phldr

Super light & free Placeholder Service

API Documentation

A quick guide to using phldr — with one-click copy examples.

Quickstart

Default (SVG)
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PNG
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JPG
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HEX (bg/fg)
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CSS color names
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Transparent background
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Alpha formats: PNG / WebP / AVIF / GIF.
Text: Hello World
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Space = +
Text: multi-line
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New line = \n
Font (Lato)
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Retina @2x (PNG)
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@2x/@3x for: PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, AVIF

📐 Size

Syntax: width x height. Omit height for a square. Min: 10×10, Max: 4000×4000.

600 × 400
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Square 400 × 400
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🧩 Format

Put the format at the end (/png or .png). Default: SVG.
Supported: SVG, PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, AVIF.

Trailing /png
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.png in size
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With colors + format
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🎨 Colour

Use 3/6-digit HEX or supported CSS names. The transparent keyword makes a transparent background. Colors work in the path (/bg/fg) or as query parameters (?bg=EEE&color=111).

HEX: bg/fg
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CSS color names
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Transparent bg
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Query colours
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📝 Text

Use query ?text=.... Space +, new line \\n. Default text is the image size (e.g. 600 × 400).

Hello World
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Multi-line
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🔤 Fonts

?font=FontName. Default: Lato.
For bitmap outputs (PNG/JPEG/WebP/AVIF/GIF), prefer TTF/OTF/TTC files in /storage/fonts.
List fonts: https://phldr.com/api/fonts.

Use Lato
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🔷 Retina

Append @2x or @3x after the size.
Applies to: PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, AVIF (SVG ignores DPR).

600×400 @2x (PNG)
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800×800 @3x (WebP)
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⚙️ Advanced

Pad + Align + Style
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Border
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Rounded
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Pattern
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Gradient
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Seeded theme
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Same seed always produces the same readable colour theme.
Watermark
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Portable SVG font
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Most SVGs use system font fallback for speed. Add embed_font=1 only when the SVG must travel standalone.
Transparent + PNG
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* Trailing slash supported: /600x400 and /600x400/ are equivalent.
* “Heavy” params (DPR, transparent, images > 4Mpx…) may require a signed URL.
* Optional “Error image” can return a tiny PNG with status codes (400/401/404/413/429/500).

Think simple, be unique. ✨

Made with ♥ by Tony Nguyen