How to Generate PDF Documents in Bulk from a CSV or Spreadsheet

1. Introduction

Bulk PDF generation has become an essential task for businesses and developers who need to produce large numbers of documents such as invoices, certificates, shipping labels, or reports.

Manually creating these PDFs can be both time-consuming and error-prone. This is where CraftMyPDF comes into play and providing a powerful API and easy-to-use tools to automate bulk PDF creation.

In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about generating PDFs in bulk with CraftMyPDF. You’ll learn about the platform’s features, explore real-world use cases, and follow step-by-step code examples in Node.js and Python.

We’ll also walk through CraftMyPDF’s Bulk PDF Generator Tool, which allows you to generate PDFs directly from a CSV file without writing code. By the end, you’ll know exactly how to scale your PDF generation process, whether you prefer using the API or the web tool.

2. What is CraftMyPDF?

CraftMyPDF is a template-driven PDF generation platform designed to simplify document creation for developers and non-developers alike. It combines an intuitive drag-and-drop template editor with programmatic access, making it easy to create, update, and manage large volumes of documents.

With its REST API and online template editor, you can quickly design documents and generate them programmatically.

The platform also integrates seamlessly with popular no-code and automation tools, including Zapier, Make.com (Integromat), Bubble, and n8n, so you can connect PDF generation directly into your existing workflows without writing code.

Key Features

• Template-driven PDF generation: Design once, generate many PDFs with dynamic data.
• REST API support: Easily integrate with your favorite programming languages and workflows.
• Integrations: Works with Zapier, Make (Integromat), n8n, Bubble, OutSystems, and more.
• Advanced operations: Beyond generation, you can merge PDFs, add watermarks, embed attachments, and more.
• Scalable endpoints: With regional servers for reliability and compliance.

In short, CraftMyPDF provides both flexibility and scalability, making it suitable for small startups and enterprise workloads alike.

3. Use Cases of Bulk PDF Generation

Bulk PDF generation is widely applicable across industries. It is not limited to technical teams; nearly any organization that handles repetitive documents can benefit from automating the process. From education and e-commerce to real estate and enterprise reporting, the applications are broad and impactful.

Here are some common scenarios in more detail:

• Certificates & Diplomas: Online learning platforms and universities can issue thousands of personalized certificates or diplomas in minutes, each containing the student’s name, course details, and completion date. This ensures consistency and saves significant administrative time. You cabn find out more about our Free Online Certificate Maker.
• Invoices and Receipts: Businesses of all sizes can automate billing by generating PDFs directly from order or subscription data. This reduces human error, ensures timely delivery of financial documents, and helps maintain professional branding. If you want to quickly generate invoices with our free tool, here you can visit Free Online Invoice Generator.
• Real Estate Brochures: Property agents can generate brochures at scale, embedding unique photos, pricing, and descriptions for each listing. Bulk generation makes it easy to keep property marketing materials up to date. To find out more about our article Automating Real-Estate Brochures and Contracts with CraftMyPDF
• Shipping Labels & Packing Slips: E-commerce companies can instantly create bulk batches of shipping labels and slips for hundreds or thousands of orders, streamlining logistics and fulfillment. Try out our free tool to generate shipping labels.
• Reports and Dashboards: Enterprises can automatically compile complex data into standardized PDF reports, such as sales performance, HR statistics, or financial summaries, ready for distribution across departments.
• Event Tickets & Badges: Organizers can generate customized event passes or attendee badges with QR codes for easy check-in. Please try out our Free Event Ticket Generator.
• Marketing Collateral: Companies can produce personalized promotional materials, catalogs, or flyers tailored to different customer segments.

These diverse use cases show how powerful bulk PDF generation can be for saving time, reducing errors, and scaling operations across multiple domains.

4. Bulk PDF Generation with CraftMyPDF API

CraftMyPDF provides a REST API that allows you to generate PDFs programmatically. Let’s go step by step.

4.1 Getting Started

1. Get an API key: Sign up at CraftMyPDF and obtain your API key.
2. Create a template: Use the visual editor to design a template with dynamic fields.
3. Prepare your CSV: Each row in your CSV should represent data for one PDF.

