NullGravity front-pdf package

front-pdf is a self-hosted service that uses front-end layouts for PDF export. You can create pdf oriented layouts using any front-end technology that you like. Just prepare the front-end build and configure the service.

Conventions

Your front-end build should contain wrapper with pageClass, each page should have its fixed dimentions. You should tell the service, when your renedering process is finished for all pages by adding the renderedClass in the end. We are working on improvement of this conventions in future. This is a draft version of the package.

Service usage

• install node and npm
• execute npm install
• execute npm run start it will run the service (on 5000 port by default)
• execute a POST request on http://localhost:{port}/createReport, send your data in body
• each page will have its unique id, like this http://localhost:{port}?&id=${id}
• your static assets (frontend build) should contain an ajax request with the id url parameter on /json?id={id}, they will recieve all the required data, that was sent in body request
• after your front-end rendering is complete, you should add a renderedClass classname, so the service will now, that it can make a pdf from your page

example

const path = require('path');
const startService = require('front-pdf');

// https://github.com/GoogleChrome/puppeteer/blob/master/docs/api.md#puppeteerlaunchoptions
const browserConfig = {
  headless: true
};

startService({
  templates: [
    {
      name: 'template1',
      static: path.join(__dirname, './template1'),
      index: path.join(__dirname, './template1/index.html'),
      pageConfig: {
        pageClass: 'pdf-page',
        renderedClass: 'rendered'
      }
    },
    {
      name: 'template-css',
      static: path.join(__dirname, './template-css'),
      index: path.join(__dirname, './template-css/index.html'),
      pageConfig: {
        pageClass: 'pdf-page',
        renderedClass: 'rendered',
        preferCSSPageSize: true
      }
    }
  ],
  browserConfig,
  port: 5000,
  debugMode: true
});