PDF: Private pages

Many real PDF workflows involve private content: invoices, dashboards, internal documentation, and user-specific views. The general patterns for headers, secrets, endpoint selection, and proxy are covered in private pages patterns.

This page shows the PDF-specific setup.

PDF with non-sensitive headers
PRO

The following examples show how to use the Microlink API with CLI, cURL, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, PHP & Golang, targeting 'https://example.com' URL with 'pdf', 'meta', 'headers' & 'apiKey' API parameters:

CLI Microlink API example

microlink https://example.com&pdf&headers.Accept-Language=es-ES --api-key YOUR_API_TOKEN

cURL Microlink API example

curl -G "https://pro.microlink.io" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -d "url=https://example.com" \
  -d "pdf=true" \
  -d "meta=false" \
  -d "headers.Accept-Language=es-ES"

JavaScript Microlink API example

import createClient from 'microlink.io'

const microlink = createClient({ apiKey: "YOUR_API_TOKEN" })

const data = await microlink.pdf('https://example.com', {
  headers: {
    "x-api-header-accept-language": "es-ES"
  }
})

Python Microlink API example

import requests

url = "https://pro.microlink.io/"

querystring = {
    "url": "https://example.com",
    "pdf": "true",
    "meta": "false",
    "headers.Accept-Language": "es-ES"
}

headers = {
    "x-api-key": "YOUR_API_TOKEN"
}

response = requests.get(url, params=querystring, headers=headers)

print(response.json())

Ruby Microlink API example

require 'uri'
require 'net/http'

base_url = "https://pro.microlink.io/"

params = {
  url: "https://example.com",
  pdf: "true",
  meta: "false",
  headers.Accept-Language: "es-ES"
}

uri = URI(base_url)
uri.query = URI.encode_www_form(params)

http = Net::HTTP.new(uri.host, uri.port)
http.use_ssl = true

request = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri)
request['x-api-key'] = "YOUR_API_TOKEN"
response = http.request(request)

puts response.body

PHP Microlink API example

<?php

$baseUrl = "https://pro.microlink.io/";

$params = [
    "url" => "https://example.com",
    "pdf" => "true",
    "meta" => "false",
    "headers.Accept-Language" => "es-ES"
];

$query = http_build_query($params);
$url = $baseUrl . '?' . $query;

$curl = curl_init();

curl_setopt_array($curl, [
    CURLOPT_URL => $url,
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_ENCODING => "",
    CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS => 10,
    CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 30,
    CURLOPT_HTTP_VERSION => CURL_HTTP_VERSION_1_1,
    CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST => "GET",
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
        "x-api-key: YOUR_API_TOKEN"
    ]
]);

$response = curl_exec($curl);
$err = curl_error($curl);

curl_close($curl);

if ($err) {
    echo "cURL Error #: " . $err;
} else {
    echo $response;
}

Golang Microlink API example

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "net/http"
    "net/url"
    "io"
)

func main() {
    baseURL := "https://pro.microlink.io"

    u, err := url.Parse(baseURL)
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
    q := u.Query()
    q.Set("url", "https://example.com")
    q.Set("pdf", "true")
    q.Set("meta", "false")
    q.Set("headers.Accept-Language", "es-ES")
    u.RawQuery = q.Encode()

    req, err := http.NewRequest("GET", u.String(), nil)
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }

    req.Header.Set("x-api-key", "YOUR_API_TOKEN")

    client := &http.Client{}
    resp, err := client.Do(req)
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
    defer resp.Body.Close()

    body, err := io.ReadAll(resp.Body)
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }

    fmt.Println(string(body))
}

import createClient from 'microlink.io'

const microlink = createClient({ apiKey: "YOUR_API_TOKEN" })

const data = await microlink.pdf('https://example.com', {
  headers: {
    "x-api-header-accept-language": "es-ES"
  }
})

Good for locale and request shaping. For cookies or authorization tokens, use the x-api-header-* pattern described in private pages patterns.

PDF with sensitive credentials

Use x-api-header-* to forward secrets without exposing them in the URL:

curl -G https://pro.microlink.io \
  -d url=https://example.com/dashboard \
  -d pdf=true \
  -d meta=false \
  -H 'x-api-key: YOUR_API_TOKEN' \
  -H 'x-api-header-cookie: session=abc123'

When private PDFs still fail

If the page is authenticated and protected by antibot systems, CAPTCHAs, or geofencing, you may also need proxy . If you see EPROXYNEEDED, that confirms it.

For other errors, continue with troubleshooting.

Next step

Learn how to debug missing content, wrong layout, blocked sites, and common PDF errors in troubleshooting.