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PDF.co API

PDF Compress and Optimize

Optimize PDF document to reduce its size.

Available Methods

[POST] /pdf/optimize

Attributes
url required
URL to the source file. Supports links from Google Drive, Dropbox, and PDF.co built-in files storage. To upload files via API, Check out the Files Upload section.

Note: If you experience intermittent Too Many Requests or Access Denied errors, please try to add cache: to enable built-in URL caching. (e.g cache:https://example.com/file1.pdf)

For data security, you have the option to encrypt output files and decrypt input files. Learn more about user-controlled data encryption.
httpusername optional
HTTP auth user name if required to access source url.
httppassword optional
HTTP auth password if required to access source url.
name optional
File name for the generated output. Must be in a “string” format.
expiration optional
Set the expiration time for the output link in minutes (default is 60 i.e 60 minutes or 1 hour), After this specified duration, any generated output file(s) will be automatically deleted from PDF.co temporary files storage. The maximum duration for link expiration varies based on your current subscription plan. Learn more

To store permanent input files (e.g. re-usable images, pdf templates, documents), Consider using PDF.co built-in Files Storage.
password optional
Password of PDF file. Must be in a “string” format.
async optional
Set async to true for long processes to run in the background, API will then return a jobId which you can use with /job/check endpoint to check the status of the process and retrieve the output while you can proceed with other tasks without waiting for this process to finish.
profiles optional
Use this parameter to set additional configurations for fine-tuning and extra options. Must be in a “string” format. You can adjust PDF compression and optimization configuration using this parameter. Check this KB article for compression configuration details or Explore PDF.co knowledgebase for all profile examples.
  • Method: POST
  • URL: /v1/pdf/optimize

Query parameters

No query parameters accepted.

Body payload

{
    "url": "https://pdfco-test-files.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pdf-optimize/sample.pdf",
    "name": "output.pdf",
    "profiles": "{ 'ImageOptimizationFormat': 'JPEG', 'JPEGQuality': 25, 'ResampleImages': true, 'ResamplingResolution': 120, 'GrayscaleImages': false }",
    "async": false
}

Example responses

/pdf/optimize
{
    "url": "https://pdf-temp-files.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/TEPHYOOWTKN47RSMF11CXHXHD7U68ZSS/sample-compressed.pdf?X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-Security-Token=FwoGZXIvYXdzEEsaDMAT9Cnzd6%2FnDfVKYSKCAU6XCvsgWTRfJHWmoO2iJfJ6YSVShb6ddOXU9Ks5G4Ai20O2idqOaLLslwt6uEnT9EbwpzBMEXuqREkoTTmUOEcXJi9zO5lkLoQ16tXCbfmUF8cvJxVYBXGRHJlzHQ20kJtN6lP237e8rlMtNRIK0f1QsIQswfWy2BFz8IuOndZRu8goquiLmQYyKBBjAmoWcEqs0iMA7MizFAdIbFGydTYXcptaixm%2F%2BfayUZKUByJHURU%3D&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=ASIA4NRRSZPHNTO33MZG/20220915/us-west-2/s3/aws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20220915T135207Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=4f3334f68f1a98d3a9bfe09ec03d3e7d10fb7709ce58b711e36652c59a4d6b4a",
    "fileSize": 798621,
    "pageCount": 5,
    "error": false,
    "status": 200,
    "name": "sample-compressed.pdf",
    "credits": 105,
    "duration": 2886,
    "remainingCredits": 98256037
}

Code Snippet

CURL
curl --location --request POST 'https://api.pdf.co/v1/pdf/optimize' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--header 'x-api-key: ' \
--data-raw '{
    "url": "https://pdfco-test-files.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/pdf-optimize/sample.pdf",
    "name": "output.pdf",
    "profiles": "{ '\''ImageOptimizationFormat'\'': '\''JPEG'\'', '\''JPEGQuality'\'': 25, '\''ResampleImages'\'': true, '\''ResamplingResolution'\'': 120, '\''GrayscaleImages'\'': false }",
    "async": false
}'