One of the most common scenarios you will find yourself as a developer is the need to generate documents for customers.
The PDF is the most popular format for generating documents. This option occurs because it keeps the document’s structure the same no matter which device it is opened.
In addition, you can password protect a PDF to make your content/data more secure. Better yet, you can also restrict users only to view your document and not change it.
When it comes to generating a PDF, you could spend your precious development time creating it yourself. Better yet, you could offload that development time to an easy-to-use API like pdflayer.
What is pdflayer?
pdflayer is an easy-to-use REST API for developers. It helps you generate PDFs on the fly with a full suite of document configuration and customization options.
This efficient API is built to offer developers a quick and easy way to automate HTML to PDF conversion in any application. Its lightweight infrastructure is based on a combination of the most potent PDF rendering engines available.
This function makes it a reliable option for any developer looking to process PDF documents in seconds.
What makes the pdflayer great?
Several features make pdflayer perfect for all your PDF creation needs. Let’s take a look at them now.
Customization
One of the best things about pdflayer is that it offers a complete set of customization functionalities. These include tons of layout adjustment options, design and branding tweaks, and also document configuration.
These customization options come in handy because different users have different customization requirements. For instance, your accounting department will want their invoices looking one way, and the customer will want theirs looking another. With pdflayer, you can customize your documents the way you want. It uses the full force of HTML and CSS and ties into your JAVA application.
Some customization options that pdflayer offers include:
Headers and Footers: You can add two types of custom header elements to your final PDF documents — a header text or a custom header HTTP URL or raw HTML element. And you also have the option to specify header spacing. Similarly, there are two custom footer elements that you can include in your PDF document — a footer text or a custom footer HTTP URL or raw HTML element.
Watermarks: With the pdflayer API, you can add a watermark to your PDF document. You can add customizable background or foreground watermark images.
Page Size: pdflayer lets you specify custom page size; you can choose from a wide range of page sizes, including A1, A2, B1, B2, Ledger, Legal, Tabloid, and many more.
Easy Integration
You can integrate pdflayer anywhere, anyway — it’s compatible with any programming language, and you can use it to generate customized PDFs from any URL or raw HTML. Raw HTML to PDF conversion is done via HTTP POST, or you can convert standard URLs using either GET or POST.
You need to make a request using the simple URL structure and leave the rest to the pdflayer API.
Powerful Infrastructure
pdflayer’s lightning-fast HTML to PDF conversion engine can process thousands of requests at a time, and it can convert documents of any size.
Cost-Effective
One of the best things about pdflayer is its cost-effective subscription plans starting from just USD 9.99/month. It also comes with a free plan which gives you as many as 100 API Requests per month.
Lightning-fast CDN
The PDF documents generated with pdflayer are stored using a super-fast CDN, and the files can be retrieved within milliseconds.
API Usage Tracking
You can track your API usage statistics daily or monthly, and it also sends you automatic notifications if you are running low.
Detailed and Interactive Documentation
The pdflayer comes with extensive documentation, consisting of a detailed outline of all of the pdflayer API’s specifications, access, and use of all features and parameters.
A great thing about its documentation is that once you’ve signed up, it lets you try out the API’s features as you go through the documentation.
Excellent Tech Support
pdflayer has a fantastic tech support team. Whenever you come across a problem using the API, you can contact the tech support team. They will give you exactly the information you need and, most importantly, when you need it.
Can you secure PDFs with pdflayer?
With pdflayer, you can programmatically secure PDFs with easy-to-use encryption and authentication flags. And you can also utilize secure password-protected HTML endpoints, which will allow your application to access private data.
pdflayer offers two encryption levels for PDFs: 40-bit and 128-bit. With pdflayer API, you can also secure your PDFs with two levels of password protection: owner password and user password.
The user gets unlimited access to the PDF with the owner’s password, including changing the passwords and permission options. However, the user password is required to view the document and perform operations allowed by the permission options.
What type of documents can you generate with pdflayer?
The pdflayer is a versatile API that lets you generate anything on an HTML page or can create the HTML.
It is also capable of generating PDFs from password-protected websites. One of the easiest ways to get started is by pointing the API at one of your HTML pages and seeing the results.
Is pdflayer easy to use?
pdflayer is super easy to use, and with just a few lines of code, you can quickly create your desired PDF documents.
For example, to create an invoice/PDF document with your preferred layout options, for example, page size and margins, you can use the simple code below:
- http://api.pdflayer.com/api/convert
- ? access_key = YOUR_ACCESS_KEY
- & document_url = https://pdflayer.com/downloads/invoice.html
- & page_size = A4
- & margin_top =
- & margin_bottom =
- & margin_left =
- & margin_right =
This yields the following PDF document:
Ready to Create Your PDF Documents With pdflayer?
Now that you know how easy it is to use pdflayer and its customization options try pdflayer today and find out how it can speed up your development process.