Server API for Documents

PSPDFKit Server provides the following API endpoints for working with documents:

Overview

Document Creation

Document Editing

Document Deletion

Retrieving Document Information

Importing and Exporting

Other Endpoints

Document Creation

Uploading a Document

To create a new document from a PDF file, POST its contents to /api/document, specifying the application/pdf content type:

Request

POST /api/documents
Content-Type: application/pdf
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"

<PDF data>
$ curl http://localhost:5000/api/documents \
   -X POST \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>" \
   -H "Content-Type: application/pdf" \
   -T document.pdf

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "data": {
    "document_id": ...,
    "errors": [],
    "sourcePdfSha256": ...,
    "title": "..."
  }
}

PSPDFKit Server will extract the title of the document from the PDF metadata if it is present.

The errors list will be non-empty if errors were encountered when importing annotations from the document. Each error will have the format {"reason": "Error description"}.

If you need to upload a large file (e.g. one more than 50 MB), you should consider streaming the file contents using chunked transfer encoding to avoid potential issues resulting from the request body size:

Request

POST /api/documents
Content-Type: application/pdf
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Length: 105255200

<PDF data>
$ curl http://localhost:5000/api/documents \
   -X POST \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>" \
   -H "Content-Type: application/pdf" \
   -H "Transfer-Encoding: chunked" \
   -H "Content-Length: 105255200" \
   -T document.pdf

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "data": {
    "document_id": ...,
    "errors": [],
    "sourcePdfSha256": ...,
    "title": "..."
  }
}

PSPDFKit Server also supports uploading files as multipart/form-data. The part of the body containing the PDF file must be called file. When using this method, the server will try reading the title from the PDF metadata and fall back to the file name if the metadata isn’t available.

Request

POST /api/documents
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=customboundary
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"

--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="file"; filename="Example Document.pdf"
Content-Type: application/pdf

<PDF data>
--customboundary--

Providing Your Own ID for Documents

As of version 2018.6, PSPDFKit Server supports providing an arbitrary document_id on upload. This can be useful when you want to use your own identifiers for documents. This feature can also be used to migrate from an existing document management solution on demand, as we explained in the document migration guide:

Request

POST /api/documents
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=customboundary
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"

--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="document_id"

your_document_identifier_1
--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="file"; filename="Example Document.pdf"
Content-Type: application/pdf

<PDF data>
--customboundary--
$ curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/api/documents/ \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>" \
   -F "file=@example.pdf" \
   -F "document_id=your_document_identifier_1"

Providing Your Own Title for Documents

As of version 2019.2, PSPDFKit Server supports providing an arbitrary title on upload, which will override the title included in the PDF document (if present):

Request

POST /api/documents
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=customboundary
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"

--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="title"

My custom title
--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="file"; filename="Example Document.pdf"
Content-Type: application/pdf

<PDF data>
--customboundary--
$ curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/api/documents/ \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>" \
   -F "file=@example.pdf" \
   -F "title=My custom title"

ℹ️ Note: The title specified here will not be embedded in the PDF. If you download the PDF, the original title will still be shown. In place of the title upload parameter, you can supply an updateMetadata operation during document upload. This will actually embed the title in the PDF.

Applying Operations on Document Upload

As of version 2020.4, PSPDFKit Server supports providing a list of document operations that will be applied on upload:

POST /api/documents
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=customboundary
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"

--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="operations"

{
    "operations": [
        {
            "type": "performOcr",
            "language": "english",
            "pageIndexes": [0]
        }
    ]
}
--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="file"; filename="Example Document.pdf"
Content-Type: application/pdf

<PDF data>
--customboundary--

If you apply operations on upload, you will be able to download the unmodified PDF using the source=true parameter, as described here. Keep in mind that after applying the operations, the PDF will be stored in your selected storage backend. This means that when uploading a document from a URL like what’s described in the next section, a modified copy of the document will be stored. This could lead to higher storage use than would normally be expected when using remote documents.

Adding a Document from a URL

You can also add a document to PSPDFKit Server by specifying the URL the document can be fetched from. By default, a document added by a URL isn’t persistently stored in PSPDFKit Server and will be fetched from the URL when necessary. This is useful when you already have a document storage solution and you want PSPDFKit Server to fetch the documents from your document storage. You can override the default storage behavior and store the document persistently by setting the copy_asset_to_storage_backend option to true.

