Generate a PDF

POST /v1/generate

Renders one of your templates with the supplied data and returns a PDF. Requires a valid API key.

Request body

Field	Type	Description
`template_id`	string	Required. The id of a template you own.
`data`	object	The values merged into the template's placeholders (max 256 KB).
`options.output`	string	`"binary"` (default) returns the PDF bytes; `"url"` returns a 24-hour signed URL.

Example

curl -X POST https://paperfox.dev/v1/generate \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer pf_live_YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "template_id": "tmpl_…", "data": { "total": 3078 } }' \
  --output invoice.pdf

Responses

Binary (default). 200 OK with Content-Type: application/pdf — the response body is the PDF.

Signed URL. With { "options": { "output": "url" } }:

{ "url": "https://…/signed.pdf", "expires_at": "2026-07-01T12:00:00.000Z" }

Notes

Typical render time is ~2 seconds. Requests time out at 20s (504 render_timeout).
Each successful generation counts toward your monthly quota. Exceeding it returns 402 quota_exceeded.
Templates only format data — compute business values (subtotal, tax, total) on your side and pass them in. See Template syntax.
PaperFox stores no document data: generation logs keep metadata only (status, duration, size).

Full status/code list: Errors.