How to send a local PDF file through a Telegram Bot?

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1

I’m scratching my head trying to figure out how to send a PDF file to my Telegram Bot. I’ve been following the docs but no luck so far. The file is on my computer, not online. When I try to send it, I get this error:

{"ok":false,"error_code":400,"description":"Bad Request: URL host is empty"}

I’m pretty sure I’m doing something wrong with how I’m pointing to the file. Can anyone help me out? I’d really appreciate some tips on how to make this work. Thanks a bunch!

# Example code (not working)
import requests

bot_token = 'your_bot_token'
chat_id = 'your_chat_id'
file_path = '/home/user/Documents/report.pdf'

url = f'https://api.telegram.org/bot{bot_token}/sendDocument'
params = {'chat_id': chat_id}
files = {'document': open(file_path, 'rb')}

response = requests.post(url, params=params, files=files)
print(response.json())

Any ideas what I’m missing here?

2

I’ve encountered this issue before, and I think I know what’s going on. The problem isn’t with your code structure, but with how you’re handling the file path. When sending local files, you need to use the ‘rb’ mode to open the file in binary format, which you’ve done correctly. However, you should also specify the filename in the files dictionary.

Try modifying your code like this:

files = {'document': ('report.pdf', open(file_path, 'rb'), 'application/pdf')}

This explicitly tells the API the filename and MIME type. Also, ensure your bot_token and chat_id are correct. If you’re still having issues, double-check your file path. Windows users might need to use double backslashes or raw strings for file paths.

Let me know if this solves your problem or if you need further assistance.

3

As someone who’s worked extensively with Telegram bots, I can offer a different approach that might solve your issue. Instead of using the requests library directly, I’ve found that the aiogram library provides a more robust and user-friendly way to interact with the Telegram Bot API, especially for file handling.

Here’s a snippet that’s worked well for me:

from aiogram import Bot, Dispatcher
from aiogram.types import InputFile
import asyncio

bot = Bot(token='your_bot_token')
dp = Dispatcher(bot)

async def send_pdf():
    chat_id = 'your_chat_id'
    file_path = '/path/to/your/file.pdf'
    
    pdf = InputFile(file_path)
    await bot.send_document(chat_id=chat_id, document=pdf)

asyncio.run(send_pdf())

This method handles the file opening and MIME type detection automatically, which can help avoid the issues you’re experiencing. Give it a try and see if it resolves your problem. Remember to install aiogram first with pip install aiogram.

4

hey mate, i had the same problem. try using the telegram.Bot class from python-telegram-bot library instead. it’s way easier:

from telegram import Bot

bot = Bot(token='your_bot_token')
with open('/path/to/your/file.pdf', 'rb') as pdf:
    bot.send_document(chat_id='your_chat_id', document=pdf)

this worked for me. hope it helps!