To add a document from a URL, POST its URL — and optionally, its SHA256 hash, your document_id, and your title — to /api/document, specifying the application/json content type:

Request

POST /api/documents
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"

{
  "url": "http://exampleserver/sample.pdf",
  "sha256": "d37b9395c2baf168f977ce9ff9ec007d7270fc84cbf1549324bfc8dfc34333a9",
  "copy_asset_to_storage_backend": false
}
$ curl http\://127.0.0.1\:5000/api/documents \
    -X POST \
    -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>" \
    -H "Content-type: application/json" \
    -d '{"url": "http://exampleserver/sample.pdf", "sha256": "d37b9395c2baf168f977ce9ff9ec007d7270fc84cbf1549324bfc8dfc34333a9", "title": "My custom title"}'

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "data": {
    "createdAt": ...,
    "document_id": ...,
    "errors": [],
    "sourcePdfSha256": ...,
    "title": "...",
  }
}

If a title attribute is not provided, PSPDFKit Server will extract the title of the document from the PDF metadata (if present).

The errors list will be non-empty if errors were encountered when importing annotations from the document. Each error will have the format {"reason": "Error description"}.

When the SHA256 is specified but the hash does not match the calculated hash from the document downloaded from the URL, the following response is returned by the server:

Response

HTTP/1.1 409 Conflict
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "error": {
    "reason": "hash_mismatch",
    "description": "The provided hash does not match the calculated hash from the document."
  }
}

When using the API to add a document from a URL, your backend storage must always deliver the same file, since the SHA256 will never be recalculated after the document is created. If the file on your storage backend changes and PSPDFKit Server needs to refetch the file (e.g. because it’s no longer cached), this will result in a hash_mismatch error on PSPDFKit Server.

Including Annotations via the XFDF/Instant JSON File

PSPDFKit Server supports importing an XFDF or Instant JSON file when adding a new document. This replaces all existing annotations in the uploaded PDF with the annotations from the uploaded XFDF or Instant JSON file. If you want to add annotations to already existing ones instead of replacing them when you import an XFDF file, you can set keep_current_annotations to true. Then POST either the PDF file or the document URL, along with the XFDF or Instant JSON file, as part of a multipart/form-data request:

To upload a PDF file with an Instant JSON or XFDF file:

Request

POST /api/documents
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=customboundary
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"

--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="file"; filename="Example Document.pdf"
Content-Type: application/pdf

<PDF data>
--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="attachment"; filename="attachment.xfdf"
Content-Type: application/json

<annotations data>
--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="keep_current_annotations"

true
--customboundary--

To add a document from a URL with an Instant JSON or XFDF file:

Request

POST /api/documents
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=customboundary
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"

--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="url";

http://exampleserver/sample.pdf
--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="attachment"; filename="attachment.xfdf"
Content-Type: application/json

<annotations data>
--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="keep_current_annotations"

true
--customboundary--

Overwriting an Existing Document

If you want to replace a document with a given ID with a new document, you can set the overwrite_existing_document parameter to true. This will delete all data related to the existing document and create a new document using the uploaded file:

Request

POST /api/documents
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=customboundary
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"

--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="document_id"

your_document_identifier_1
--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="overwrite_existing_document"

true
--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="file"; filename="Example Document.pdf"
Content-Type: application/pdf

<PDF data>
--customboundary--
$ curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/api/documents/ \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>" \
   -F "file=@example.pdf" \
   -F "overwrite_existing_document=true" \
   -F "document_id=your_document_identifier_1"

Creating a Document from Scratch

Instead of uploading existing PDF documents, PSPDFKit Server allows you to generate documents from scratch based on HTML files, stylesheets, and other assets. Head over to the PDF Generation guide for a detailed walkthrough, usage examples, and things to watch out for.

To generate a document, you need to supply a PDF generation schema under a generation key in the multipart request and attach any files referenced in the schema as multipart attachments. For example, to generate a PDF document from an HTML file without any additional assets, you’d use the following request:

curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/api/documents \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>" \
   -F generation='{ "html": "index.html" }' \
   -F index.html=@/path/to/index.html

When you generate a document, you can pass any options allowed by the other document creation methods: document_id, attachment, operations, etc

Efficiently Copying a Document

It is often useful to be able to create a new document using a previously uploaded PDF file and share it with a different set of users. In order to avoid repeating the upload, PSPDFKit Server provides a copy_document endpoint.

