Create PDF Thumbnail Previews in Linux
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PSPDFKit Processor has been deprecated and replaced by Document Engine. All PSPDFKit Processor licenses will work as before and be supported until 15 May 2024 (we will contact you about license migration). To start using Document Engine, refer to the migration guide. With Document Engine, you’ll have access to robust new capabilities (read the blog for more information).
To create a page thumbnail, post a multipart request to the /build
API endpoint, including the source document as the input and the instructions
JSON.
Creating a thumbnail requires you to provide options with both the desired page index to render and the rendered dimensions via a width
, height
, or dpi
option.
Only one option —
width
,height
, ordpi
— can be chosen. Other dimensions are calculated before rendering, so as to preserve the page aspect ratio of the rendered image.
The format of the rendered thumbnail can be controlled via a format
option. Supported image formats are PNG, JPEG, WEBP, and TIFF.
Before you get started, make sure Processor 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 Processor’s /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 /build
endpoint and all the actions you can perform on PDFs with PSPDFKit Processor.
Creating a Thumbnail from a File on Disk
In this example, use the first page of the document to create a thumbnail. Send a multipart request to the /build
endpoint, attaching an input file and the instructions
JSON:
curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/build \ -F document=@/path/to/example-document.pdf \ -F instructions='{ "parts": [ { "file": "document", "pages": { "start": 0, "end": 0 } } ], "output": { "type": "image", "width": 200, "format": "png" } }' \ -o result.pdf
POST /process HTTP/1.1 Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=customboundary --customboundary Content-Disposition: form-data; name="document"; filename="example-document.pdf" Content-Type: application/pdf <PDF data> --customboundary Content-Disposition: form-data; name="instructions" Content-Type: application/json { "parts": [ { "file": "document", "pages": { "start": 0, "end": 0 } } ], "output": { "type": "image", "width": 200, "format": "png" } } --customboundary--
Creating a Thumbnail from a File from a URL
Send a multipart request to the /build
endpoint, attaching a URL pointing to an input file and the instructions
JSON:
curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/build \ -F document='{ "url": "https://pspdfkit.com/downloads/examples/paper.pdf" }' \ -F instructions='{ "parts": [ { "file": "document", "pages": { "start": 0, "end": 0 } } ], "output": { "type": "image", "width": 200, "format": "png" } }' \ -o result.pdf
POST /process HTTP/1.1 Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=customboundary --customboundary Content-Disposition: form-data; name="document" Content-Type: application/json { "url": "https://pspdfkit.com/downloads/examples/paper.pdf" } --customboundary Content-Disposition: form-data; name="instructions" Content-Type: application/json { "parts": [ { "file": "document", "pages": { "start": 0, "end": 0 } } ], "output": { "type": "image", "width": 200, "format": "png" } } --customboundary--