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Overview

What is Eledo?​

Eledo is a service for generating PDF documents through automation.

Imagine running an e-shop and needing to create an invoice for every order. With Eledo, this process can be automated.

You need two things:

  1. A template — you define what information should be filled in, such as name, address, invoice details, or order data.
  2. A way to send data to Eledo — this can be done through integrations, API calls, or command-line tools such as eledoctl.

The setup is done once. After that, Eledo can generate documents whenever your application, script, or automation needs them.

Templates are created using our visual editor on the website. Eledo also supports PDF forms, which are handled as a slightly different type of template.

What is eledoctl?​

eledoctl is the official command-line toolkit for Eledo.

It is designed for developers, operators, and technical users who want to generate Eledo documents from:

  • local terminal commands
  • shell scripts
  • backend tools
  • CI/CD jobs
  • cron jobs
  • scheduled automation
  • custom internal tooling

Unlike visual workflow integrations such as Make, Zapier, Monday, or n8n, eledoctl does not require building a workflow. It can generate a single PDF directly from the command line.

A typical command looks like this:

eledoctl documents generate TEMPLATE_ID \
    --add-field clientName="Acme Ltd" \
    --add-field invoiceNumber="INV-2026-001" \
    --output invoice.pdf

This makes eledoctl useful when you need direct, scriptable document generation.

How eledoctl Works​

The basic flow is straightforward:

  1. Install eledoctl.
  2. Authenticate with your Eledo API token.
  3. List available templates.
  4. Generate a document from a selected template.
  5. Save the generated PDF to a file or use it in another script.

For example:

eledoctl login
eledoctl templates
eledoctl documents generate TEMPLATE_ID --payload-file data.json --output document.pdf

You can provide document data as simple fields, a JSON string, a JSON file, or standard input.

Designed to Be Practical​

Eledo was designed to be tolerant to incomplete data.

If you send incomplete data, Eledo still attempts to render the PDF. Missing fields remain empty, but the document is generated.

We chose this strategy deliberately. In many real-world scenarios, receiving a partially filled document is better than receiving no document at all.

This behavior also makes eledoctl useful in scripts, where you may want the document generation step to complete even when some optional fields are not available.

When to Use eledoctl​

Use eledoctl when you want direct command-line access to Eledo document generation.

It is a good fit for:

  • generating one document from a terminal
  • testing templates during development
  • creating PDFs from shell scripts
  • running scheduled document generation with cron
  • integrating Eledo into CI/CD pipelines
  • connecting Eledo to custom backend tools
  • generating documents without a visual automation platform

If you prefer visual workflows and no-code automation, use one of the Eledo workflow integrations instead.

What to Expect in This Documentation​

This documentation is split into focused sections. You do not need to read everything — open the part relevant to your current task.

We cover:

If something is unclear or missing, it means the documentation needs improvement — not that the feature is unsupported.