From zero to generating your first Document

Start your document creation journey and generate your first PDF with PDFMonkey. Learn how to generate your first document starting from scratch !

Create an account on PDFMonkey

To create an account, go to the Register page and fill in you email and password.

We do not ask for a password confirmation but you can toggle password hiding by clicking on Show my password.

Once you’ve filled in your credentials, we will send you an activation email. Click the link in the email to activate your account. You will not be able to sign in until your account is confirmed.

Sign in

Once your account confirmed, fill in your credentials in the Sign in page to get access to your dashboard.

Create your first Template

To create a template, head to the Templates page and click on Create my first Template.

Give a name to your template, select the Code edition mode and select the Base Template named Blank.

It will open the Template Editor, where PDFMonkey's magic happens.

You can change the name of your Template as often as you want, it will have no impact on your client applications.

Writing your first Template

In the HTML tab, insert the following code:

<p>Hello {{name}}!</p>

In the CSS tab, insert the following code:

p {
  color: #6D28D9;
  font-size: 24px;
}

And finally in the Test data tab, insert this:

{
  "name": "Peter Parker"
}

You can now click on the Save button, and you should see the preview panel on the right update to reflect your changes.

Real PDF preview

The PDF preview you see is actually a 100% accurate version of what the final result will be as it is a real PDF, generated using the same process we use to generate your Documents.

The last step is to make your Template available for generation. To do so, click on the Publish button.

pageAuthoring TemplatespageWhat are the Template test data?

Generating your first Document

Now that your Template is complete, let's head to the Documents page.

Once there, click on the Create my first Document button. In the next page, select you template from the dropdown list presented to you and click on Create a draft.

It will open the Document Editor, letting you specify data and meta-data for your Document.

By default you will be shown an editable copy of the test data you've added to your Template. Let's update it to the following:

{
  "name": "Spider-man"
}

Now head to the Meta data tab and insert the following to customise the PDF filename:

{
  "_filename": "hello-spider-man.pdf"
}

Click on the Save button. The preview will refresh, showing you an up-to-date version of the PDF.

Finally click on Generate.

That's it! You generated you very first Document with PDFMonkey! 🎉

pageWhat can you do with PDFMonkey?pageTroubleshooting