What is an API? And How Can I use it for Print?
Article • January 13, 2021 • 7 min read
We often get the question "What is an API?". While we are using them day and night to work together with our customers and print partners, for a lot of people it might sound like a kind of beer, instead of a solution to connect your applications to data and services on the web.
We often get the question "What is an API?". While we are using them day and night to work together with our customers and print partners, for a lot of people it might sound like a kind of beer, instead of a solution to connect your applications to data and services on the web.
However, almost everyone in the world uses APIs every day For example, when you want to share an article you have read on the web on your Facebook or Twitter timeline, the website communicates directly to Facebook’s or Twitter’s server,. with a request to create a new event (in this case a shared article). The server will respond, execute the action and then send back the relevant information to the website you're visiting.
API stands for "Application Programming Interface"
Web APIs are interfaces between different applications to receive or post data. If you are running an e-commerce store, instead of adding all the shipping prices and options in your database, you connect to the API of UPS or FedEx to get real-time pricing data. This is the same for your payment provider. A webshop posts the financial data of the transaction to the payment provider, which handles the payment of the customer. When the payment is successful, the API sends back a response telling the e-commerce store that the order can proceed.
APIs enable applications to talk with each other and execute or trigger certain actions without the need of accessing the code or database of the service.
While APIs are already widely used in e-commerce, shipping, payments, and social applications around the world, we launched our own Print API earlier this year (2017) for global print on demand.
By connecting your application, e-commerce platform, or enterprise systems to our Print API, you will have a global print and fulfillment network up and running in your application within days.
A few examples of how our Print API can help you to generate more revenue from web2printor on-demand printing from your applications:
The Publisher:
Your books are sold worldwide; you sell them on Amazon, eBay, and many other websites. Some of them have a print solution like Createspace from Amazon. But most of them don't. You connect your order or Digital Asset Management (DAM) system to the Cloudprinter.com Print APIfor printed books. When you receive an order, you post the request to the Print API, and our cloud-based print platform routes it to the nearest connected print facility. Your books are then printed and delivered within days.
You build a great app that allows your customers to print canvases, photos, or photo books from their Instagram posts or timeline. You have used the Instagram API to generate a robust printable PDF to be printed by a new print partner. Your app is going live worldwide, but you need the print partners for that. Some printers have highly advanced workflows which allow you to post them straight from your app. Others might have a standard FTP solution or a CSV post where they will pick up the print file at their end. It will take you months to connect to each of them individually. By connecting to the Cloudprinter.com Print API, you just do one simple Web 2 Print API integration, and you are directly connected to print partners around the world.
We are ready to help you to connect to our global print & fulfillment network within days. Let's schedule a demo (below) or start a free 14 days trial now.
