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Integrate DWS Viewer API with your own backend

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DWS Viewer API provides a programmatic API that enables you to integrate it with your backend. This backend can be a regular server-side application running in your infrastructure or in a cloud, or it could be a serverless function. The API is language agnostic, with the only requirement being the ability to communicate via HTTP.

Your backend can support two document sources:

  • DWS-managed documents, where your backend uploads the document to DWS Viewer API and stores the returned document ID.
  • App-provided documents, where your backend creates a browser session and your frontend passes the document directly to Nutrient Web SDK.

For cross-product overviews of Web SDK, Document Engine, and DWS Viewer API workflows, refer to the choose the right annotation workflow setup and choose the right forms workflow setup guides.

Uploading a DWS-managed document

When you create a document by upload, your backend service sends the file to DWS Viewer API, which will manage the entire document lifecycle.

Your service uploads the document to DWS Viewer API and receives a document ID back.

  1. Your service uploads the document to DWS Viewer API, which stores the document.
  2. Your service receives the document ID back, which it can use to reference the document later.
  3. To be able to do this, it needs to persist the document ID in persistent storage — for example, a database.

Viewing a document in your web app

After you create a DWS-managed document via upload, you can open it via Nutrient Web SDK. Any changes made to the document are automatically persisted by DWS Viewer API.

Nutrient Web SDK opens a document from DWS Viewer API
  1. A user requests a document to display in your web app running in a web browser.
  2. Your app requests access to the document from your backend.
  3. Your backend creates a session token for the requested document.
  4. The session token is then passed to your web app.
  5. The web app loads Nutrient Web SDK using the session token for authentication.
  6. After successful authentication, it displays the document streamed from DWS Viewer API.

Viewing an app-provided document

If your browser app already has the document, your backend can create a browser session by omitting allowed_documents from POST /viewer/sessions. Your frontend then loads Nutrient Web SDK with both session and document.

This avoids DWS upload and storage usage while still using DWS Viewer API session authorization and viewer-session quota tracking. See the open app-provided documents guide for the full flow.