HTML to PDF with Node.js

Question

I\'m looking to create a printable pdf version of my website webpages. Something like express.render() only render the page as pdf

Answer 1

For those who don't want to install PhantomJS along with an instance of Chrome/Firefox on their server - or because the PhantomJS project is currently suspended, here's an alternative.

You can externalize the conversions to APIs to do the job. Many exists and varies but what you'll get is a reliable service with up-to-date features (I'm thinking CSS3, Web fonts, SVG, Canvas compatible).

For instance, with PDFShift (disclaimer, I'm the founder), you can do this simply by using the request package:

const request = require('request')
request.post(
    'https://api.pdfshift.io/v2/convert/',
    {
        'auth': {'user': 'your_api_key'},
        'json': {'source': 'https://www.google.com'},
        'encoding': null
    },
    (error, response, body) => {
        if (response === undefined) {
            return reject({'message': 'Invalid response from the server.', 'code': 0, 'response': response})
        }
        if (response.statusCode == 200) {
            // Do what you want with `body`, that contains the binary PDF
            // Like returning it to the client - or saving it as a file locally or on AWS S3
            return True
        }

        // Handle any errors that might have occured
    }
);