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Version: v2026.0.0

Opening documents

ARender accepts documents through URL parameters on the main viewer page. This page covers all the ways to open documents in the viewer.

For a quick hands-on introduction, see the quickstart guide for your viewer.

Opening a document by URL​

Pass a url parameter pointing to an HTTP-accessible document:

https://your-arender-host/?url=https://example.com/contract.pdf
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The rendition service has a safeguard that only authorizes whitelisted domain/host URLs. By default, no domain is authorized. See the broker environment variable DSB_AUTHORIZED_URLS.

Opening a document by pre-generated ID​

Pass a uuid parameter containing a previously generated DocumentId:

https://your-arender-host/?uuid=b64_dXJsPWh0dHA6Ly9leGFtcGxlLmNvbS9zYW1wbGUucGRm

This is the typical pattern when an external system (a connector, an ECM plugin, or a backend call) has already loaded the document and registered it with the Document Service Broker. The viewer looks up the existing DocumentAccessor from the cache rather than fetching the document again.

Multi-document opening​

The viewer supports two modes for displaying multiple documents simultaneously.

Multiple URL parameters​

Passing several url values causes the viewer to load each document independently and group them in a DocumentContainer. Each document is accessible as a tab or panel within the viewer:

https://your-arender-host/?url=https://example.com/doc1.pdf&url=https://example.com/doc2.pdf

The optional title parameter sets the container title shown in the UI:

?url=...&url=...&title=Contract+Package

Without a title parameter, the container title defaults to "Multiple URLs".

Pre-built DocumentContainer​

A connector or backend code can programmatically create a DocumentContainer, populate its children with DocumentReference objects, and register it with the document service. The viewer then receives a single uuid pointing to the container.

In both cases, child documents have hierarchical DocumentId values derived from the container's root ID.

User parameter​

In the default (non-OAuth2) security mode, the user parameter sets the identity of the viewer session:

?url=https://example.com/document.pdf&user=alice

If the uuid parameter contains an embedded user key (produced by a self-contained ID generator), the viewer extracts the username from the encoded parameters instead.

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