Render modes

The Ruby SDK exposes two ways to describe what to render: project mode (a stored template at project/template) and inline mode (raw HTML you pass directly).

Project mode is required by all the PDF-producing methods (render.pdf, render.pdf_stream, render.document, and the render_to_file helper). Inline mode is supported only by render.preview, which returns HTML rather than PDF bytes — useful for debugging template data without engaging the PDF pipeline.

Project mode

You reference a template by its project: and template: slugs, plus a data: hash that fills the template’s placeholders. Optionally pin a version:.

pdf = client.render.pdf(
  project:  "billing",
  template: "invoice",
  data:     { invoice_number: "INV-001", total: 1280 }
)

Project mode keeps templates centralized — anyone with dashboard access can edit them without touching code.

Inline mode (preview only)

For one-off layout experiments, pass the HTML directly. The template: keyword accepts a string when there’s no project::

preview = client.render.preview(
  template: "<h1>Hello {{ name }}</h1>",
  data:     { name: "World" }
)

Inline mode only works with render.preview. To turn inline HTML into a PDF, save it as a template in the dashboard first, then use project mode.

Example

require "poli_page"

client = PoliPage::Client.new(api_key: ENV.fetch("POLI_PAGE_API_KEY"))

# Project mode — PDF
invoice_pdf = client.render.pdf(
  project:  "billing",
  template: "invoice",
  data:     { invoice_number: "INV-001", total: 1280 }
)

# Inline mode — preview HTML only
greeting = client.render.preview(
  template: "<h1>Hello {{ name }}</h1>",
  data:     { name: "World" }
)

See also

• Output handling
• Configuration