Puppeprint

index.js

import express from 'express';
import puppeteer from "puppeteer";

const app = express();
const port = process.env.PORT || 8080;


async function makePDF(url) {
  console.log('Creating PDF', url);
  const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
    args: ["--no-sandbox", "--disable-setuid-sandbox"],
  });
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  await page.goto(url, {
    waitUntil: "networkidle2",
  });
  const buffer = await page.pdf({ format: "a4" });
  await browser.close();
  return buffer;
}

app.get("/", async (req, res) => {
  if (req.query.url) {
    const pdf = await makePDF(req.query.url);
    console.log('Generated pdf', pdf);
    res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/pdf');
    res.send(pdf);
  } else {
    res.send('Please provide a URL parameter');
  }
});

app.listen(port, () => {
  console.log(`Example app listening on port ${port}`);
});

package.json

{
  "name": "puppeprint",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "start": "node index.js",
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "type": "module",
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC",
  "dependencies": {
    "express": "^4.18.1",
    "puppeteer": "^14.4.0"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "nodemon": "^2.0.16"
  }
}

Quick use of Express + Puppeteer to get a printing as a service prototype. Improvements include:

• using POST to pass pdf() options
• using generic-pool to handle a pool of browsers
• using createPdfStream to stream the response

Requires jontewks/puppeteer-heroku-buildpack to run on Heroku