Approach 2 Document Generation using Puppeteer library

Approach 1: Document Generation using PdfKit library

To have a build-in function of generating pdf from HTML, we can make the use of puppeteer library over the express server. To have the things setup, we first make sure that we have the puppeteer library installed.

you can install puppeteer by opening the terminal and commanding:

npm install puppeteer

The updated dependencies in package.json file will look like:

"dependencies": {
    "express": "^4.18.2",
    "puppeteer": "^21.6.1"
}

With puppeteer being installed in the system. Paste the following code in index.js file.

Javascript

//index.js
 
const express = require('express');
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer')
const app = express();
const port = 3000;
 
app.use(express.json());
app.use(express.urlencoded({ extended: true }));
 
// Define a route for document generation
app.post('/generate-document', async (req, res) => {
    try {
        const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
        const page = await browser.newPage();
 
        // Generate HTML content
        const htmlContent = 
        `<html>
        <body>
        <h1>${req.body.title}</h1>
        <p>${req.body.content}</p>
        </body>
        </html>`;
 
        await page.setContent(htmlContent, { waitUntil: 'domcontentloaded' });
        const pdfBuffer = await page.pdf();
        await browser.close();
 
        res.contentType('application/pdf');
        res.send(pdfBuffer);
    } catch (error) {
        console.error('Error generating document:', error);
        res.status(500).send('Error generating document');
    }
});
 
app.listen(port, () => {
    console.log(`Server listening at http://localhost:${port}`);
});

Step to run the application

Step 1: Run the following command in the terminal to start the server.

node index.js

Step 2: Open the Postman app and make a post request with the following route and add the content in the body which you want to print on the pdf.

http://localhost:3000/generate-document

{
    "title": "PDF generated with Express + Pippeteer",
    "content": "This is my first PDF generated with Pippeteer"
}

Output:

How to generate document with Node.js or Express.js REST API?

Generating documents with Node and Express REST API is an important feature in the application development which is helpful in many use cases.

In this article, we will discuss two approaches to generating documents with Node.js or Express.js REST API.

Table of Content

Document Generation using PdfKit library
Document Generation using Puppeteer library

Tags:

#Express.js #Node.js #Web Technologies

Approach 1: Document Generation using PdfKit library

Approach 2 Document Generation using Puppeteer library

Javascript

How to generate document with Node.js or Express.js REST API?

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