This will copy all layers and their latest annotations from the document, so if annotations were already modified by a user, the copied document will include those changes:

Request

POST /api/copy_document
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"

{
  "document_id": "abc",
}
$ curl http://localhost:5000/api/copy_document \
  -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"document_id": "abc"}'

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{
   "data": {
      "document_id": <ID of the new document>
   }
}

It’s also possible to pass the ID of the new document:

Request

POST /api/copy_document
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"

{
  "document_id": "abc",
  "new_document_id": "def"
}
$ curl http://localhost:5000/api/copy_document \
  -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"document_id": "abc", "new_document_id": "def"}'

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{
   "data": {
      "document_id": "def"
   }
}

Common Use Case for Copying a Document

If you want to share a document with multiple users who should not see one another’s annotations, you can use copy_document to create an individual document for each user.

Prerendering a Document

You can now let PSPDFKit Server render and cache documents ahead of time via the prerender endpoint. This speeds up loading times when opening documents via PSPDFKit for Web. The rendering will be done asynchronously, and future clients asking for the document will receive the already rendered and cached pages. For more details about how PSPDFKit Server caches work, please check out our Cache guide.

Check out the configuration overview for more information on how to configure PSPDFKit Server to use Redis as an additional cache.

Please note that the prerendering feature requires setting up the Redis cache.

Request

POST /api/documents/abc/prerender
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"
$ curl http://localhost:5000/api/documents/:document_id/prerender \
   -X POST \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>"

Response

If a document with the given ID exists, the server will return an HTTP response with the status 200. Usually this endpoint returns immediately, but if PSPDFKit Server is under a very high load, the call might block for a long time. Note that this doesn’t mean that all pages are prerendered, but only that the process of prerendering has successfully started:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

If there’s no such document, an HTTP response with the status 404 will be returned:

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Content-Type: application/json

It’s also possible to customize prerendering by passing the following options:

Request

$ curl http://localhost:5000/api/documents/:document_id/prerender \
   -X POST \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>" \
   -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
   -D '{"scales": [1,2,4,6,8,12,16], "start_page": 0, "end_page": 10}'

Notes:

  • You can add as few or as many values in “scales” as you want as long as they are the values listed above.

  • If the end page value is higher than the number of pages in the PDF, it will automatically be adjusted.

Response

If a document with the given ID exists, the server will immediately return an HTTP response with the status 200. Note that this doesn’t mean that all pages are prerendered, but only that the process of prerendering has successfully started:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

If there’s no such document, an HTTP response with the status 404 will be returned:

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Content-Type: application/json

If the parameters are invalid (e.g. a non-integer page number or a non-allowed scale value), an HTTP response with the status 422 will be returned:

HTTP/1.1 422 Unprocessable Entity
Content-Type: application/json

Persisting the Default Layer as a New Document

To persist the current content of the default layer as a new document, send a POST request to the /copy_with_instant_json endpoint. This will create a new PDF containing the latest annotations of the default layer, import the uploaded Instant JSON, and persist the resulting PDF as a new document. The response will include the document_id of the new document:

Request

POST /api/documents/:document_id/copy_with_instant_json
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"
$ curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/api/documents/:document_id/copy_with_instant_json \
   -H "ContentType: application/json" \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>"

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "data": {
    "document_id": ...,
    "errors": [],
    "sourcePdfSha256": ...,
    "title": "..."
  }
}

Document Editing

Editing a Document’s PDF and Downloading the Resulting File

The Document Editor is a separate component of PSPDFKit for Web, and it’s available for licenses with the document editing feature. It provides you and your users with a whole host of page editing features, including new page creation, page duplication, reordering, merging imported documents, rotation, and deletion.

This endpoint will apply a list of operations to an existing document and return the resulting PDF file without persisting it in the system.

You can find a list of supported operations in the JSON Format guide.

