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Platform & Services

Getting started

Issuu offers a simple REST-based interface making it quick and easy to get

started.

Step 1: Apply for API key

The first thing you need to do is to apply for an API key. The only thing we require is that you have an active

Issuu account and that you give us a bit of information about the application you would like to build. We are

very curious to see what cool stuff you come up with!

Please remember that the API key should be treated like any other password. With it you can carry out

actions like deleting information and documents from your Issuu account. Do not disclose or share your API

key with anyone else!

Step 2: Choose API method

Before you can make a request you must choose an API method. Depending on which method you would like

to call you need to choose the correct endpoint.

As a rule all requests must be made to the following endpoint:

http://api.issuu.com/1_0

Parameters should either be sent as part of the URL when using HTTP GET requests or inside the HTTP

body for HTTP POST requests.

Every rule needs an exception though! When uploading documents a special endpoint must be used:

http://upload.issuu.com/1_0

When uploading files you must use HTTP POST with encoding multipart/form-data.

Step 3: Make a request

To perform an action against the Issuu API there are three parameters which must always be included in the

request:

The required parameter apiKey is used for authentication. The request will be carried out on behalf of

the associated user account.

1.

The required parameter signature is used for authentication. Signing Requests describes how to

calculate the signature value

2.

The required parameter action is used to specify the calling method.3.

You are free to choose between sending the parameters using HTTP GET or HTTP POST.

http://api.issuu.com/1_0?apiKey=<apiKey>&signature=<signature>&action=<method>

Note: All data sent to the Issuu API must be UTF-8 encoded. And all data returned by the API will be UTF-8

encoded. Submitting data in a different encoding will cause the request to fail with error code 201 "Invalid field

format".

See Step 5: Handle Errors for common error codes.

Two optional parameters are used to specify the response format:

The optional parameter format is used to specify the response format as either XML or JSON/JSONP.1.

The optional parameter jsonCallback is used to specify the name of the JSONP callback function.2.

When calling one of the data listing methods it is highly recommended that you use the optional parameter

responseParams to limit the response to only include the parameters which are required by your application.

Step 4: Parse the response

The response from the API server has the same structure for both XML and JSON/JSONP formats. The

Issuu Platform & Services http://issuu.com/services/api/gettingstarted.html

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Issuu Platform & Services http://issuu.com/services/api/gettingstarted.html

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