HTML to PDF in PHP

DomPDF chokes on flexbox and grid. mPDF is better but still not a browser. wkhtmltopdf means shipping a binary to your host — if your host even allows it. A rendering API turns all of that into one cURL call that works on any PHP host, shared hosting included.

1. Convert HTML to PDF with cURL

<?php
$ch = curl_init('https://inkpdf.dev/v1/pdf');
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
    CURLOPT_POST => true,
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
        'Authorization: Bearer ' . getenv('INKPDF_KEY'),
        'Content-Type: application/json',
    ],
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => json_encode([
        'html' => '<h1>Hello from PHP</h1><p>Flexbox and grid just work.</p>',
        'options' => ['format' => 'A4'],
    ]),
]);
$pdf = curl_exec($ch);
$status = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
curl_close($ch);

if ($status !== 200) {
    $err = json_decode($pdf, true);
    throw new RuntimeException($err['message'] ?? 'render failed');
}
file_put_contents('hello.pdf', $pdf);

2. Invoice from an array (no HTML)

Post data against a built-in template — line totals, tax, and grand total are computed server-side:

$payload = [
    'template' => 'invoice',
    'data' => [
        'brand' => ['name' => 'Acme Studio', 'color' => '#0f766e'],
        'invoiceNumber' => 'INV-2043',
        'issueDate' => '2026-07-01',
        'dueDate' => '2026-07-31',
        'currency' => 'USD',
        'to' => ['name' => 'Northwind Traders', 'address' => '1 Market St, SF'],
        'items' => [
            ['description' => 'Design work', 'quantity' => 10, 'unitPrice' => 95],
        ],
        'taxRate' => 8.5,
    ],
];

3. Laravel: PDF download response

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Http;

Route::get('/invoice/{id}', function (string $id) {
    $res = Http::withToken(config('services.inkpdf.key'))
        ->timeout(60)
        ->post('https://inkpdf.dev/v1/pdf', [
            'template' => 'invoice',
            'data' => Invoice::findOrFail($id)->toTemplateData(),
        ]);
    abort_unless($res->ok(), 502, $res->json('message'));

    return response($res->body(), 200, [
        'Content-Type' => 'application/pdf',
        'Content-Disposition' => "attachment; filename=\"{$id}.pdf\"",
    ]);
});

4. WordPress: PDF of any page

URL mode renders any public page — useful for turning posts or order confirmations into PDFs:

$res = wp_remote_post('https://inkpdf.dev/v1/pdf', [
    'timeout' => 60,
    'headers' => [
        'Authorization' => 'Bearer ' . INKPDF_KEY,
        'Content-Type'  => 'application/json',
    ],
    'body' => wp_json_encode(['url' => get_permalink($post_id)]),
]);
$pdf = wp_remote_retrieve_body($res);

Options cheat sheet

Option	Example
format	"Letter", "A4", "Legal"…
landscape	true
margin	["top" => "1in", "bottom" => "20mm"]
footerTemplate	page numbers via <span class="pageNumber">

Full reference in the API docs.

Try it without writing code

The playground renders live against the real pipeline — 20 free renders a day, no signup.