Quickstart: Generating your first document

In this tutorial, we will show you how to get up and running with Inkit quickly by generating your first document. We will do the following:

Creating a simple HTML template

An Inkit template consists of static elements of your document (the parts that will never change), and the dynamic elements that will by injecting your data. You can create a dynamic element by embedding a field between double-curly brackets ({{}}) that Inkit will replace with your data when you generate the document.

Think of the classic mail merge many of us have used to generate a set of letters. The body of your letter is static. It never changes no matter who it is addressed to. But the name and the address elements are dynamic. They change with each letter through the injection of data.

In the following example, we will create a simple mail merge template by doing the following:

In the Inkit web app, select Templates in the left sidebar and then click + Create.
In the Create Template page, select HTML from the File Type dropdown box. Then enter Mail Merge in Template Name and an optional description of the template in Description. Finally, click + Add HTML.
In the HTML editor, enter <html>Dear {{Name}}, We're having a sale today.</html> in the Editor View panel and click Preview.

In the Merge Fields dialog box, enter John in Your Data and click Preview.

In the Preview panel, you will now see a preview of the merged document. To apply the HTML code to the template, click Apply.
In the Create Template page, click Save to save the template.

Generating a document using the Inkit web app

We will now generate a document from the template that we created in the previous step using the Inkit web app. Using the web app is a good way of generating a single document or testing a template that you created.

To generate the document, do the following:

In the Inkit web app, select Documents in the left sidebar. Then click + Create and select Document from the dropdown list.
In the Create Document page, select the mail merge template that you created in the previous step and click Continue.
In the New Document panel, enter a Name of the document and an optional Description and click Continue.
In the Fill Out Destinations panel, Enter John into Your Data as the Name that you will inject into your generated document and click Generate Document.

The document job will then enter the Inkit queue. Wait a few seconds for it to complete and refresh the page.
To view your generated document, double-click on it.
Your generated document will display in the document viewer.

Generating a document using the Inkit API

While generating a document using the Inkit API is more complicated than using the Inkit web app (and it does require programming skill to take full advantage of it), it is also far more powerful. It allows you to generate and retrieve documents at scale and employ all the functionality of Inkit within your own applications. The only limitation is your imagination.

To generate a document from the template that we created in the first step of this tutorial using the Inkit API, do the following:

Generate an API key and copy it to some place safe.

🚧
Do not publicly expose your API keys. They act much like passwords, and anyone with access to them can make Inkit requests on your behalf. You should store them securely.
In the Inkit web app, select Templates in the left sidebar and find the mail merge template that you previously created. Then copy its ID to some place safe.

In a text editor, copy and paste the Python, Node.js or cURL code below that will generate the document from the template.

If you are using the Python sample, replace inkit.api_token below with your API key and template_id with your template ID, and save the file as test.py.

If you are using the Node.js sample, replace inkit.apiToken below with your API key and templateId with your template ID, and save the files as test.js.

If you are using the cURL sample, replace X-Inkit-API-Token below with your API key and template_id with your template ID.

Note: You can also generate the document through the API reference.

# Import the Inkit Python package
import inkit
from inkit.exceptions import InkitResponseException
# Import json package
import json

# Replace the string below with your API key
inkit.api_token = "ENTER YOUR API KEY"

try:
  # Create a PDF document from a template
  resp = inkit.Render.create(
    # Specify the ID of the template
    template_id = "ENTER YOUR TEMPLATE ID",
    # Specify the data for the Name field
    merge_parameters = {"Name": "John"},
    # Specify the name of the PDF file
    destinations = {"inkit_storage": {"name": "Mail Merge Python SDK"}}
  )
  # Print the JSON repsonse of the API call
  print(json.dumps(resp.data, indent = 3))
except InkitResponseException as err:
  # Print any error
  print(err.response.data)

// Import the Inkit Node.js package
const Inkit = require("inkit");

// Replace the string below with your API key
Inkit.apiToken = "ENTER YOUR API KEY";

// Call the  PDF renderer
createRender();

// Create a PDF document from a template
async function createRender() {
    try {
        const result = await Inkit.Render.create({
            // Specify the ID of the template
            templateId: 'ENTER YOUR TEMPLATE ID',
            // Specify the data for the Name field
            mergeParameters: {"Name": "John"},
            // Specify the name of the PDF file
            destinations: {"inkit_storage": {"name": "Mail Merge Node.js SDK"}}
        });
        // Print the JSON response of the API call
        console.log(JSON.stringify(result.data, null, 3));
    } catch (error) {
        // Print any error
        console.error(error.response.status, error.response.statusText);
    }
}

curl --request POST \
     --url https://api.inkit.com/v1/generate \
     --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     --header 'X-Inkit-API-Token: ENTER YOUR API KEY' \
     --header 'accept: application/json' \
     --data '
{
  "merge_parameters": {
    "Name": "John"
  },
  "destinations": {
    "inkit_storage": {
      "name": "Mail Merge cURL"
    }
  },
  "template_id": "ENTER YOUR TEMPLATE ID"
}
'

In a terminal, run one of the following: python test.py (Python), node test.js (Node.js) or the above cURL command.

A JSON response object similar to the following will print out.
```
{
   "document_id": "doc_IAjDpXZR1PKPXmkWttJFE",
   "id": "rend_5oGScGXBnDpKJbXnm4u6J7"
}
```
In the Inkit web app, select Documents in the left sidebar. You should see the document that you just generated in the list of documents and can confirm that its ID matches the document_id in the above response object.

To view the document, double-click on it.
Your generated document will display in the document viewer.

📘
Note: If you are new to programming, the following code recipe will guide you:

How to generate a document from a template

Open Recipe

Once you've generated your document, you are now ready to display it to your users.