Generate PDFs in PHP

Generate a PDF in PHP

POST your HTML and data to /api/v1/generate with your API key, then save the PDF that comes back. Swap in your own HTML or a saved template_id and loop over records to render at scale.

<?php

$ch = curl_init('https://pdfgen.com/api/v1/generate');
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_POST => true,
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
        'Authorization: Bearer pdfg_live_xxx',
        'Content-Type: application/json',
    ],
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => json_encode([
        'html' => '<h1>Invoice {{number}}</h1><p>Billed to {{client}} — total {{total}}</p>',
        'engine' => 'handlebars',
        'format' => 'A4',
        'data' => ['number' => 'INV-001', 'client' => 'Acme Corp', 'total' => '$2,400.00'],
    ]),
]);

$pdf = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

file_put_contents('invoice.pdf', $pdf);

Convert existing HTML to PDF in PHP

Already have finished HTML? Skip templating — read an .html file and POST it with cURL and send it with engine: "legacy", which tells the API your markup is final.

<?php

// Your existing, already-styled HTML file.
$html = file_get_contents('invoice.html');

$ch = curl_init('https://pdfgen.com/api/v1/generate');
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_POST => true,
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
        'Authorization: Bearer pdfg_live_xxx',
        'Content-Type: application/json',
    ],
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => json_encode([
        'html' => $html,
        'engine' => 'legacy',
        'format' => 'A4',
    ]),
]);

$pdf = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

file_put_contents('invoice.pdf', $pdf);

How it works

1. 1

   Send your HTML + data

   POST an HTML template (with optional Handlebars tokens) and a data object to the API.

2. 2

   We render the PDF

   PDFgen renders it server-side — no headless browser for you to run or scale.

3. 3

   Get the PDF back

   Receive the PDF binary (or a hosted link with export_type:"url") and serve it from PHP.

Good to know

• Uses the built-in cURL extension — no Composer package required.
• To stream to the browser instead, send a "Content-Type: application/pdf" header and echo $pdf.
• Keep your API key in an environment variable (getenv) rather than hard-coding it.

Frequently asked questions

How do I generate a PDF in plain PHP?

Use cURL to POST your HTML and data to /api/v1/generate, then write the returned bytes with file_put_contents or echo them with a PDF content type.

Do I need DomPDF, TCPDF or mPDF?

No. Rendering happens on PDFgen, so a single cURL request replaces those libraries and their CSS limitations.

Can I use this in WordPress?

Yes — the same cURL call works inside a plugin or theme; or use wp_remote_post() for the WordPress HTTP API.

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