Markdown to PDF API

One request

Authenticate with a bearer key and post JSON. The response body is the PDF.

curl -X POST https://docpress.dev/v1/pdf \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer dp_your_key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"markdown": "# Release notes\n\n## Changes\n\n- Faster exports\n- New Letter theme", "theme": "clean", "toc": true}' \
  -o release-notes.pdf

A successful call returns 200 with an application/pdf body and the headers X-Pages, X-Quota-Used and X-Quota-Limit. Errors are JSON: 400 when neither html nor markdown is present, 401 for a bad key, 413 when the source is over 2 MB, 422 when the document cannot be rendered (the message says why), and 429 when the monthly quota is reached.

What the Markdown renderer supports

The input is the common fenced-code-and-tables dialect most editors and code hosts use.

• Headings, with ## and ### collected into the table of contents when toc is on.
• Tables (pipe syntax). The header row repeats at the top of each page a long table spans.
• Fenced code blocks with syntax highlighting when the fence names a language (```python). Unlabelled fences are rendered as plain monospace.
• Footnotes, definition lists, abbreviations and smart punctuation.
• Admonitions (!!! note) for call-out boxes.
• Inline HTML inside Markdown passes through to the renderer.
• Images, as data: URIs only.

Document options

Everything else is a field on the same request. All are optional.

• theme: clean (default), report, minimal, letter, or none to use only your own CSS.
• page_size: A4 (default), Letter, Legal, A5.
• cover, toc, page_numbers: booleans. Page numbers default to on and print as n / total at the bottom centre.
• title, author, date: used on the cover and in the PDF metadata. The title defaults to the first # heading.
• header, footer: running text at the top right and bottom left of every page.
• css: extra CSS appended after the theme, including @page rules.
• filename: the name in the Content-Disposition header.

Limits to know before you build

• No JavaScript is executed. Send the final HTML; anything a script would have drawn or filled in will not appear.
• The renderer has no network access. Images, fonts and stylesheets at external URLs are never fetched; inline them as data: URIs. A request that references an external URL fails with a 422 that names the URL, rather than silently dropping the asset.
• 2 MB of source per request, 300 pages per document, 2 concurrent renders per account.
• Free-plan output carries a small docpress.dev footer mark. Paid plans (from $9/month) do not.
• Installed fonts: DejaVu, Liberation, Noto, Carlito and Caladea. Embed any other font with an @font-face rule whose src is a data: URI.

Pricing

Plans are capped. When a plan's monthly document count is reached the API returns 429 until you upgrade or the month rolls over; there is no overage billing.

• Free: 50 documents/month, footer mark on output, no card required.
• Starter: $9/month, 500 documents, no mark.
• Pro: $29/month, 3,000 documents.
• Scale: $79/month, 15,000 documents.

Every response includes X-Quota-Used and X-Quota-Limit headers so you can watch usage without polling. Details on the pricing page.

Related

• HTML to PDF API
• Markdown to PDF with a table of contents
• PDF generation in Python
• PDF generation in Node.js