Templates

Design invoices, receipts, labels and certificates once in the dashboard, then create PDFs by sending JSON.

• Build or customise a template under Templates in the dashboard. The library has 32 starters: invoices, quotes, purchase orders, receipts, bills and statements, payslips and HR letters, shipping and address labels, QR codes, product and asset labels, badges and ID cards, event tickets and vouchers, menus, certificates, letters and envelopes.
• Each template has fields. A field's key is the JSON property you send, for example invoice_number or customer.name.
• Render with POST /templates/{template_id}/render. Each successful render is charged as one PDF, the same as /quickjob.

Create the template first

This endpoint renders a template that already exists in your account. It doesn't take a design in the request. Before you call it:

1. In the dashboard, open Templates and pick a starter from the Template library, click New blank template, or click New HTML template (beta) to write the template in your own HTML.
2. Adjust the design and fields, then Save.
3. Copy the template's ID. It appears on the template's card in My templates (with a copy button), in Use via API, and in the editor's address bar (/templates/<template_id>/edit).

Calling render with an ID that doesn't exist in your account returns 404 TEMPLATE_NOT_FOUND. Editing a saved template changes the output of later calls; the ID stays the same. Deleting it makes those calls fail.

Quick Example

Replace YOUR_TEMPLATE_ID with your template's ID and send values for its fields:

curl -X POST https://api.podpdf.com/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE_ID/render \
  -H "X-API-Key: your_api_key_here" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "data": {
      "invoice_number": "INV-1042",
      "issue_date": "2026-09-13",
      "customer": { "name": "Acme Ltd", "address": "1 Main St\nSpringfield" },
      "items": [
        { "description": "Design work", "quantity": 10, "unit_price": 85 },
        { "description": "Hosting", "quantity": 1, "unit_price": 20 }
      ],
      "tax_rate": 20
    }
  }' \
  --output INV-1042.pdf

The totals, currency formatting, page numbers and table headers on every page all come from the template, so you only send the values.

Copy the request from the dashboard

Open a template and click Use via API. It shows the endpoint for that template and an example body with every field, in cURL, JavaScript and Python.

Authentication

Required. Send an API key or a dashboard ID token:

X-API-Key: your_api_key_here

Learn about authentication →

Request

Endpoint

POST https://api.podpdf.com/templates/{template_id}/render

Body

Field	Type	Required	Description
data	object	Yes	Values for the template's fields. Nested keys such as customer.name are nested objects. List fields are arrays of objects. Extra keys are ignored. Up to 1 MB.
store	boolean	No	true stores the PDF and returns a download link (valid for 1 hour) instead of the file
filename	string	No	File name for the Content-Disposition header
pdf_standard	string	No	Alpha. "pdf/ua-1" or "pdf/ua-2" for an accessible, tagged PDF, checked by veraPDF (result in X-PDF-Conformance). Starter templates pass both. See Accessible PDFs
title, lang	string	No	Alpha. With pdf_standard: the document title and language. Default to the template's name and language

Value formats

Field type	Send	Example
Text, Multi-line text	string (numbers are accepted)	"Acme Ltd", "Line 1\nLine 2"
Number	number or numeric string	12.5
Money amount	number, in the template currency	1234.56 → $1,234.56 or 1.234,56 €
Percentage	number, where 20 means 20%	20
Date	ISO date	"2026-09-13"
Image URL	public https:// URL (PNG or JPEG, up to 2 MB) or data:image/…;base64,…	"https://cdn.example.com/logo.png"
List	array of objects	[{ "description": "Design", "quantity": 2 }]

Response

Success (default)

200 OK with the PDF as the body.

Header	Description
Content-Type	application/pdf
X-Job-Id	Job ID, visible in GET /jobs
X-PDF-Pages	Number of pages

Success with store: true

{
  "job_id": "3f5c2a7e-8b1d-4c9e-a2f4-6d7e8f9a0b1c",
  "template_id": "01J8ZK3QW5V7N2B4X6C8D0E2F4",
  "pages": 2,
  "truncated": false,
  "download_url": "https://…",
  "download_url_expires_at": "2026-09-13T13:00:00.000Z"
}

Invalid data

Every problem is listed so you can fix them all at once. Nothing is charged.

{
  "error": {
    "code": "TEMPLATE_DATA_INVALID",
    "message": "The data does not match the template fields",
    "details": {
      "errors": [
        { "field": "invoice_number", "error": "is required" },
        { "field": "items[1].quantity", "error": "must be a number" },
        { "field": "customer.logo_url", "error": "must be an https URL or a base64 data:image URI" }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Other errors

Status	Code	Meaning
400	TEMPLATE_DATA_TOO_LARGE	data is over 1 MB
400	PAGE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED	The document has more pages than your limit
401	UNAUTHORIZED	Missing or invalid API key
403	INSUFFICIENT_CREDITS, RATE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED	Same as /quickjob
404	TEMPLATE_NOT_FOUND	Wrong ID, or the template belongs to another account
408	QUICKJOB_TIMEOUT	Rendering took longer than 30 seconds

See Error handling for retries.

HTML templates (beta)

A template written in your own HTML renders through this same endpoint, with the same request, response, errors and price. Two things differ:

• 400 TEMPLATE_DATA_INVALID is also returned when the data makes the template repeat more than 50,000 rows in total, or produce a document larger than 12 MB.
• Totals are not calculated: send every value the template prints.

GET /templates and GET /templates/{template_id} return kind: "html" for these templates and "blocks" for visual ones. See the guide for the tags.

Page sizes

Page size, orientation and margins are part of the template, so the same JSON always produces the same layout.

Preset	Size
A3, A4, A5	ISO sizes
US Letter, US Legal	8.5 × 11 in, 8.5 × 14 in
Receipt 80 mm, Receipt 58 mm	Thermal roll widths; the length follows the content
Shipping label 4 × 6 in	101.6 × 152.4 mm
Custom	Any width 25–1200 mm and height 25–2000 mm, or automatic length

Managing templates from code

The dashboard is the usual way to create and edit templates. The management routes need a dashboard ID token rather than an API key:

Method	Path	Purpose
GET	/templates	List your templates
GET	/templates/{template_id}	Get a template and its definition (including fields)
POST	/templates	Create from a definition or from a starter ({ "from_starter": "invoice-a4" })
PUT	/templates/{template_id}	Replace the definition (expected_version prevents overwriting someone else's edit). A template keeps its kind: a visual template cannot be replaced by an HTML one, or the other way round.
DELETE	/templates/{template_id}	Delete
GET	/templates/library	List starters