---
title: "Preview the PDF of a draft invoice"
method: GET
path: "/v1/invoices/{invoice_id}/pdf/preview"
tags: ["InvoiceDelivery"]
deprecated: true
---

# Preview the PDF of a draft invoice

`GET /v1/invoices/{invoice_id}/pdf/preview`

## Request

- Base URL: `https://app.beel.es/api`
- URL: `https://app.beel.es/api/v1/invoices/{invoice_id}/pdf/preview`
- Auth: HTTP bearer

> **Deprecated.**

Renders the PDF of a draft invoice on the fly, without storing it, and returns it as
`application/pdf`.

- **Deprecated:** use `GET /v1/companies/{company_id}/invoices/{invoice_id}/pdf/preview`,
  which behaves identically.

**Retires on 9 December 2026.** See the [migration guide](https://docs.beel.es/changelog/resources-under-the-nif) for what moved where and what changes when you switch.

## Path parameters

- `invoice_id` string, uuid, required: Universally Unique Identifier (UUID v4)

## Response `200`

PDF preview generated successfully

## Other responses

- `400`: Invoice is not in draft status Other `error.code` values with this status: - `PREVIEW_DRAFT_ONLY` — the invoice is already issued (or voided); preview only works on drafts, scheduled invoices and proformas. Download its real PDF instead. - `PREVIEW_GENERATION_ERROR` — the preview PDF could not be rendered. Nothing changed on the invoice; retry later.
- `401`: Missing or invalid authentication. Like every other error, `message`/`detail` is localized according to `Accept-Language` (`es`, `en`, `ca`); defaults to English when the header is missing or asks for none of those.
- `403`: Authenticated but not allowed. Fourteen causes shared by every operation, told apart by `error.code`; an operation that adds a cause of its own names it in its `403`. You can branch on them exhaustively. - `INSUFFICIENT_SCOPE` — the credential lacks a scope the operation requires; `error.details.missing_scopes` names them as a single comma-separated string (for example `"invoices:write,customers:read"`), not as an array; `required_scopes` has the same shape and lists every scope the operation needs. Retrying will not help: mint a key that holds them. - `COMPANY_READ_ONLY` — the scope is there, but your access level over that NIF only lets you read it. - `ACCOUNT_MANAGEMENT_FORBIDDEN` — the scope is there, but your role over the account, or the management relationship you hold over it, does not cover this operation. - `ACCOUNT_NOT_ACCESSIBLE` — the account is not yours to reach, which is also the answer when it does not exist, so existence is never disclosed. - `ACTIVE_COMPANY_NOT_ACCESSIBLE` — the same, for a NIF: the company in the path, or the one named by `BeeL-Active-Company`, is not one this credential may reach — and again, this is also the answer when it does not exist. - `COMPANY_ACCESS_REVOKED` — your access to the NIF was withdrawn while the request was already in flight, so the write was rejected and nothing was recorded. Retrying will not help until the access is granted again. - `LIVE_CREDENTIAL_REQUIRED` — the operation changes the real account and the call came from a test API key (`beel_sk_test_…`). Use your live key or the dashboard. - `FEATURE_NOT_AVAILABLE` — your subscription does not include the entitlement the operation needs; `error.details.feature_code` names it. This gate runs **before** the scope gate, so for such an operation you never see `INSUFFICIENT_SCOPE` first. - `NO_ACTIVE_ACCOUNT` — the credential does not resolve to an account, so no scope can be evaluated against one. Fail-closed, not a permission that can be granted to you. - `OPERATION_REQUIRES_SESSION` — the operation is available only from the web session; no API key and no OAuth2 token can perform it, whatever scopes it holds. - `OPERATION_REQUIRES_API_KEY` — the reverse: the operation needs a scope that only an API key can hold (such as `accounts:write`), so a dashboard session never satisfies it. - `API_KEY_LIVE_NOT_AVAILABLE` — the call came with a live API key (`beel_sk_live_…`) and the account has no Live mode yet. It is never degraded to Test: use your test key, or activate Live first. - `ACCOUNT_REQUIRES_FOCUS_SWITCH` — dashboard session only: you are a member of the account in the path, but it is not the account in focus. Switch focus to it and retry. - `REQUEST_BLOCKED` — the edge security filter stopped the request before the API saw its body, usually because a text field carries something that looks like markup or a script (HTML tags, `<script>`). Review the body and retry.
