How to Get Notified When Someone Opens Your PDF

Upload your PDF in the Apdf dashboard — or do it via the API. Either way, your file becomes a document: hosted in a viewer that streams back everything readers do.

curl -X POST https://apdf.io/api/docs \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  -d file="https://your-server.com/proposal.pdf" \
  -d name="Proposal Acme Redesign"

The response contains your document ID and its viewer URL:

{
    "data": {
        "doc_id": "5018b-c0414-f11fc",
        "viewer_url": "https://docs.apdf.io/studio/5018b-c0414-f11fc",
        "file_url": "https://apdf-files.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/docs/202607/72ae50876a5f6132b7962.pdf",
        "name": "Proposal Acme Redesign",
        "file_size": 38347,
        "file_pages": 3,
        "is_public": false,
        "created_at": "2026-07-21T12:08:19.000000Z",
        "archived_at": null
    }
}

Don't share the document URL directly — mint a recipient link instead. Each recipient gets their own tokenized URL, so every event that comes back already carries their name. No logins for the reader, no guesswork for you.

curl -X POST https://apdf.io/api/docs/5018b-c0414-f11fc/links \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  -d name="Alex Rivera" \
  -d email="alex@acme.example"

{
    "data": {
        "token": "H7rC2Uu8",
        "name": "Alex Rivera",
        "email": "alex@acme.example",
        "url": "https://docs.apdf.io/studio/5018b-c0414-f11fc?v=H7rC2Uu8",
        "is_active": true,
        "last_viewed_at": null,
        "created_at": "2026-07-21T12:08:32.000000Z"
    }
}

That url is what you send to Alex — by email, chat, wherever. You can also create links in the dashboard with two clicks.

Now tell Apdf what to do when the document is opened. Automations follow a simple when→then rule: when an event fires, then POST the details to your webhook URL.

1. In the dashboard, go to Documents → Automations and click New Automation.
2. Under “When this happens…” pick Document Opened as the trigger. Scope it to all documents or just this one.
3. Skip the conditions — you want every open. (Later you can filter: only re-opens, only reads over a minute, only page 4…)
4. Under “Then do this…” paste your Webhook URL and save. The automation is live immediately.

That's the whole setup. Open the recipient link in your browser to play the reader — within a couple of seconds, your webhook receives the event:

{
    "automation": {
        "id": "11387-cf58d-123af",
        "name": "Ping me when the proposal is opened"
    },
    "document": {
        "doc_id": "5018b-c0414-f11fc",
        "name": "Proposal Acme Redesign",
        "viewer_url": "https://docs.apdf.io/studio/5018b-c0414-f11fc",
        "file_pages": 3
    },
    "trigger": {
        "matched_event": "document:loaded",
        "conditions_evaluated": false
    },
    "event": {
        "session_id": "kQ3xYb9pL2mNv8dF",
        "viewer_id": "vXw4tR7cJ9hZs2aE",
        "recipient": {
            "name": "Alex Rivera",
            "email": "alex@acme.example"
        },
        "data": null
    },
    "session": {
        "total_duration_ms": 0,
        "pages_viewed": 0,
        "completion_rate": 0
    },
    "timestamp": "2026-07-21T12:23:37+00:00"
}

Note the event.recipient block: because Alex opened his link, the event arrives with his name — no lookup tables, no joins. This payload is your raw material; the last step turns it into a notification.

Apdf delivers the signal; where it goes next is your call. Two ways to make it a Slack notification — pick your lane:

const http = require('node:http');

const SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL = process.env.SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL;

http.createServer(async (req, res) => {
    let body = '';
    for await (const chunk of req) body += chunk;

    const { document, event } = JSON.parse(body);
    const who = event.recipient
        ? `${event.recipient.name} (${event.recipient.email})`
        : 'Someone';

    await fetch(SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL, {
        method: 'POST',
        headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
        body: JSON.stringify({
            text: `📄 ${who} just opened "${document.name}" — ${document.viewer_url}`,
        }),
    });

    res.writeHead(200).end('ok');
}).listen(4783, () => console.log('Listening on http://localhost:4783'));

SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL=https://hooks.slack.com/services/XXX/YYY/ZZZ node notify.js