Convert MS Office Documents to PDF

To convert an Office file to a PDF, send a request to the /api/build endpoint, including both the Office file as input and the instructions JSON.

The default output from the /api/build endpoint is a PDF file. You can also specify other file types. Learn more about the output options in our API Reference.

Launch Demo

Before you get started, make sure Document Engine is up and running.

You can download and use either of the following sample documents for the examples in this guide:

You’ll be sending multipart POST requests with instructions to Document Engine’s /api/build endpoint. To learn more about multipart requests, refer to our blog post on the topic, A Brief Tour of Multipart Requests.

Check out the API Reference to learn more about the /api/build endpoint and all the actions you can perform on PDFs with PSPDFKit Document Engine.

Converting an Office File from Disk

Send a multipart request to the /api/build endpoint and attach an Office file:

curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/api/build \
  -H "Authorization: Token token=<API token>" \
  -F document=@/path/to/example-document.docx \
  -F instructions='{
  "parts": [
    {
      "file": "document"
    }
  ]
}' \
  -o result.pdf
POST /api/build HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=customboundary
Authorization: Token token=<API token>

--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="document"; filename="example-document.docx"
Content-Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document

<DOCX data>
--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="instructions"
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "parts": [
    {
      "file": "document"
    }
  ]
}
--customboundary--

Converting an Office File from URL

Send a multipart request to the /api/build endpoint, attaching a URL pointing to the Office file:

curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/api/build \
  -H "Authorization: Token token=<API token>" \
  -F instructions='{
  "parts": [
    {
      "file": {
        "url": "https://pspdfkit.com/downloads/examples/paper.docx"
      }
    }
  ]
}' \
  -o result.pdf
POST /api/build HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=customboundary
Authorization: Token token=<API token>

--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="instructions"
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "parts": [
    {
      "file": {
        "url": "https://pspdfkit.com/downloads/examples/paper.docx"
      }
    }
  ]
}
--customboundary--