For example, you can rotate all pages of a document 90 degrees clockwise:

Request

POST /api/documents/:document_id/pdf_with_operations
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"

{
  "operations": [
    {
      "type": "rotatePages",
      "pageIndexes": "all",
      "rotateBy": 90
    }
  ]
}

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/pdf

<PDF data>
$ curl http://localhost:5000/api/documents/:document_id/pdf_with_operations \
  -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"operations": [{"type": "rotatePages", "pageIndexes": "all", rotateBy": 90}]}'

To support the importDocument operation, it’s sometimes necessary to use the multipart/form content type, as the operation requires attaching a PDF file to be imported into an existing document.

For example, you can rotate all pages of a document and then add the contents of another PDF directly after:

POST /api/documents/:document_id/pdf_with_operations
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=customboundary
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"

--customboundary
Content-Disposition: attachment; name="operations"; filename="operations.json"
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "operations": [
    {
      "type": "rotatePages",
      "pageIndexes": "all",
      "rotateBy": 90
    },
    {
      "type": "importDocument",
      "document": "5ce11b7c-0726-48a2-a493-1cf4f92f26c5"
      "afterPageIndex": "first"
    },
  ]
}
--customboundary
Content-Disposition: attachment; name="5ce11b7c-0726-48a2-a493-1cf4f92f26c5"; filename="imported.pdf"
Content-Type: application/pdf

<PDF data>
--customboundary--
$ curl http://localhost:5000/api/documents/:document_id/pdf_with_operations \
  -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>" \
  -F "operations=<operations.json" \
  -F "5ce11b7c-0726-48a2-a493-1cf4f92f26c5=@imported.pdf;type=application/pdf"

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/pdf

<PDF data>

This also applies to applyInstantJson and applyXfdf operations: the Instant JSON or XFDF file needs to be included in the multipart request, along with the dataFilePath property set to the attachment’s name.

As you can pass more than one operation requiring an attachment in a single request, it’s necessary to assign a unique ID to the name of each attachment so that it can be referenced in the corresponding operation’s body.

However, the importDocument operation also allows you to import existing documents stored on the Server simply by providing their IDs. See details in the JSON Format guide.

To target a specific Instant layer, you can modify the endpoint path from /api/documents/:document_id/pdf_with_operations to /api/documents/:document_id/layers/:layer_name/pdf_with_operations.

Editing a Document’s PDF and Persisting the Resulting File

This endpoint will apply a list of operations to an existing document and store the resulting PDF file at the document’s base layer.

Applying a document operation will affect both the data stored by PSPDFKit Server and the responses returned by other endpoints. For example, if you remove a page from a document, all annotations belonging to that page will be deleted as well. Similarly, other functionality (e.g. searching in a document) will return different results.

If you need to preserve the original document, PDF file, and related data, we recommend leveraging Instant layers and always using named layers.

You can find a list of supported operations in the JSON Format guide.

For example, you can rotate all pages of a document 90 degrees clockwise:

Request

POST /api/documents/:document_id/apply_operations
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"

{
  "operations": [
    {
      "type": "rotatePages",
      "pageIndexes": "all",
      "rotateBy": 90
    }
  ]
}

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "data": {"sourcePdfSha256": "...", "title": "...", "passwordProtected": ..., "storage": {"type": "built-in"}}
}
$ curl http://localhost:5000/api/documents/:document_id/apply_operations \
  -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"operations": [{"type": "rotatePages", "pageIndexes": "all", "rotateBy": 90}]}'

To support the importDocument operation, it’s sometimes necessary to use the multipart/form content type, as the operation requires attaching a PDF file to be imported into an existing document.

For example, you can rotate all pages of a document and then add the contents of another PDF directly after:

POST /api/documents/:document_id/apply_operations
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=customboundary
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"

--customboundary
Content-Disposition: attachment; name="operations"; filename="operations.json"
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "operations": [
    {
      "type": "rotatePages",
      "pageIndexes": "all",
      "rotateBy": 90
    },
    {
      "type": "importDocument",
      "document": "5ce11b7c-0726-48a2-a493-1cf4f92f26c5"
      "afterPageIndex": "first"
    },
  ]
}
--customboundary
Content-Disposition: attachment; name="5ce11b7c-0726-48a2-a493-1cf4f92f26c5"; filename="imported.pdf"
Content-Type: application/pdf

<PDF data>
--customboundary--
$ curl http://localhost:5000/api/documents/:document_id/apply_operations \
  -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>" \
  -F "operations=<operations.json" \
  -F "5ce11b7c-0726-48a2-a493-1cf4f92f26c5=@imported.pdf;type=application/pdf"

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "data": {"sourcePdfSha256": "...", "title": "...", "passwordProtected": ..., "storage": {"type": "built-in"}}
}

This also applies to applyInstantJson and applyXfdf operations: the Instant JSON or XFDF file needs to be included in the multipart request, along with the dataFilePath property set to the attachment’s name.

