Overview
Adobe PDF Services (formerly Acrobat Services) is Adobe's PDF manipulation API – create, convert, OCR, merge, split, compress, extract structured data. The Automize Adobe PDF connector covers all of these via an async-job model.
- Regions: Adobe PDF Services is global. Files uploaded to Adobe's cloud are held briefly during processing – see Adobe data retention policy for compliance details.
- Plans: Free tier: 500 transactions/month for new accounts. Paid: tiered by monthly transactions.
Setting up the connection
Auth type: OAuth 2.0 (Client Credentials).
- Go to developer.adobe.com/console → Create Project → Add API → PDF Services API.
- Adobe generates Client ID + Client Secret + a Service Account (JSON) for OAuth.
- Server-to-Server OAuth: Client Credentials grant – no user sign-in.
- In Automize, open Settings → Connectors → Adobe PDF → Add connection. Paste Client ID + Client Secret.
Find your credentials at https://developer.adobe.com/console/projects.
Rate limits
Per-transaction tracking – each Create/Convert/OCR counts as 1 transaction. Connector retries 429 with backoff.
Data model
All operations follow the pattern:
1. Get Upload URI → returns presigned URL
2. PUT bytes to that URL (outside this connector)
3. Invoke operation (Create / Convert / OCR / etc.) with the assetID
4. Poll Get Job Status until status=done
5. Download result from the result URLAvailable operations
9 operations available. Click any row to jump to its detail.
| Operation | Category | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Compress PDF | General | Reduce PDF file size |
| Create PDF | General | Convert a file to PDF |
| Export PDF | General | Convert PDF to another format (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, images) |
| Extract PDF Data | General | Extract text, tables, and figures from PDF |
| Get Job Status | General | Check status of an async PDF operation |
| Get Upload URI | General | Get a pre-signed URI to upload a file |
| Merge PDFs | General | Combine multiple PDFs into one |
| OCR PDF | General | Make a scanned PDF searchable |
| Split PDF | General | Split a PDF into multiple files |
Operations
Compress PDF
Reduce PDF file size
| Parameter | Required | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
Assetid assetID | Yes | text | |
Compressionlevel compressionLevel | Yes | text |
Tips
- Reduce file size. compressionLevel: LOW (best quality), MEDIUM, HIGH (smallest).
Create PDF
Convert a file to PDF
| Parameter | Required | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
Assetid assetID | Yes | text | |
Documentlanguage documentLanguage | Yes | text |
Tips
- Converts Office docs (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX), images, HTML → PDF.
- Async – returns a job. Poll Get Job Status until done, then download from the result.
Export PDF
Convert PDF to another format (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, images)
| Parameter | Required | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
Assetid assetID | Yes | text | |
Targetformat targetFormat | Yes | text |
Tips
- PDF → DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, JPEG, PNG.
- targetFormat: doc, docx, jpeg, png, pptx, rtf, xlsx.
Extract PDF Data
Extract text, tables, and figures from PDF
| Parameter | Required | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
Assetid assetID | Yes | text | |
Elementstoextract elementsToExtract | Yes | text |
Tips
- Returns structured JSON: text, tables, figures + their positions.
- elementsToExtract: ['text'], ['text','tables'], etc.
Get Job Status
Check status of an async PDF operation
| Parameter | Required | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
Job Id job_id | Yes | text |
Tips
- Poll an async operation. Returns status: in_progress, done, failed.
- When done, response includes the result download URL.
Get Upload URI
Get a pre-signed URI to upload a file
| Parameter | Required | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
Mediatype mediaType | Yes | text |
Tips
- Step 1 of every workflow. Returns assetID + uploadUri.
- mediaType: 'application/pdf', 'image/jpeg', 'application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document', etc.
Merge PDFs
Combine multiple PDFs into one
| Parameter | Required | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
Assets assets | Yes | textarea |
Tips
- Combine multiple PDFs into one. assets: [{assetID:'...'}, ...] in order.
OCR PDF
Make a scanned PDF searchable
| Parameter | Required | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
Assetid assetID | Yes | text | |
Ocrlang ocrLang | Yes | text |
Tips
- Run OCR on scanned PDFs to make text searchable + selectable.
- ocrLang: ISO language code (en-US, fr-FR, etc.). Multilingual takes one primary.
Split PDF
Split a PDF into multiple files
| Parameter | Required | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
Assetid assetID | Yes | text | |
Splitoption splitoption | Yes | text |
Tips
- Split by page ranges, page count, or file size.
- splitoption: {pageRanges:[{start:1,end:5},...]} OR {fileCount:3} OR {fileSize: 1048576}.
FAQ
- Why is everything async?
- PDF processing can take seconds-to-minutes for big files. Adobe runs ops as jobs – you get a job_id and poll. Connector handles this; just expect polling latency.
- Where are my files stored?
- Adobe holds uploaded + result files in their cloud for ~24 hours. After that they're deleted automatically. Download promptly.
- Free tier limits?
- 500 transactions/month total across all operations. Each Create/Convert/OCR/etc. is 1 transaction.
- vs Cloudconvert / etc.?
- Adobe is best for fidelity (their OCR + DOCX export quality is excellent). Cloudconvert is more file-format-diverse (200+ formats). Choose based on quality vs format breadth.