How to Merge PDF Documents Asynchronously for PDF Merging API in PHP using PDF.co Web API

How to Merge PDF Documents Asynchronously for PDF Merging API in PHP: How-To Tutorial

On this page, you will learn from code samples for programming in PHP. PDF.co Web API helps with PDF merging API in PHP. PDF.co Web API is the Web API with a set of tools for document manipulation, data conversion, data extraction, splitting, and merging of documents. Includes image recognition, built-in OCR, barcode generation and barcode decoders to decode bar codes from scans, pictures, and PDF.

You will save a lot of time on writing and testing code as you may just take the code below and use it in your application. This PHP sample code should be copied and pasted into your project. After doing this just compile your project and click Run. Enjoy writing a code with ready-to-use sample PHP codes to implement PDF merging API using PDF.co Web API.

Our website provides a free sign-up to PDF.co Web API that includes source code samples to help with your PHP project.

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merge-pdf-async.php

      
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title>Cloud API asynchronous "PDF Merging" job example (allows to avoid timeout errors).</title>
</head>
<body>

<?php 

// Cloud API asynchronous "PDF Merging" job example.
// Allows to avoid timeout errors when processing huge or scanned PDF documents.


// The authentication key (API Key).
// Get your own by registering at https://app.pdf.co/documentation/api
$apiKey = "****************************************";

// Direct URLs of PDF files to merge. Check another example if you need to upload local files to the cloud.
$sourceFiles = array(
    "https://bytescout-com.s3.amazonaws.com/files/demo-files/cloud-api/pdf-merge/sample1.pdf", 
    "https://bytescout-com.s3.amazonaws.com/files/demo-files/cloud-api/pdf-merge/sample2.pdf");


// Prepare URL for `Merge PDF` API call
$url = "https://api.pdf.co/v1/pdf/merge";

// Prepare requests params
$parameters = array();
$parameters["url"] = join(",", $sourceFiles);
$parameters["async"] = true; // (!) Make asynchronous job

// Create Json payload
$data = json_encode($parameters);

// Create request
$curl = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array("x-api-key: " . $apiKey, "Content-type: application/json"));
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST, true);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);

// Execute request
$result = curl_exec($curl);

if (curl_errno($curl) == 0)
{
    $status_code = curl_getinfo($curl, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
    
    if ($status_code == 200)
    {
        $json = json_decode($result, true);
        
        if ($json["error"] == false)
        {
            // URL of generated PDF file that will available after the job completion
            $resultFileUrl = $json["url"];
            // Asynchronous job ID
            $jobId = $json["jobId"];
            
            // Check the job status in a loop
            do
            {
                $status = CheckJobStatus($jobId, $apiKey); // Possible statuses: "working", "failed", "aborted", "success".
                
                // Display timestamp and status (for demo purposes)
                echo "<p>" . date(DATE_RFC2822) . ": " . $status . "</p>";
                
                if ($status == "success")
                {
                    // Display link to the file with conversion results
                    echo "<div><h2>Conversion Result:</h2><a href='" . $resultFileUrl . "' target='_blank'>" . $resultFileUrl . "</a></div>";
                    break;
                }
                else if ($status == "working")
                {
                    // Pause for a few seconds
                    sleep(3);
                }
                else 
                {
                    echo $status . "<br/>";
                    break;
                }
            }
            while (true);
        }
        else
        {
            // Display service reported error
            echo "<p>Error: " . $json["message"] . "</p>"; 
        }
    }
    else
    {
        // Display request error
        echo "<p>Status code: " . $status_code . "</p>"; 
        echo "<p>" . $result . "</p>"; 
    }
}
else
{
    // Display CURL error
    echo "Error: " . curl_error($curl);
}

// Cleanup
curl_close($curl);


function CheckJobStatus($jobId, $apiKey)
{
    $status = null;
    
	// Create URL
    $url = "https://api.pdf.co/v1/job/check";
    
    // Prepare requests params
    $parameters = array();
    $parameters["jobid"] = $jobId;

    // Create Json payload
    $data = json_encode($parameters);

    // Create request
    $curl = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array("x-api-key: " . $apiKey, "Content-type: application/json"));
    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST, true);
    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
    
    // Execute request
    $result = curl_exec($curl);
    
    if (curl_errno($curl) == 0)
    {
        $status_code = curl_getinfo($curl, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
        
        if ($status_code == 200)
        {
            $json = json_decode($result, true);
        
            if ($json["error"] == false)
            {
                $status = $json["status"];
            }
            else
            {
                // Display service reported error
                echo "<p>Error: " . $json["message"] . "</p>"; 
            }
        }
        else
        {
            // Display request error
            echo "<p>Status code: " . $status_code . "</p>"; 
            echo "<p>" . $result . "</p>"; 
        }
    }
    else
    {
        // Display CURL error
        echo "Error: " . curl_error($curl);
    }
    
    // Cleanup
    curl_close($curl);
    
    return $status;
}

?>

</body>
</html>

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