The linux command: curl -F data=@data.txt -F templateName=WelcomeTemplate.doc -F outputName=myWelcome.pdf -o myWelcome.pdf http://localhost:8080/api/render will call the Tornado server running at localhost:8080 to render the template WelcomeTemplate.doc to create file myWelcome.pdf. The data.txt file contains the data and in JSON format would look like this: { "date":"29/Jan/2015", "message":"This Tornado Document Engine is working great!" }