Introduction to wkhtmltopdf

Wkhtmltopdf is a command line tool for rendering HTML into PDF and various image formats using the Qt WebKit rendering engine. It is widely used for creating PDF reports, invoices, and any web-based documents. This tool is powerful as it provides numerous APIs to customize the conversion process. Below, we explore the functionality and usage of these APIs with code snippets and examples.

Basic Usage

  
  wkhtmltopdf http://example.com example.pdf

API Examples

Modify Print Settings

  
  wkhtmltopdf --print-media-type http://example.com example.pdf

Set PDF Metadata

  
  wkhtmltopdf --title "Sample PDF" --author "John Doe" http://example.com example.pdf

Set PDF Margins

  
  wkhtmltopdf --margin-top 20mm --margin-right 20mm --margin-bottom 20mm --margin-left 20mm http://example.com example.pdf

Generate Table of Contents

  
  wkhtmltopdf toc http://example.com example.pdf

Auto-Generate Cover Page

  
  wkhtmltopdf cover http://example.com/cover.html http://example.com example.pdf

Advanced Usage

Custom Headers and Footers

  
  wkhtmltopdf --header-center "Title" --footer-right "Page [page] of [toPage]" http://example.com example.pdf

Inject JavaScript for Post-Render Modifications

  
  wkhtmltopdf --run-script "document.querySelector('.dynamic').innerHTML = new Date();" http://example.com example.pdf

Enable Cache

  
  wkhtmltopdf --cache-dir "/path/to/cache" http://example.com example.pdf

Application Example

Let’s illustrate with a simple Node.js application that generates a PDF from an HTML page using wkhtmltopdf.

  
  const { exec } = require('child_process');
  
  const url = 'http://example.com';
  const output = 'example.pdf';
  
  const cmd = `wkhtmltopdf ${url} ${output}`;
  
  exec(cmd, (error, stdout, stderr) => {
    if (error) {
      console.error(`Error: ${error.message}`);
      return;
    }
    
    if (stderr) {
      console.error(`Stderr: ${stderr}`);
      return;
    }
    
    console.log(`PDF generated: ${stdout}`);
  });

This code will download and convert the URL into a PDF file called example.pdf.

Using the powerful features of wkhtmltopdf, you can effectively transform any HTML content into well-formatted PDFs, which can be particularly useful for dynamically generated content on web applications.

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