How to Connect ImaginePDF to Claude with a Custom Connector

Connect your ImaginePDF workspace to Claude in the browser or desktop app with a custom connector. No terminal and no API key required.

Jagadeesh

August 31, 20266 min read

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If you use Claude in the browser or the desktop app, you can connect it to your ImaginePDF workspace. You describe a document in the chat box, and the design lands in your workspace with a finished PDF alongside it. No terminal, no API key.

That connection is a custom connector. Claude talks to ImaginePDF over MCP, you approve it once, and from then on Claude can create designs, fill them, and generate PDFs on your behalf.

A prompt in Claude passing through a custom connector and coming out as a finished invoice saved to an ImaginePDF workspace — You describe the document in Claude. What comes back is a design saved in your workspace.

Setup takes about three minutes and you do it once.

This is a different route from the Claude Code plugin, which runs in your terminal and authenticates with an API key. Same designs, same workspace. Use the connector for claude.ai, the plugin for a terminal.

Step 1: create the credentials in ImaginePDF

In your ImaginePDF dashboard, open Settings → Connectors and click Create Connector.

The Create connector credentials dialog, with a name field and a choice of where the connector will connect from — The checkbox below the name sets the allowed callback URLs.

Name it, then answer Where will it connect from?:

claude.ai (web, desktop, mobile). Use this one for this guide.
Claude Code (local). Use this one for the terminal.

This sets the allowed callback URLs. Picking the wrong one is the most common reason the connection fails at the final step, so tick the one you will actually use. You can create a second connector later for the other.

Click Create.

The created credentials: remote MCP server URL, OAuth client ID, and OAuth client secret — The secret is shown once.

You get three values. The server URL is https://api.imaginepdf.com/mcp for everyone; the client ID and secret are yours.

Copy the secret before closing the dialog. It is not shown again and cannot be recovered. If you lose it, create a new connector.

Step 2: add the connector in Claude

In Claude, click the + in the message box, then Add connector → Add custom connector.

Claude's plus menu, expanded to show Add connector and then Add custom connector — The + in the message box. The settings page has the same option.

Enter a name, paste the server URL, then expand Advanced settings and paste the client ID and secret. Advanced settings is collapsed by default and holds both of those fields.

Claude's Add custom connector dialog with the ImaginePDF name, MCP server URL, and the advanced settings expanded showing client ID and secret — The client ID and secret go under Advanced settings.

Click Add.

Step 3: approve it

Claude sends you to ImaginePDF to approve the connection.

The ImaginePDF consent screen showing what the connector can do and which workspace it will access — Claude only sees the workspace you select here.

The screen lists what you are granting: create, read and edit designs, and generate PDFs. It stays connected until you disconnect it.

Check the workspace selector before continuing. Claude only ever sees the workspace you choose here, so pick deliberately if you have more than one. You can revoke access later from the same Connectors page in your dashboard.

Click Connect.

Name the connector in your prompt

With the connector installed, Claude can still answer a document request itself without touching ImaginePDF. Start the prompt with Using ImaginePDF to route it.

The same invoice prompt twice: without the words Using ImaginePDF it produces a one-off file, with them it produces a design saved in your workspace — The same request, and what you are left with in each case.

Without it you get a file. With it you get a design saved in your workspace, which you can reopen in the editor, bind to data, and regenerate from a spreadsheet.

You only need to say it once per conversation.

Be specific

Say the paper size, the accent colour, what goes in the table, and what the totals should be. Claude places real elements on a real page, so a detailed prompt means less correcting afterwards.

The authoring guide

The connector exposes a resource: an authoring guide describing how ImaginePDF designs are structured.

Claude's connectors menu showing ImaginePDF enabled and an Add from ImaginePDF submenu offering the ImaginePDF authoring guide — Under Connectors, Add from ImaginePDF pulls in the authoring guide.

Attach it for documents with an unusual layout. It gives Claude the element types, spacing rules and variable-binding vocabulary rather than leaving it to infer them, and it is the same guidance the Claude Code plugin ships with.

What Claude can do once connected

Create a design from a description, across multiple pages
Read and edit designs already in your workspace
Place text, tables, images, shapes, QR codes and barcodes
Preview a page before rendering
Generate a PDF, and generate in batch from a dataset

Anything unavailable on your plan is reported as unavailable rather than silently substituted.

The design stays in your workspace

A design created through Claude opens in the visual editor like any other. You can move the logo, add a tax line or change the footer without going back to Claude, mark the fields that change as variables, and generate filled PDFs from a form, a spreadsheet, or the REST API.

Troubleshooting

Claude cannot complete the connection. Usually the callback setting from Step 1. A connector created for Claude Code will not work from claude.ai. Create a new one with the correct option.

Claude answers without using ImaginePDF. Start the prompt with "Using ImaginePDF".

You lost the client secret. Create a new connector and remove the old one.

You want to disconnect. Settings → Connectors in your dashboard. Revoking there ends Claude's access immediately.