The Avanquest PDF API is asynchronous: instead of waiting for a file to finish processing in a single request, you submit a job, then poll for its result. This is a deliberate design choice, not a bug — some conversions and OCR jobs take longer than a typical HTTP request timeout would allow.
The three-step workflow is the same for every feature (merge, split, convert, OCR, and so on):
1. Trigger the operation — send a POST request to the relevant endpoint (for example /pdf-merge/v1). You'll get back a JSON body containing an operation id.
2. Poll for status — send a GET request to /operation/v1/{operationId}/status until the status field reads completed (or failed).
3. Download the result — send a GET request to /operation/v1/{operationId}/download to retrieve the processed file.
Note: All requests are served over HTTPS only, at the base URL api-developers.avanquest.com. Every feature's reference page includes an interactive Swagger UI covering all three steps, so you can try the exact request/response shapes in your browser before writing code.