- `404`: The resource addressed by the path does not exist, or is not one this credential can see — the two are answered identically, so existence is never disclosed. `error.code` names the kind of resource that was missing, so a client can tell which of several ids in a path failed to resolve: - `INVOICE_NOT_FOUND` — the `{invoice_id}` (invoices, proformas and their sub-resources). - `RECURRING_NOT_FOUND` — the `{recurring_invoice_id}`. - `CLIENT_NOT_FOUND` — the `{customer_id}`. - `INVOICE_CLIENT_NOT_FOUND` — the `customer_id` referenced by an invoice body does not resolve to a customer of the issuing company. - `PRODUCT_NOT_FOUND` — the `{product_id}`. - `SERIES_NOT_FOUND` — the `{series_id}`. - `WEBHOOK_SUBSCRIPTION_NOT_FOUND`, `DELIVERY_LOG_NOT_FOUND` — the `{webhook_id}` and the `{delivery_id}`. - `PROFILE_NOT_FOUND` — the credential's account has no company profile yet: its holder has not completed onboarding, so there is no issuer to act as. - `NOT_FOUND` — the generic fallback, for the few resources that carry no code of their own. Some resources declare a more specific `404` response of their own (`CONNECTION_NOT_FOUND`, `MEMBER_NOT_FOUND`, `GRANT_NOT_FOUND`, `INVITATION_NOT_FOUND`, `REQUEST_LOG_NOT_FOUND`); it is documented on the operation. A `404` with `ENDPOINT_NOT_FOUND` is a different answer: the **path itself** does not exist in this API (a typo in the route, or a resource that was never here). It says nothing about any resource. When the path exists but not with that method, the answer is `405`, not `404`.
- `429`: Rate limit exceeded. `RATE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED` when the request rate of your credential is over its limit; `TOO_MANY_REQUESTS` when an email the operation sends is held back because too many went out to that recipient in a short time. Either way, retry after the `Retry-After` seconds. `QUOTA_EXCEEDED` is the other `429`: the operation would go over a quota of your plan for the current period (issued invoices, for instance). Retrying does not help until the quota resets or the plan changes. `error.details` carries `feature_code`, `current_usage`, `quota_limit` and `reset_date`, and `RateLimit-Reset` the seconds until the reset when it is known.
- `500`: Internal server error
- `default`: Any status code the operation does not list above. Every operation declares it, so a generated client always has a branch to fall into and never loses the cause of a failure it did not anticipate. This is where the transport-level answers land — `405`, `406`, `415` and `429` — together with any status a future version of the API starts returning. All of them carry the same error envelope as the codes listed explicitly, so `error.code` is what tells them apart: switching on the status code alone is not enough. See «Transport-level errors» in the API description for when each one is produced. A `402` carrying `SUBSCRIPTION_REQUIRED` lands here when the account has no active subscription. `error.details` says why and what to do: `current_status` (absent if it never had one), `required_permission` and `action`. A `503` carrying `SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE` lands here too, with a `Retry-After` header: a dependency of BeeL itself (the database, the email provider) was momentarily unavailable and nothing was done. Retry after those seconds. A `502` carrying `EXTERNAL_SERVICE_ERROR` also lands here: an outbound integration the operation depends on failed or did not answer in time. It is a transient condition — retry with the same `Idempotency-Key` where the operation accepts one. One exception to the envelope: a failure of the network edge that never reaches the application (`502`, `503`, `504`, `524`) is generated by Cloudflare and its body is not BeeL's — it may not even be JSON. Treat those as "no answer", and retry.

---

[API](https://skmtc.dev/beel/apis/beel-public-api.md) · [All operations](https://skmtc.dev/beel/apis/beel-public-api/llms.txt) · [OpenAPI document](https://skmtc.dev/beel/apis/beel-public-api/revisions/ffbc0ae31f79?raw)