Generate PDFs in Python

Install

pip install requests

Generate a PDF in Python

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.

import requests

res = requests.post(
    "https://pdfgen.com/api/v1/generate",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer pdfg_live_xxx"},
    json={
        "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"},
    },
)

# Default response is the PDF binary. Pass "export_type": "url" for a hosted link.
with open("invoice.pdf", "wb") as f:
    f.write(res.content)

Convert existing HTML to PDF in Python

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

import requests

# Your existing, already-styled HTML file.
with open("invoice.html") as f:
    html = f.read()

res = requests.post(
    "https://pdfgen.com/api/v1/generate",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer pdfg_live_xxx"},
    # engine "legacy" = treat the HTML as final, no templating.
    json={"html": html, "engine": "legacy", "format": "A4"},
)

with open("invoice.pdf", "wb") as f:
    f.write(res.content)

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 Python.

Good to know

• No system binaries — unlike wkhtmltopdf or WeasyPrint, there’s nothing native to install.
• Store your API key in an environment variable and read it with os.environ.
• res.content is the raw PDF; send "export_type": "url" to get a hosted, expiring link instead.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the easiest way to make a PDF in Python?

POST your HTML and data to /api/v1/generate with the requests library and write res.content to a file — no native PDF engine to install.

Is this better than wkhtmltopdf or WeasyPrint?

It removes the system-dependency and binary-version headaches: rendering runs on PDFgen, so your Python service just makes an HTTP call.

Can I use it inside Django or Flask?

Yes — see the Django guide, or make the same requests call from a Flask view and return the bytes as an application/pdf response.

Generate PDFs in other languages