PDF Export

Export your documentation site as a single PDF from the dashboard. Jamdesk renders every published page into one file, emails you a download link when it's ready, and keeps the PDF available for redownload until your next docs build.

PDF export is useful for:

• Sharing documentation with reviewers who don't have dashboard access
• Offline reading on planes, in secure facilities, or at customer sites
• Compliance and audit snapshots at a specific commit
• Customer handoff packages

Who can use it

PDF export is on every paid plan. No add-on, no extra charge. Free trial projects see the button but can't run an export until they upgrade.

Generate a PDF

Multi-language projects

If your docs.json has more than one language configured, a locale dropdown appears next to the Generate PDF button.

{
  "navigation": {
    "languages": [
      { "language": "en", "default": true },
      { "language": "es" },
      { "language": "fr" }
    ]
  }
}

Each export covers a single language. To ship all three to a reviewer, pick en, export, then es, export, then fr.

Caching and Regenerate

The Settings page remembers only the most recent completed export per project. When you click Regenerate, Jamdesk checks whether the last export matches both the current build and the locale you're asking for:

• Same build and locale → the cached PDF is handed back immediately. You'll see a notice explaining that nothing has changed since your last export.
• New build or different locale → a fresh render kicks off. Clicking Rebuild counts as a new build, even when the commit is unchanged.

Because the cache is a single slot, exporting a second locale or a new build replaces whatever was there before. The earlier PDF isn't deleted, but it's no longer the one surfaced on the Settings page.

To get a fresh PDF after updating your docs:

Regenerate is safe to click liberally. If no new build has completed, it won't re-render or re-email.

Rate limiting

You can produce one completed export per project every five minutes. Requests inside that window return Try again in a few minutes. The cache-hit path bypasses the rate limit, so repeat downloads of an unchanged PDF never hit the wall.

A PDF that has been generating for more than twenty minutes is treated as stale. You can click Generate PDF again to re-enqueue.

What gets exported

The PDF includes every page listed in your docs.json navigation for the chosen language, in declaration order. External links in the nav are skipped. Orphan pages (files in your repo that aren't wired into navigation) are not included.

Each page is rendered via the same URL a reader would hit (https://<slug>.jamdesk.app/<path>), so anything that shows up in the browser shows up in the PDF. Up to 10% of pages are allowed to fail rendering; beyond that threshold the export aborts and you can retry.

Password-protected sites

If your site is password protected, the PDF exporter can't unlock it. The headless browser doing the rendering doesn't carry a session. Protected pages won't appear in the PDF and count against the 10% failure budget described above. If most of your site is gated, disable password protection before running the export, or rely on unprotected pages only.

Email delivery

When the PDF is ready, the person who clicked Generate PDF gets an email with a link back to the Settings → PDF Exports section, plus the page count, timestamp, and locale (for multi-language projects). The dashboard itself also flips to the ready state live; you don't need the email to download.

Only the requester is emailed. Other collaborators see the new PDF the next time they open the Settings page.

Download link lifetime

The download URL in the dashboard and in the email is a short-lived signed URL. If it 403s, reload the Settings page. Jamdesk mints a fresh URL every time the page queries export status.

Troubleshooting

What's Next?