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Version: 10.0

SOAP Web Services

webPDF provides its interfaces as SOAP 1.2 web services in accordance with the "Java Specification Request (JSR) 224." The interface description is provided as a "Web Services Description Language (WSDL))".

The webPDF server provides the SOAP web services based on "Jakarta XML Web Services 4.0.x" and the "Eclipse Metro Implementation of Jakarta XML Web Services 4.0.x" (Project home).

The message schema of the messages that are exchanged via the SOAP interface is described in greater detail below. The messages exchanged with SOAP are based on the XML Schema Definition (XSD) language.

All together this forms the webPDF SOAP API, which is described generally under "SOAP Web Service API" and technically under "API {SOAP}".

Documentation as WSDL​

All web services of the SOAP API are described as Web Services Description Language (WSDL). The WSDL definition can be accessed by adding ?wsdl to the service URL of a running webPDF server.

Example: http://localhost:8080/webPDF/soap/converter?wsdl

URI of the web services​

All URI have the shared base URL

/webPDF/soap

After this comes the URL segment for the respective web service.

An overview of the web services provided with their base URI is shown below.

Important

If you want to use your local server, replace the host name (and the protocol and port if applicable) with the IP address or the host name of the machine on which webPDF is installed. Make sure to keep the sub-path “/webPDF” (case-sensitive) in the URL.

In a standard installation, the local address is

http://localhost:8080/webPDF

Change localhost to the address of the server if you are not accessing the server locally. Change the port 8080 if you have changed it during installation or in the configuration.

The URL for the converter service is:
http://PORTAL_URL/webPDF/soap/converter?wsdl

The URL for the signature service is:
http://PORTAL_URL/webPDF/soap/signature?wsdl

The URL for the Pdfa service is:
http://PORTAL_URL/webPDF/soap/pdfa?wsdl

The URL for the Toolbox service is:
http://PORTAL_URL/webPDF/soap/toolbox?wsdl

The URL for the URLConverter service is:
http://PORTAL_URL/webPDF/soap/urlconverter?wsdl

The URL for the OCR service is:
http://PORTAL_URL/webPDF/soap/ocr?wsdl

The URL for the barcode service is:
http://PORTAL_URL/webPDF/soap/barcode?wsdl

Parameters for controlling the web services​

In SOAP web services, the parameters are passed in XML structures that are included in the "body" (payload) of the request.

Example of a payload when calling the Converter web service

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<operation xmlns="http://schema.webpdf.de/1.0/operation">
    <converter compression="true" dpi="300" embedFonts="true" reduceResolution="true" jpegQuality="90" pages="*">
        <pdfa>
            <convert level="3b"/>
        </pdfa>
    </converter>
</operation>

Proxy classes for the web services​

Most programming languages provide tools that can generate the proxy classes (so-called "client stubs“) for this interface or the WDSL definition. A client application can access the web services by using these classes.

If these tools are not available, then the SOAP-XML messages can be created directly / the responses can be parsed. The messages have to be created and interpreted according to the SOAP and WSDL specifications that are delivered as a part of the WSDL definition.