As you can pass more than one operation requiring an attachment in a single request, it’s necessary to assign a unique ID to the name of each attachment so that it can be referenced in the corresponding operation’s body.

However, the importDocument operation also allows you to import existing documents stored on the Server simply by providing their IDs. See details in the JSON Format guide.

To target a specific Instant layer, you can modify the endpoint path from /api/documents/:document_id/apply_operations to /api/documents/:document_id/layers/:layer_name/apply_operations.

Document Deletion

Deleting a Document

To delete a document, use the DELETE method:

Request

DELETE /api/documents/:document_id
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"
$ curl http://localhost:5000/api/documents/abc \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>" \
   -XDELETE

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
content-length: 2
cache-control: max-age=0, private, must-revalidate

OK

If the deletion fails, a response with an error field will be returned. For example, when trying to delete a non-existing document, the response looks like this:

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
content-length: 41
cache-control: max-age=0, private, must-r
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "error": {
    "reason": "document_not_found"
  }
}

Deleting a document removes the document and all its annotations from the database. It also removes the PDF files and all attachments that are not needed by other documents.

Fetching Requests

Fetching Document Properties

Request

GET /api/documents/:document_id/properties
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"
$ curl http://localhost:5000/api/documents/abc/properties \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>"

Response

If a document with the given ID exists, PSPDFKit Server will return an HTTP response with the status 200 and the following JSON payload:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "data": {
    "sourcePdfSha256": "...",
    "title": "...",
    "passwordProtected": ...,
    "byteSize": ...,
    "storage": {"type": "built-in"}
  }
}

The fields sourcePdfSha256, passwordProtected, byteSize, and title are assigned by PSPDFKit Server when a document is uploaded.

The storage key includes information about the storage mechanism used for the underlying PDF document:

  • When the type is built-in, it uses the built-in database-backed storage.

  • When the type is s3, it uses the S3 asset storage. The response also includes the S3 bucket used.

  • When the type is remote, it indicates a remote PDF file. The response includes the URL of the file.

For more information about how assets are stored, please see the Asset Storage guide.

If there’s no such document, an HTTP response with the status 404 and the following JSON payload will be returned:

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "error": {"reason": "document_not_found"}
}

Fetching Page Text

You can fetch all text contained in a page via the /pages/:page_index/text endpoint:

Request

GET /api/documents/:document_id/pages/:page_index/text
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"
$ curl http://localhost:5000/api/documents/abc/pages/1/text \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>"

Response

If a document with the given ID exists, the server will return an HTTP response with the status 200 and the following JSON payload:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "textLines": [
    {
        "contents": "Demo",
        "height": 43.73602294921875,
        "left": 502.89151000976562,
        "top": 108.1837158203125,
        "width": 82.712005615234375
    }
  ]
}

If there’s no such document, an HTTP response with the status 404 will be returned:

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Content-Type: application/json

If the page index is invalid or out of bounds, an HTTP response with the status 404 will be returned:

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Content-Type: application/json

Parameter 'page_index' is invalid or out of bounds.

Fetching Highlighted Page Text

You can fetch all highlighted text contained in a page via the /pages/:page_index/highlighted endpoint. Highlighted text refers to all text that is highlighted via one of the text markup annotations like underline, strikethrough, or highlight.

Please note that this is an approximation, and highlighted text might not always represent the text in the document exactly:

Request

GET /api/documents/:document_id/pages/:page_index/highlighted
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"
$ curl http://localhost:5000/api/documents/abc/pages/1/highlighted \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>"

Response

If a document with the given ID exists, the server will return an HTTP response with the status 200 and the following JSON payload:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{
    "data": [
      {
        "annotation": {
          "id": ...,
          "content": {..},
          "createdBy": "...",
          "updatedBy": "...",
          "group": "...",
          ..
        }
        "text": "This is a sample PDF document used to show the functionality of \r\n."
      }
    ]
}

If there’s no such document, an HTTP response with the status 404 will be returned:

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Content-Type: application/json

If the page index is invalid or out of bounds, an HTTP response with the status 404 will be returned:

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Content-Type: application/json

Parameter 'page_index' is invalid or out of bounds.

