Generate Pre-signed URL

Generate a presigned URL you can PUT a local file to, returning an accessible link for use with other PDF.co API endpoints.

Try it live: Generate Pre-signed URL → API Tester — send a real request from your browser.

GET /v1/file/upload/get-presigned-url

With this method you can upload files up to 2GB in size. Please note that to process these files you should use async=true mode with data extraction and tools endpoints along with Job Check to check status of background jobs you create.

Query parameters

No query parameters accepted.

Responses

Parameter	Type	Description
presignedUrl	string	The presigned URL to upload the file
url	string	Direct URL to the final PDF file stored in S3.
outputLinkValidTill	string	Timestamp indicating when the output link will expire
error	boolean	Indicates whether an error occurred (false means success)
status	string	Status code of the request (200, 404, 500, etc.). For more information, see Response Codes.
name	string	Name of the output file
credits	integer	Number of credits consumed by the request
remainingCredits	integer	Number of credits remaining in the account
duration	integer	Time taken for the operation in milliseconds

Example Response

To see the main response codes, please refer to the Response Codes page.

{
  "presignedUrl": "https://pdf-temp-files.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/A1VGV42YE0NWXMKEB4BUIWNYGKXEWTND/test.pdf?X-Amz-Expires=900&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIZJDPLX6D7EHVCKA/20220913/us-west-2/s3/aws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20220913T074159Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=content-type;host&X-Amz-Signature=53f326afde5bcfb3b2714ee8cb5322795bf10a03feb7dab3764e6ca63c017f43",
  "url": "https://pdf-temp-files.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/A1VGV42YE0NWXMKEB4BUIWNYGKXEWTND/test.pdf?X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-Security-Token=FwoGZXIvYXdzEBgaDLZTUxFLOwF9iiGk%2FyKCATiLp%2FRn9nPmt%2Fey9PcilcRMXtLl0TS6IFNOpk%2BKtSF%2B%2BEVcbNFThw4c1KVx21RQxT5zf7csSEESGov1Xd4uDhF0xGoVkXff9saXGVUtgKrYgPKhUfv5KEO7gz3E0t%2FqCPZJn2KGs1yMbUkohzeIrEd0NH8EVvqfxrfCcW0ZANiG2iMoh8eAmQYyKLjRMfg02ZJPTgoFPQmfMyYt0FacTg4RhkP3PeD9mrWLefDXCwcYkkI%3D&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=ASIA4NRRSZPHFHQYL4OV/20220913/us-west-2/s3/aws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20220913T074159Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=9b1a90f36635459bb40f09b0fc6fe3eba185ba3cfdb0a8ef1096ac9efa9b6299",
  "error": false,
  "status": 200,
  "name": "test.pdf",
  "credits": 7,
  "duration": 0,
  "remainingCredits": 98191146
}

Inconsistent URL Encoding in cURL Output: When using cURL to make API requests, the output JSON may show URL characters encoded as Unicode escape sequences. For example, the ampersand character (&) may appear as \u0026 in the cURL output. This is normal JSON encoding behavior and does not affect the validity of the URL. The URL will function correctly when used, as JSON parsers automatically decode these escape sequences. If you’re parsing the response programmatically, your JSON parser will handle this conversion automatically.

Code Samples

CURL

curl --location --request GET https://api.pdf.co/v1/file/upload/get-presigned-url?name=test.pdf&encrypt=true
--header 'x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY'

JavaScript/Node.js

var https = require("https");
var path = require("path");

const API_KEY = "**********************************************";

function getPresignedUrl(apiKey) {
  return new Promise(resolve => {
      // Prepare request to `Get Presigned URL` API endpoint
      let queryPath = `/v1/file/upload/get-presigned-url?name=test.pdf`;
      let reqOptions = {
          host: "api.pdf.co",
          path: encodeURI(queryPath),
          headers: { "x-api-key": apiKey }
      };
      // Send request
      https.get(reqOptions, (response) => {
          response.on("data", (d) => {
              let data = JSON.parse(d);
              if (data.error == false) {
                  console.log("presignedUrl: " + data.presignedUrl);
                  // Return presigned url we received
                  resolve([data.presignedUrl, data.url]);
              }
              else {
                  // Service reported error
                  console.log("getPresignedUrl(): " + data.message);
              }
          });
       })
       .on("error", (e) => {
            // Request error
            console.log("getPresignedUrl(): " + e);
       });
  });
}

let result = getPresignedUrl(API_KEY);

Python

# The authentication key (API Key).
# Get your own by registering at https://app.pdf.co
API_KEY = "*************************************"

# Base URL for PDF.co Web API requests
BASE_URL = "https://api.pdf.co/v1"

fileName = "test.pdf"

url = "{}/file/upload/get-presigned-url?contenttype=application/octet-stream&name={}".format(
    BASE_URL, os.path.basename(fileName))

# Execute request and get response as JSON
response = requests.get(url, headers={"x-api-key": API_KEY})
if (response.status_code == 200):
    json = response.json()

    if json["error"] == False:
        # URL to use for file upload
        uploadUrl = json["presignedUrl"]
        # URL for future reference
        uploadedFileUrl = json["url"]

PHP

<?php
  $apiKey = "***************";
  $url = "https://api.pdf.co/v1/file/upload/get-presigned-url" .
      "?name=" . urlencode($_FILES["file"]["name"]) .
      "&contenttype=application/octet-stream";

  // Create request
  $curl = curl_init();
  curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array("x-api-key: " . $apiKey));
  curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
  curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
  // Execute request
  $result = curl_exec($curl);
?>