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Apdf tutorials July 2026 3 min read

How to Generate PDFs from Claude

Every "quick PDF" has the same detour: open a template, fill in the numbers, fight the layout, export, rename. For documents you produce from information you already have — invoices, summaries, reports — that detour is pure overhead.

With Claude connected to Apdf over MCP, the detour disappears: you describe the document, Claude drafts the layout and renders it. The PDF drops out of the conversation.

What you'll build
A document factory in your chat: describe an invoice in one message, and get back a finished, professionally laid-out PDF — drafted, rendered and hosted: “Invoice for Studio Nord, design sprint + 3 testing sessions” → a 1-page A4 PDF, seconds later
MCP access needs Pro (14-day trial, no card)
1

Connect Claude to Apdf

One OAuth-signed endpoint, any MCP client — add it in Claude Desktop under Settings → Connectors, or in Claude Code: 

claude mcp add --transport http apdf https://apdf.io/mcp/main
2

Describe the document, get the PDF

Give Claude the facts; it writes the HTML layout and hands it to the create-pdf-file tool:

You
Create an invoice PDF for Studio Nord GmbH, number 2026-0147, due in 14 days: one design sprint (week 29) at EUR 4,800 and three usability testing sessions at EUR 350 each. Clean, minimal layout, A4.
Claude
apdf · create-pdf-file
I've drafted the invoice layout and sent it for rendering — the job is running, one moment.
Claude
apdf · check-job-status
Done — your invoice is ready: a 1-page A4 PDF with the two line items and a total of EUR 5,850.00. Download link below (valid for 1 hour).

Rendering runs as an async job — the agent handles the polling for you. The two tool results, verbatim: 

{ "job_id": "01KY6XYMTM1W70X3M413ANGY68" }

{
    "id": "01KY6XYMTM1W70X3M413ANGY68",
    "created": "2026-07-23T07:27:31.000000Z",
    "status": "successful",
    "result": {
        "file": "https://apdf-files.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/d864e4c26a61c263e41f5.pdf",
        "size": 37505,
        "pages": 1,
        "expiration": "2026-07-23T08:27:32.647578Z"
    }
}
Heads up: Result files expire after 1 hour — download the PDF or store it somewhere permanent right away.
3

Steer the output — in plain English

The tool exposes the full layout surface — page format (Letter to A6), orientation, margins, scale, and header/footer templates — and Claude maps your wording onto it. Which means revisions are just more conversation:

You
Make it landscape, add a footer with the page number, and tighten the margins.
Claude
apdf · create-pdf-file
Regenerated: landscape A4, 12mm margins, and a centered page-number footer. Fresh download link below.

The same pattern scales beyond invoices: paste meeting notes and ask for a summary one-pager, hand over CSV rows and ask for a formatted report — anything Claude can draft as HTML, the tool can turn into a document.

Where to go from here

Creating documents is half the toolbelt — the same connection also transforms them.

Merge PDFs by asking Combine the generated invoice with attachments — the merge tool, same conversation. Explore Explore the MCP server Every tool your agent gets: PDF operations, documents, links and engagement analytics. Explore Prefer plain REST? The same generation as an API endpoint — full reference in the docs. Explore
After the API call

Your code made the PDF.
Then it went dark.

Opened, read, re-read, dropped on page 4 — you never see any of it. Share the PDFs you generate through Apdf recipient links, and every signal becomes something you can act on: ping Slack, update the CRM, let an agent follow up. Same account, same API token, one more call.

Track your PDFs Explore the analytics
Your PDF, after sending Live
document:loaded CFO
page:read p4 · 38s
link:clicked pricing

API · Webhook · MCP

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