Fetching Document Outlines

You can fetch the outline (table of contents) of a document via the outline.json endpoint:

Request

GET /api/documents/abc/outline.json
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"
$ curl http://localhost:5000/api/documents/:document_id/outline.json \
   -X POST \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>"

Response

If a document with the given ID exists, the server will return an HTTP response with the status 200 and the following JSON payload:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "data": {
    "outline": [
      {
        "action": {
          "pageIndex": 0,
          "type": "goTo"
        },
        "isExpanded": true,
        "level": 0,
        "title": "Page 1",
        "type": "pspdfkit/outline-element"
      }
    ]
  }
}

If there’s no such document, an HTTP response with the status 404 will be returned:

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Content-Type: application/json

Fetching Document Information

You can fetch information about page count, the dimensions of pages, and permissions of a document via the document_info endpoint:

Request

GET /api/documents/abc/document_info
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"
$ curl http://localhost:5000/api/documents/:document_id/document_info \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>"

You can also scope the request to the document_info endpoint to a specific layer if the PDF was modified on that layer, for example, due to document operations:

Request

GET /api/documents/abc/layer/def/document_info
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"
$ curl http://localhost:5000/api/documents/:document_id/layer/:layer_id/document_info \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>"

Response

If a document with the given ID exists, the server will return an HTTP response with the status 200 and the following JSON payload:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
 {
  "data": {
    {
      "pageCount": 10,
      "pages" : [
        {
          "height": 792,
          "pageIndex": 0,
          "pageLabel": "Frontpage",
          "rotation": 0,
          "width": 612
        },
        ...
      ],
      "permissions": {
        "printing": true,
        ...
      },
      "title": "Document title"
    }
  }
}

If there’s no such document, an HTTP response with the status 404 will be returned:

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Content-Type: application/json

Importing and Exporting

Fetching a Document’s PDF File

You can download the latest version of a document as a PDF, with annotations included, via the /pdf endpoint. Include source=true in the query to download the version of the document that was originally uploaded.

For formats other than PDF, the file is returned in its original format. For example, if you uploaded a Microsoft Office document, using source=true will return the exact same Microsoft Office document.

For more information about formats other than PDF, please refer to the Supported File Formats section.

Request

GET /api/documents/:document_id/pdf?source=true
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"
$ curl "http://localhost:5000/api/documents/abc/pdf?source=true" \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>"

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/pdf

<PDF data>

To target a specific Instant layer, you can modify the endpoint path from /api/documents/:document_id/pdf to /api/documents/:document_id/layers/:layer_name/pdf.

Fetching a Document’s Flattened PDF

Include flatten=true in the query to download a document as a flattened PDF:

Request

GET /api/documents/:document_id/pdf?flatten=true
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"
$ curl "http://localhost:5000/api/documents/abc/pdf?flatten=true" \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>"

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/pdf

<PDF data>

To target a specific Instant layer, you can modify the endpoint path from /api/documents/:document_id/pdf?flatten=true to /api/documents/:document_id/layers/:layer_name/pdf?flatten=true.

Rendering a Page

You can render a page via the /pages/:page_index/image endpoint by providing the following parameters:

  • width or height — dimensions for the rendered image. Exactly one dimension is required.

  • (optional) render_ap_streams (default: false) — use true to render annotation AP streams.

Request

GET /api/documents/:document_id/pages/:page_index/image?width=400
Accept: image/png
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"
$ curl http://localhost:5000/api/documents/abc/pages/1/image?width=400 \
   -H "Accept: image/png"
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>"

The rendered image format depends on the value of the Accept header. Supported content types are image/png (default) and image/webp.

Response

If a document and a page with the given ID exists, the server will return an HTTP response with the status 200 and the rendered image as a payload:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: image/png

<image data>

If there’s no such document, an HTTP response with the status 404 will be returned:

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Content-Type: application/json

If the page index is invalid or out of bounds, an HTTP response with the status 404 will be returned:

HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
Content-Type: application/json

Parameter 'page_index' is invalid or out of bounds.

If both the width and height parameters are missing or were provided at the same time, an HTTP response with the status 400 will be returned:

HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request

One of `width` or `height` is required.

