Document Processing

The DocumentProcessing Web API is the part of DS Server that works on documents without a user interface. A backend in any language sends it a document or a template over HTTP and gets a converted, merged, combined or analyzed document back: PDF from DOCX, invoices from a template and JSON data, page thumbnails, barcodes or the form fields of a PDF. Each task has its own guide below, with a curl request and the same call in C#.

How a Request Looks

Every endpoint sits below /documentprocessing/ of your DS Server's service URL. The service URL is http://localhost:5000 when DS Server runs on its own on the default port, and it contains the path of the IIS site behind IIS, such as https://yourdomain.com/DocumentServices. A request to convert a document looks like this:

curl --request POST "http://localhost:5000/documentprocessing/document/convert?returnFormat=PDF" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer <access_token>" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data-binary @document.json

The parts of every request:

• The access token in an Authorization: Bearer header. A backend requests it from DS Server with the client ID and secret of a security profile, as Authentication shows.
• Documents as Base64. The body is JSON with the content type application/json. A document is a Base64 string: a single document is the body itself, a JSON string, as for convert, info, thumbnails and the PDF readers, and endpoints that take more, such as merge, append and pdf/create, take a JSON object with properties such as template, documents or documentData.
• Options as query parameters, such as returnFormat=PDF or append=false.
• Results as Base64. A created document comes back as a Base64 string in a JSON string, and several documents or images as a JSON array of such strings. The endpoints that read documents, such as info or pdf/acroforms/fields, return JSON with the information.

The .NET package TXTextControl.DocumentServices.DocumentProcessing wraps the same requests in the DocumentProcessing class, which takes and returns byte arrays and requests the access token itself. ASP.NET Core lists its methods.

The server must be licensed: until it is registered, every endpoint answers 400 with the message "DS Server is not registered.". Licensing shows how to register it, and Errors and Status Codes explains the other answers.

Find the Right Page

Where to Start

1. Authentication: create a security profile and request a token.
2. Converting Documents: send a first request and decode the result.
3. The page of the task you need, from the table above.

The endpoints, with every parameter and response, are listed in the DocumentProcessing reference. A first ASP.NET Core application with the .NET package is built in Getting Started.

Pages in This Section

• Authentication: request an access token, send it and renew it.
• Converting Documents: convert a document to PDF, DOCX, HTML and other formats.
• Merging Templates: merge a template with JSON data into one or many documents.
• Appending Documents: combine documents with a divider between them.
• Find and Replace: replace text in a document.
• Document Information: read the properties, merge fields and merge blocks of a document.
• Thumbnails: create images of document pages.
• PDF Documents: create and read PDF documents.
• PDF Form Fields: read the AcroForm fields of a PDF.
• Barcodes: create barcode images and check barcode text.
• Errors and Status Codes: the answers of the Web API and what they mean.