How to include external JavaScript library in reactjs

Question

I would like to know how it\'s possible to include an external JavaScript library in a react project. For example, I would like to import the jspdf library : https://github.

Answer 1

I know this is old, but I thought it would be helpful if someone posted a full working sample. It took me a while to figure this out, using this other post as a starting point:

How to make PDF from React?

Assuming you are using create-react-app, overwrite your App.js with the following below...

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import pdfConverter from 'jspdf';
import logo from './logo.svg';
import './App.css';

class App extends Component {
  constructor(props) {
    super(props);
    this.onClick = this.onClick.bind(this);
    this.toDataUrl = this.toDataUrl.bind(this);
  }

  toDataUrl(url, callback) {
    var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
    xhr.onload = function() {
      var reader = new FileReader();
      reader.onloadend = function() {
        callback(reader.result);
      }
      reader.readAsDataURL(xhr.response);
    };
    xhr.open('GET', url);
    xhr.responseType = 'blob';
    xhr.send();
  }

  onClick() {
      var doc = new pdfConverter('p','pt','letter');
      //console.log(doc.getFontList() );
      this.toDataUrl('background.jpg', function(base64Img) {
        var imgData = base64Img;
        console.log(imgData);
        console.log('Adding to doc.');
        doc.addImage(imgData, 'JPEG', 0, 0, 612, 792);
        console.log('Image added.');
        doc.setFont('Times', 'Roman');
        doc.setFontSize(22);
        doc.text(20, 50, 'Park Entry Ticket');
        doc.setFontSize(16);
        doc.text(20, 80, 'Address1: ' );
        doc.text(20, 100, 'Address2: ' );
        doc.text(20, 120, 'Entry Date & time: ');
        doc.text(20, 140, 'Expiry date & time: ' );
        console.log('About to save');
        doc.save("test.pdf");
      });
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <div className="App">
        <div className="App-header">
          <img src={logo} className="App-logo" alt="logo" />
          <h2>Welcome to React</h2>
        </div>
        <p className="App-intro">
          To get started, edit <code>src/App.js</code> and save to reload.
            <input type='button'
        onClick={this.onClick} value="Print"/>
        </p>
      </div>
    );
  }
}

export default App;

Answer 2

If you include the external js file link in your /public/index.html, you can use the external library with the window prefix.

Take JQuery as an example. Put the following line in your /public/index.html:

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.2.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

Use it in your project like so:

window.$("#btn1").click(function(){
  alert("Text: " + $("#test").text());
});

Answer 3

First of all, don't use the source file. Just npm install jspdf --save like any other package, and import it with var pdfConverter = require('jspdf');

Secondly, you're missing a () in this line var doc = new pdfConverter.jsPDF('p','pt');

Do something like this:

var converter = new pdfConverter();
var doc = converter.jsPDF('p', 'pt');