Exporting a Document’s XFDF File

Export the current annotations of a document as an XFDF file:

Request

GET /api/documents/abc/document.xfdf
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"
$ curl "http://localhost:5000/api/documents/abc/document.xfdf" \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>"

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/vnd.adobe.xfdf

<XFDF data>

Exporting a Document’s Instant JSON File

Export the current annotations of a document as an Instant JSON file:

Request

GET /api/documents/:document_id/document.json
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"
$ curl "http://localhost:5000/api/documents/abc/document.json" \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>"

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

<JSON data>

Importing Instant JSON on Existing Documents

To import an Instant JSON file and apply it to an existing document, you can POST a multipart/form request including an instant.json file. This will modify the default layer of the document in place. In case of success, the endpoint will respond with an empty JSON object:

Request

POST /api/documents/:document_id/apply_instant_json
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=customboundary
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"
--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="instant.json"; filename="instant.json"
Content-Type: application/json

<instant.json data>
--customboundary--

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{}

Importing Instant JSON and Downloading the Resulting PDF File

To import an Instant JSON file and download the resulting PDF, you can POST a multipart/form request including an instant.json file. This will create a new PDF containing the latest annotations of the default layer, import the uploaded Instant JSON, and respond with the resulting PDF. Please note that this action will not modify the existing document, but rather only import the Instant JSON on a temporary file that will be downloaded in the process:

Request

POST /api/documents/:document_id/pdf_with_instant_json
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=customboundary
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"
--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="instant.json"; filename="instant.json"
Content-Type: application/json

<instant.json data>
--customboundary--

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/pdf

<PDF data>

Importing Instant JSON and Persisting the Resulting PDF File

To import an Instant JSON file and persist the resulting PDF as a new document, you can POST a multipart/form request including an instant.json file. This will create a new PDF containing the latest annotations of the default layer, import the uploaded Instant JSON, and persist the resulting PDF as a new document. The response will include the document_id of the new document:

Request

POST /api/documents/:document_id/copy_with_instant_json
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=customboundary
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"
--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="instant.json"; filename="instant.json"
Content-Type: application/json

<instant.json data>
--customboundary--
$ curl http://localhost:5000/api/documents/:document_id/pdf_with_instant_json \
   -o document-with-imported-data.pdf \
   -X POST \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=secret" \
   -F "instant.json=@instant.json;type=application/json"

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "data": {
    "document_id": ...,
    "errors": [],
    "sourcePdfSha256": ...,
    "title": "..."
  }
}

Common Options

Supported File Formats

PSPDFKit Server supports importing documents in different file formats:

  • PDF (available for all licenses)

  • Image Documents (JPEG, PNG, and TIFF — requires a specific license feature)

  • Office files (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint — requires a specific license feature)

Uploaded files do not need to have a specific extension, as PSPDFKit Server automatically detects the document MIME type.

The following table shows all supported MIME types:

File Extension MIME Type
PDF application/pdf
DOC application/msword
DOCX application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
XLS application/vnd.ms-excel
XLSX application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet
PPT, PPS application/vnd.ms-powerpoint
PPTX application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation
PPSX application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.slideshow
JPG/JPEG image/jpeg
PNG image/png
TIFF image/tiff

Request

POST /api/documents
Content-Type: application/msword
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"

<doc data>
$ curl http://localhost:5000/api/documents \
   -X POST \
   -H "Authorization: Token token=<secret token>" \
   -H "Content-Type: application/msword" \
   -T document.doc

Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "data": {
    "document_id": ...,
    "errors": [],
    "sourcePdfSha256": ...,
    "title": "..."
  }
}

All additional parameters — like your own document ID, a custom title, or an Instant JSON or XFDF attachment — are supported. For example, you can attach an Instant JSON file:

Request

POST /api/documents
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=customboundary
Authorization: Token token="<secret token>"

--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="file"; filename="example.doc"
Content-Type: application/msword

<doc data>
--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="attachment"; filename="attachment.json"
Content-Type: application/json

<annotations data>
--customboundary--

Accessing Password-Protected Documents

To access password-protected documents via the upstream API, you need to include the pspdfkit-pdf-password header in all requests that work on a password-protected document. The exception to this is uploading or deleting a document or accessing the properties of a document via the /properties endpoint.