How to Schedule PDF Reports
Recurring reports — daily sales summaries, weekly analytics dashboards, monthly financial statements — need to arrive on time without manual intervention. Scheduling PDF report generation ensures stakeholders receive fresh documents automatically. SublimePDF integrates with cron jobs, task queues, and cloud schedulers to generate and deliver reports on any cadence.
Follow the step-by-step instructions below, then use the free tool directly — no registration or download required.
Open Tool →How to Schedule PDF Reports — Step by Step
Build your report template
Create an HTML/CSS template for your report using SublimePDF's template API (POST /api/v1/templates). Design it to accept dynamic data — date ranges, aggregated metrics, chart images — through template variables.
Create a data-fetching function
Write a server-side function that queries your database or analytics API for the reporting period's data. Structure the results as a JSON object matching your template's variable names.
Wire up the PDF generation call
Combine the data with your template by calling POST /api/v1/render with { "templateId": "your-template-id", "data": fetchedData }. Save the returned PDF to storage or hold it in memory for delivery.
Set up the scheduler
Use a cron job (crontab on Linux, node-cron in Node.js), a cloud scheduler (AWS EventBridge, Google Cloud Scheduler, Vercel Cron), or a task queue (BullMQ, Celery) to trigger your function on the desired schedule — daily at 6 AM, every Monday at 9 AM, first of each month.
Deliver the report
After generation, deliver the PDF — email it via SendGrid/SES with the PDF as an attachment, upload it to a shared Google Drive or Dropbox folder, post a Slack notification with the download link, or save it to S3 with a presigned URL.
Pro Tips
- 💡 Run scheduled jobs 15–30 minutes after data collection closes to ensure all records for the reporting period are captured before generating the report.
- 💡 Store every generated report in versioned cloud storage (S3 with date-prefixed keys) so stakeholders can access historical reports without regenerating them.
- 💡 Add error alerting to your scheduler — if the PDF generation or email delivery fails, notify your engineering team via Slack or PagerDuty immediately.
- 💡 Use idempotency keys when calling the SublimePDF API from scheduled jobs — if a job retries due to a transient failure, you won't generate duplicate reports.
Privacy & Security
All processing happens directly in your browser. Your files are never uploaded to any server — they remain on your device throughout the entire process. SublimePDF uses WebAssembly technology for fast, secure, client-side processing.
Works Everywhere
This tool works on any modern browser — Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge — on desktop, tablet, or mobile. No software to install. PDF is an open ISO standard supported by all major platforms.
How to Schedule PDF Reports — FAQ
What's the best way to schedule recurring PDF generation?
Can I schedule reports to generate at different times for different time zones?
How do I include charts in scheduled reports?
What happens if the API is temporarily unavailable during a scheduled run?
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