Ruby SDK

We provide a Ruby SDK to connect to PDFMonkey. This gem is the quickest way to use our API with Ruby.

Github: https://github.com/pdfmonkey/pdfmonkey-ruby

Installation

Add this line to your application’s Gemfile:

Gemfile

gem 'pdfmonkey'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install pdfmonkey

Usage

Setting up authentication

Using the default environment variables

PDFMonkey will look for the PDFMONKEY_PRIVATE_KEY environment variable. This variable should contain your private key obtained at https://dashboard.pdfmonkey.io/account.

PDFMONKEY_PRIVATE_KEY=j39ckj4…

Setting credentials manually

You can choose to set up your credentials explicitely in your application:

Pdfmonkey.configure do |config|
  config.private_key = 'j39ckj4…'
end

Generating a document

Once your App is created in the PDFMonkey Dashboard, create a Document Template and add the content you want to use. Every Document Template has a unique identifier (UUID), get your template’s identifier. Your ready to generate a Document.

Synchronous generation

If your want to wait for a Document’s generation before continuing with your workflow, use the generate! method, it will request a document generation and wait for it to succeed or fail before giving you any answer.

template_id = 'b13ebd75-d290-409b-9cac-8f597ae3e785'
data = { name: 'John Doe' }

document = Pdfmonkey::Document.generate!(template_id, data)

document.status       # => 'success'
document.download_url # => 'https://…'

The Download URL is temporary

The download URL of a document is only valid for 1 hour. Passed this delay, reload the document to obtain a new one by calling document.reload!

Asynchronous generation

PDFMonkey was created with an asynchronous workflow in mind. It provides webhooks to inform you of a Document’s generation success.

To leverage this behavior and continue working while your Document is generated, use the generate method:

template_id = 'b13ebd75-d290-409b-9cac-8f597ae3e785'
data = { name: 'John Doe' }

document = Pdfmonkey::Document.generate(template_id, data)

document.status # => 'pending'
document.download_url # => nil

If you have a webhook URL set up it will be called with you document once the generation is complete. You can simulate it for testing with the following cURL command:

curl <url of your app> \
  -X POST \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
        "document": {
          "app_id": "d9ec8249-65ae-4d50-8aee-7c12c1f9683a",
          "checksum": "ac0c2b6bcc77e2b01dc6ca6a9f656b2d",
          "created_at": "2020-01-02T03:04:05.000+01:00",
          "document_template_id": "f7fbe2b4-a57c-46ee-8422-5ae8cc37daac",
          "download_url": "https://example.com/76bebeb9-9eb1-481a-bc3c-faf43dc3ac81.pdf",
          "filename": "76bebeb9-9eb1-481a-bc3c-faf43dc3ac81.pdf",
          "id": "76bebeb9-9eb1-481a-bc3c-faf43dc3ac81",
          "meta": null,
          "payload": "{\"name\": \"John Doe\"}",
          "preview_url": null,
          "status": "success",
          "updated_at": "2020-01-02T03:04:15.000+01:00"
        }
      }'

Attaching meta data to the document

In addition to the Document’s payload you can add meta data when generating a Document.

This can be done by passing a third argument to the generate! and generate methods:

meta = {
  _filename: 'john-doe-contract.pdf',
  client_id: '123xxx123'
}

document = Pdfmonkey::Document.generate!(template_id, payload, meta)
document.meta
# => '{"_filename":"john-doe-contract.pdf","client_id":"123xxx123"}'

document = Pdfmonkey::Document.generate(template_id, payload, meta)
document.meta
# => '{"_filename":"john-doe-contract.pdf","client_id":"123xxx123"}'

Error handling

In case of error, be it an HTTP layer error or an API error, document.status will be set to 'error' and document.error will contain the error message.

# Using an unknown template

template_id = 'unknown'
data = { name: 'John Doe' }

document = Pdfmonkey::Document.generate(template_id, data)

document.status # => 'error'
document.errors # => ["Document template must exist"]

# If the network is down
document = Pdfmonkey::Document.generate(template_id, data)

document.status # => 'error'
document.errors # => ["Failed to open TCP connection to api.pdfmonkey.io:443 (getaddrinfo: nodename nor servname provided, or not known)"]

Fetching a document

You can fetch an existing document using the .fetch method:

document = Pdfmonkey::Document.fetch('76bebeb9-9eb1-481a-bc3c-faf43dc3ac81')

Error handling

In case of error, be it an HTTP layer error or an API error, document.status will be set to 'error' and document.error will contain the error message.

document = Pdfmonkey::Document.fetch('unknown')

document.status # => 'error'
document.errors # => ["We couldn't find any Document with ID \"unknown\"..."]

# If the network is down
document = Pdfmonkey::Document.fetch('95eb0b6e-090b-4195-9b7c-cc3d50099867')

document.status # => 'error'
document.errors # => ["Failed to open TCP connection to api.pdfmonkey.io:443 (getaddrinfo: nodename nor servname provided, or not known)"]

Deleting a document

You can delete an existing document using the .delete method:

Pdfmonkey::Document.delete('76bebeb9-9eb1-481a-bc3c-faf43dc3ac81')
#=> true

Alternatively you can call the #delete! method:

document.delete!
#=> true

Error handling

In case of error, be it an HTTP layer error or an API error, an error Hash will be returned.

document.delete!
#=> true

document.delete!
# {
#   errors: ["We couldn't find any Document with ID \"11111111-2222-3333-4444-555555555555\". If ..."],
#   status: "error"
# }

# If the network is down
document.delete!
# {
#   errors: ["Failed to open TCP connection to api.pdfmonkey.io:443 (getaddrinfo: nodename nor servname provided, or not known)"],
#   status: "error"
# }