4.2 Node.js Example

const fs = require('fs');
const csv = require('csv-parser');
const axios = require('axios');

const API_KEY = 'YOUR_API_KEY';
const TEMPLATE_ID = 'YOUR_TEMPLATE_ID';

fs.createReadStream('data.csv')
  .pipe(csv())
  .on('data', async (row) => {
    try {
      const response = await axios.post('https://api.craftmypdf.com/v1/create', {
        template_id: TEMPLATE_ID,
        data: row
      }, {
        headers: { 'X-API-KEY': API_KEY }
      });

      const pdfUrl = response.data.download_url;
      const pdf = await axios.get(pdfUrl, { responseType: 'arraybuffer' });
      fs.writeFileSync(`${row.id}.pdf`, pdf.data);
      console.log(`Generated PDF for ${row.id}`);
    } catch (error) {
      console.error('Error generating PDF:', error);
    }
  });

4.3 Python Example

import csv
import requests

API_KEY = "YOUR_API_KEY"
TEMPLATE_ID = "YOUR_TEMPLATE_ID"

with open('data.csv', newline='') as csvfile:
    reader = csv.DictReader(csvfile)
    for row in reader:
        try:
            response = requests.post(
                'https://api.craftmypdf.com/v1/create',
                headers={"X-API-KEY": API_KEY},
                json={
                    "template_id": TEMPLATE_ID,
                    "data": row
                }
            )

            pdf_url = response.json().get('download_url')
            pdf_content = requests.get(pdf_url).content
            with open(f"{row['id']}.pdf", "wb") as f:
                f.write(pdf_content)
            print(f"Generated PDF for {row['id']}")
        except Exception as e:
            print("Error generating PDF:", e)

4.4 Best Practices

When working with bulk PDF generation, it’s important to think beyond just writing code. Large data sets, network issues, and API limits can all affect your workflow. By applying a few best practices, you can make the process more stable, efficient, and easier to manage.

• Batch requests: Avoid sending too many simultaneous requests; use batching or rate limits. This reduces the chance of hitting API limits and ensures faster processing overall.
• Retry logic: Implement retries in case of network issues or transient API errors. Adding exponential backoff helps make retries more efficient.
• Delays: Add delays when working with very large CSV files to prevent hitting API limits. A short delay between batches can help spread out the load.
• Logging & Monitoring: Keep track of request statuses, errors, and successes. This makes it easier to debug issues and confirm that all documents are generated.
• Asynchronous Jobs: For very large datasets, consider using asynchronous or job-based endpoints, then polling for status updates instead of generating everything in one go.
• File Naming Conventions: Use unique and descriptive file names when saving PDFs locally, to avoid overwriting files and to make retrieval easier.
• Data Validation: Validate your CSV rows before sending them to the API to prevent unnecessary failed requests.

By following these best practices, you ensure smooth, reliable, and efficient bulk generation workflows that scale well with your business needs.

5. Using CraftMyPDF’s Bulk PDF Generator Tool

For users who prefer a no-code approach or have no programming skills, CraftMyPDF offers the Bulk PDF Generator Tool. This tool allows anyone to generate large numbers of PDFs directly from a CSV file without writing a single line of code.

How It Works

1. Upload your CSV file: Each row corresponds to a single PDF.
2. Enter your API key: Authenticate your requests securely.
3. Choose your template: Select the template ID you created.
4. Configure options: Set delays and batch size for larger datasets.
5. Generate PDFs: Click to start and download all PDFs once complete.

When to Use the Tool

• Ideal for non-developers or users without programming skills who want to generate PDFs without coding.
• Great for one-off tasks, quick jobs, or testing templates before integrating with the API.

The tool complements the API perfectly by offering a quick way to test and run bulk jobs with minimal setup, making PDF generation accessible to everyone.

6. API Reference

CraftMyPDF provides a full OpenAPI specification, which you can explore here: CraftMyPDF API Reference. This specification makes it easy to understand the available endpoints and integrate them into your applications.

Developers can import the YAML file into tools like Postman, Swagger UI, or Insomnia to interact with the API directly.

Key Endpoints

• POST /v1/create: Generate a single PDF from a template. Suitable for on-demand generation when you need to create one document at a time.
• POST /v1/create-multiple: Generate multiple PDFs in one request. This is useful when you want to pass in an array of data records and get a batch of PDFs generated efficiently.
• POST /v1/merge: Merge multiple PDFs into one document.
• POST /v1/watermark: Add a watermark to an existing PDF.

Authentication and Credits

• Authenticate using your API key in the X-API-KEY header.
• Each PDF generation consumes credits depending on your plan.
• Other operations such as watermarking or merging may consume fewer credits (e.g., 0.5 credit per operation).

By leveraging these endpoints, you can fully automate PDF workflows, handle both single and bulk generation, and even perform advanced operations like merging and watermarking.

This flexibility ensures CraftMyPDF can be integrated seamlessly into any system, whether it’s a web application, backend service, or no-code automation.

7. Conclusion

Bulk PDF generation is a game-changer for businesses that need to automate document workflows. CraftMyPDF offers the flexibility of a REST API for developers and a simple Bulk PDF Generator Tool for non-developers. From certificates and invoices to brochures and labels, the platform scales effortlessly to handle diverse use cases.

Whether you’re coding in Node.js or Python, or prefer a no-code tool, CraftMyPDF provides everything you need to generate PDFs at scale.

Get started today by signing up for a free account at CraftMyPDF, then try out the Bulk PDF Generator Tool or integrate with the API to automate your workflows.