Create PDF Thumbnail Previews in Linux

PSPDFKit Processor has been deprecated and replaced by Document Engine. To start using Document Engine, refer to the migration guide. With Document Engine, you’ll have access to robust new capabilities (read the blog for more information).

To create a page thumbnail, post a multipart request to the /build API endpoint, including the source document as the input and the instructions JSON.

Creating a thumbnail requires you to provide options with both the desired page index to render and the rendered dimensions via a width, height, or dpi option.

Only one option — width, height, or dpi — can be chosen. Other dimensions are calculated before rendering, so as to preserve the page aspect ratio of the rendered image.

The format of the rendered thumbnail can be controlled via a format option. Supported image formats are PNG, JPEG, WEBP, and TIFF.

Before you get started, make sure Processor is up and running.

You can download and use either of the following sample documents for the examples in this guide:

You’ll be sending multipart POST requests with instructions to Processor’s /build endpoint. To learn more about multipart requests, refer to our blog post on the topic, A Brief Tour of Multipart Requests.

Check out the API Reference to learn more about the /build endpoint and all the actions you can perform on PDFs with PSPDFKit Processor.

Creating a Thumbnail from a File on Disk

In this example, use the first page of the document to create a thumbnail. Send a multipart request to the /build endpoint, attaching an input file and the instructions JSON:

curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/api/build \
  -F document=@/path/to/example-document.pdf \
  -F instructions='{
  "parts": [
    {
      "file": "document",
      "pages": {
        "start": 0,
        "end": 0
      }
    }
  ],
  "output": {
    "type": "image",
    "width": 200,
    "format": "png"
  }
}' \
  -o result.pdf

POST /process HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=customboundary

--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="document"; filename="example-document.pdf"
Content-Type: application/pdf

<PDF data>
--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="instructions"
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "parts": [
    {
      "file": "document",
      "pages": {
        "start": 0,
        "end": 0
      }
    }
  ],
  "output": {
    "type": "image",
    "width": 200,
    "format": "png"
  }
}
--customboundary--

Creating a Thumbnail from a File from a URL

Send a multipart request to the /build endpoint, attaching a URL pointing to an input file and the instructions JSON:

curl -X POST http://localhost:5000/api/build \
  -F document='{
  "url": "https://pspdfkit.com/downloads/examples/paper.pdf"
}' \
  -F instructions='{
  "parts": [
    {
      "file": "document",
      "pages": {
        "start": 0,
        "end": 0
      }
    }
  ],
  "output": {
    "type": "image",
    "width": 200,
    "format": "png"
  }
}' \
  -o result.pdf

POST /process HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=customboundary

--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="document"
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "url": "https://pspdfkit.com/downloads/examples/paper.pdf"
}
--customboundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="instructions"
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "parts": [
    {
      "file": "document",
      "pages": {
        "start": 0,
        "end": 0
      }
    }
  ],
  "output": {
    "type": "image",
    "width": 200,
    "format": "png"
  }
}
--customboundary--