Getting Started with PDFen API

Overview

The PDFen API allows you to convert documents to PDF, merge PDFs, add OCR, compress files, and more. This guide will walk you through making your first API call in just 5 minutes.

Step 1: Get Your API Token

First, you need an API token for authentication. Tokens are more secure than passwords and can be easily revoked.

Step 1b: Find Your Workflow ID

Every conversion requires a workflow_id. This is an integer that tells the API what type of conversion to perform. Use the workflows endpoint to see all available workflows:

curl https://pdfen.com/api/v2/user/workflows \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN"

The response includes system_workflows (available to all users) and user_workflows (your custom workflows). Each workflow has an id field — use that as workflow_id in your convert requests.

Common system workflows

Step 2: Make Your First API Call

Let's convert a Word document to PDF. We'll use the /api/v2/convert endpoint with a workflow_id from the previous step.

Using cURL (Command Line)

curl -X POST https://pdfen.com/api/v2/convert \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -F "files[]=@document.docx" \
  -F "workflow_id=1" \
  -F "async=true"

Using PHP

<?php
$curl = curl_init();

curl_setopt_array($curl, [
    CURLOPT_URL => 'https://pdfen.com/api/v2/convert',
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_POST => true,
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
        'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN'
    ],
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => [
        'files[]' => new CURLFile('document.docx'),
        'workflow_id' => 1,
        'async' => 'true'
    ]
]);

$response = curl_exec($curl);
$result = json_decode($response, true);

echo "Execution ID: " . $result['execution_id'] . "\n";
echo "Status: " . $result['status'] . "\n";
echo "Download URL: " . $result['download_url'] . "\n";

Using Python

import requests

url = 'https://pdfen.com/api/v2/convert'
headers = {'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN'}
files = {'files[]': open('document.docx', 'rb')}
data = {
    'workflow_id': 1,
    'async': 'true'
}

response = requests.post(url, headers=headers, files=files, data=data)
result = response.json()

print(f"Execution ID: {result['execution_id']}")
print(f"Status: {result['status']}")
print(f"Download URL: {result['download_url']}")

Expected Response

{
  "execution_id": "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
  "status": "processing",
  "credits_charged": 1,
  "credits_remaining": 99,
  "estimated_completion": "2025-01-15T10:30:00Z",
  "status_url": "https://pdfen.com/api/v2/executions/550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
  "download_url": "https://pdfen.com/api/v2/executions/550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000/download"
}

Step 3: Check Conversion Status

If you chose async processing, you need to poll the status endpoint to check when it's done.

curl https://pdfen.com/api/v2/executions/550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN"

Response when processing:

{
  "execution_id": "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
  "status": "processing",
  "progress": 75,
  "current_step": "Converting page 3 of 4"
}

Response when completed:

{
  "execution_id": "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
  "status": "done",
  "output_file_type": "pdf",
  "output_file_size": 245678,
  "total_pages": 4,
  "completed_at": "2025-01-15T10:30:15Z",
  "download_url": "https://pdfen.com/api/v2/executions/550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000/download"
}

Step 4: Download Your PDF

Once the status is done, you can download the converted PDF.

curl https://pdfen.com/api/v2/executions/550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000/download \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -o converted.pdf

PHP Example:

<?php
$downloadUrl = $result['download_url'];
$token = 'YOUR_API_TOKEN';

$ch = curl_init($downloadUrl);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, ["Authorization: Bearer $token"]);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$pdfContent = curl_exec($ch);

file_put_contents('converted.pdf', $pdfContent);
echo "PDF saved to converted.pdf";

Next Steps