pdfmake docs.md

pdfmake

Use in node.js

The module on npm exposes the pdfmake Printer, which the docs themselves do not cover. Using it is pretty simple though.

var path = require('path');
var Printer = require('pdfmake');

// fonts are available in the test-env/tests/fonts path, this is a helper
function fontPath(file) {
  retrun path.resolve('pdfmake', 'test-env', 'tests', 'fonts', file);
}

// required font setup, requires that you link to the fonts shipped with npm
var fontDescriptors = {
  Roboto: {
    normal: fontPath('Roboto-Regular.ttf'),
    bold: fontPath('Roboto-Medium.ttf'),
    italics: fontPath('Roboto-Italic.ttf'),
    bolditalics: fontPath('Roboto-Italic.ttf'),
  }
}; 
var docDefinition = {}; // this is what you see in all the docs
var printer = new Printer(fontDescriptors);

// get a reference to the PdfKit instance, which is a streaming interface
var pdfDoc = printer.createPdfKitDocument(docDefinition);

// pipe to a file or response object
function streamTo(pdfDoc) {
  // writeStream can be an fs object, response object, etc
  var writeStream = fs.createWriteStream('pdfs/output.pdf');
  var pdfDoc = printer.createPdfKitDocument(docDefinition);
  pdfDoc.pipe(writeStream); // streaming interface
}

// turn the stream into a Buffer
// Usage: getDoc(pdfDoc, function (err, buffer, pages) { var base64 = buffer.toString('base64'); /* app logic */ });
function getDoc(pdfDoc, cb) {
  // buffer the output
  var chunks = [];
  
  pdfDoc.on('data', function(chunk) {
  	chunks.push(chunk);
  });
  pdfDoc.on('end', function() {
  	var result = Buffer.concat(chunks);
  	cb(null, result, pdfDoc._pdfMakePages);
  });
  pdfDoc.on('error', cb);
  
  // close the stream
  pdfDoc.end();
}

createPdfKitDocument takes 2 arguments, docTemplate and an optional options.

docDefinition

Specified as an object, the document definition object.

properties	default	description
header		header, can be a function, placed on every page
footer		footer, like header, but at the bottom
content		text, table, etc - the meat of the document
defaultStyle	{ fontSize: 12, font: 'Roboto' }	applied to entire document
styles		available style dictionaries
pageSize		document page size, string or { width: number, height: number }
pageOrientation	portrait	document orientation, landscape or portrait
pageMargins		document margins - [left, top, right, bottom] or [horizontal, vertical]
pageBreakBefore		function, executed to determine if there should be a page break before content
background		background-layer added on every page, can be a function
images		similar to styles, globally-available image content - most useful as 'data:image/jpeg;base64,...'
watermark
info		metadata
content		metadata

options

Also specified as an object, this is where you can pass a few globally available options to your document. Available options include:

Option Parameter	Description
tableLayouts	Passed to registerTableLayouts, used to define globally available table layouts (see Tables and Layouts below)
autoPrint	???

Tables and Layouts

Tables have a few pre-defined layouts available (code). They can be used by specifying a layout: 'LayoutName' in the table definition. The included styles are noBorders, headerLineOnly, and lightHorizontalLines, and you can see examples of all three near the bottom of the Tables example in the playground.

If no layout is specified, the default is used. This provides a 1px black line around each cell, with a top/bottom padding of 2px and a left/right padding of 4px (code)

Custom Layouts

You can build your own custom layout as well, specifying your own line width, color and cell padding. Each value takes a callback function, which is passed the row index and table node reference (code)

Here's an example of how to do that, using the default layout as the values:

layout: {
  hLineWidth: function(i, node) { return 1; }, //return node.table.headerRows && i === node.table.headerRows && 3 || 0; },
  vLineWidth: function(i, node) { return 1; },
  hLineColor: function(i, node) { return 'black'; },
  vLineColor: function(i, node) { return 'black'; },
  paddingLeft: function(i, node) { return 4; }, //i && 4 || 0; },
  paddingRight: function(i, node) { return 4; }, //(i < node.table.widths.length - 1) ? 4 : 0; },
  paddingTop: function(i, node) { return 2; },
  paddingBottom: function(i, node) { return 2; }
};