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How Apdf works, in five steps.

Create a PDF, send each reader their own link, and see what they do with it. Every step runs over the REST API and MCP — inside your product, your workflows and your AI agent.

  1. 01 Your PDF Generated or uploaded
  2. 02 Personal link One per recipient
  3. 03 Hosted viewer Read in the browser
  4. 04 Live signals Every read, click and comment
  5. 05 Your next step In your app, tools or agent
  1. 1

    Add your PDF

    Generate it from HTML with one call, or bring a PDF you already have. Either way it becomes a trackable document — merge, compress or watermark it on the way if you need to.

    REST API POST /api/docs
    MCP tool create-document
    Generate or upload HTML → PDF 
    <h1>Proposal</h1>
<p>Acme × Contoso</p>
<table>
  <tr>Pricing</tr>
</table>
    PDF
    201 Created POST /api/docs 
    {
  "data": {
    "doc_id":     "68052-a7bc5",
    "viewer_url": "https://docs.apdf.io/acme/68052-a7bc5",
    "name":       "Proposal — Acme × Contoso",
    "file_pages": 12,
    …
  }
}
  2. 2

    Send everyone their own link

    Create one link per recipient. It already knows who they are, so nobody logs in and nothing gets attached. Switch a link off whenever you want.

    REST API POST /api/docs/{doc_id}/links
    MCP tool create-document-link
    One link per recipient 201 · POST /api/docs/68052-a7bc5/links 
    {
  "data": {
    "token": "fi6WgjyH",
    "name":  "Alex Rivera",
    "email": "alex@example.com",
    "url":   "https://docs.apdf.io/acme/68052-a7bc5?v=fi6WgjyH",
    "is_active": true,
    "last_viewed_at": null,
    "created_at": "2026-04-21T14:14:37.000000Z"
  }
}
    A Alex Rivera
    S Sara Chen
    T Tom Mendez
  3. 3

    They read it in the browser

    The link opens a hosted viewer that works on any device, with nothing to install. Readers scroll, highlight, comment and fill in forms — and every interaction comes back to you as structured data.

    REST API GET /api/docs/{doc_id}/analytics
    MCP tool get-document-analytics
    Hosted viewer No login · no install
    A Proposal — Acme × Contoso
    4 / 12
    A Alex Rivera now

    Is the price locked for 12 months?

    Enterprise plan, 40 seats
  4. 4

    Every action becomes a signal

    Each open, page read, click, download and form fill is recorded with the reader’s name, the moment it happens. Not a weekly summary — a live stream of who read what, and for how long.

    REST API GET /api/docs/{doc_id}/analytics/sessions
    MCP tool list-document-sessions
    Live signals · Alex Rivera
    document:loaded 09:42
    page:read p2 · 15s 09:42
    page:read p4 · 45s 09:43
    link:clicked pricing 09:44
    annotation:create p4 09:45
    form:submit p11 09:48
    document:download 09:49
    Streaming as it happens
  5. 5

    You decide what happens next

    Send signals to your own endpoint with an automation rule, pull them into your app over the API, or let an AI agent read them over MCP and draft the follow-up. You stay in control of the next move.

    REST API POST /api/automations
    MCP tool create-automation
    One signal, three ways out
    page:read p4 · 45s Alex Rivera
    1. Your endpoint Webhook

      Pings #sales in Slack

    2. Your app REST API

      Flags the deal as hot

    3. Your agent MCP

      Drafts a follow-up for you to review

Infrastructure you build on.

Apdf is not another dashboard to log in to. It’s the layer underneath — reachable from your code and your agents.

REST API
Build it into your product

Show your users who read their proposal, where they paused and when they came back — no tracking to build yourself, just one API call per step, in the language you already use.

Read the docs
MCP server
Hand it to your AI agent

Your agent spots who is serious and drafts the follow-up while interest is still hot — you review and send. Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or any other MCP-ready agent you use.

Explore the MCP server

Prefer to click? The dashboard runs the same five steps without code — upload, share and watch it live.

Questions

The short answers.

No. A recipient link opens the PDF straight in the browser, on any device. The link itself tells Apdf who is reading, so there is no login and nothing to install.

Yes. Pass the URL of any existing PDF to the API or the create-document MCP tool, or upload it in the dashboard. Generating from HTML is optional.

To build Apdf into your own product, you use the REST API. To work with it through an AI assistant like Claude or ChatGPT, you connect the MCP server — no code. The dashboard covers all five steps without code too.

In the EU. Apdf is GDPR-native, your PDFs and reader events are never used as AI training data, and you can export everything at any time.

Nothing. The free Hobby plan includes 3 tracked documents and 500 PDF operations a month, and there is a 14-day Pro trial without a credit card. Plans are priced by usage, never per seat.

Try all five steps
on the free plan.

Start free See pricing