Convert HTML to PDF from raw HTML in Java with Java.net

In this guide, we'll show you how to convert raw HTML to PDF using Java and the Java.net library.

Converting raw HTML content to PDF is useful when you have HTML content that isn't hosted on a web server.

import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;

// You can get an API key at https://pdfshift.io
String apiKey = "sk_xxxxxxxxxxxx";

URL url = new URL("https://api.pdfshift.io/v3/convert/pdf");
HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
connection.setRequestMethod("POST");
connection.setRequestProperty("X-API-Key", apiKey);
connection.setRequestProperty("Content-Type", "application/json");
connection.setDoOutput(true);

String payload = "{\n" +
    "  \"source\": \"<html><body><h1>Hello World</h1></body></html>\"\n" +
    "}";

try (OutputStream os = connection.getOutputStream()) {
    byte[] input = payload.getBytes("utf-8");
    os.write(input, 0, input.length);
}

int responseCode = connection.getResponseCode();

// Handle errors:
if (responseCode >= 400) {
    throw new RuntimeException("Request failed with status code " + responseCode);
}

InputStream inputStream = connection.getInputStream();
FileOutputStream outputStream = new FileOutputStream("result.pdf");
byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
int bytesRead;
while ((bytesRead = inputStream.read(buffer)) != -1) {
    outputStream.write(buffer, 0, bytesRead);
}
outputStream.close();
inputStream.close();

System.out.println("The PDF document was generated and saved to result.pdf");

This allows you to convert HTML content directly to PDF without needing a URL.

For further details on the source property and its usage, please refer to our dedicated documentation.

We hope this guide was helpful. If you have any questions or noticed any issues on the code above,
feel free to drop us a line.