdf

Open output.pdf and you have an accessible PDF/A-3a document. Always include a lang attribute and a <title> — both are required for the accessibility tags to be generated.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”
  • Learn which HTML and CSS the renderer supports, and try it live in the browser, on the HTML to PDF page.
  • Build structured documents without hand-writing HTML using Templates.
  • Explore every endpoint in the API Reference.