What you see is what mails
In the composer, after you’ve written your letter there’s a “See the exact PDF before you pay” link. It opens the actual PDF the order path will render — same typesetting, same font, same pagination — in a new tab.
This catches the expensive mistakes before money moves:
- A letter that breaks awkwardly across pages.
- A font that reads wrong for the occasion.
- A typo you’d rather fix now than after print.
The endpoint
The link hits GET /api/preview:
text — the letter body (capped at 50,000 chars, matching the order path).font — one of typed | serif | typewriter | handwritten_casual | handwritten_neat.
The response is application/pdf rendered by the same renderTextToPdf the order path uses — one code path, so preview can never diverge from what prints.
Trust model
/api/preview is read-only and idempotent: it never creates an order and never mails. It’s a safe, linkable render endpoint.Last modified on September 17, 2026
