Skip to main content

Invoices & receipts

Invoices and receipts are the canonical PDF-Server use case: high volume, data-driven, and often filled with end-user data (names, addresses, line items).

Why PDF Server fits​

  • Validation first. A schema.json rejects malformed data with a 422 before anything renders — you never ship a broken invoice.
  • Real CSS. Totals tables, page breaks, and print-specific layout via @page and PDF params.
  • Running totals in headers/footers with page numbers.
  • Safe by construction. Because the data is untrusted, use auto-escaping engines and follow the hardening checklist — never route customer data into raw-HTML sinks.

Shape​

templates/invoice/
  template.handlebars     # layout
  header.handlebars       # logo + invoice number
  footer.handlebars       # page X of Y
  schema.json             # required fields, types
  params.json             # A4, margins, printBackground
  examples/sample.json

Render one per request:

curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d @invoice-4711.json \
  https://pdf.internal/templates/invoice/render > invoice-4711.pdf

At scale, raise RENDER_POOL_MAX_TOTAL and put the service behind your authenticating gateway.