PDF Puppet

PDF Puppet is a tool for creating pdfs using HTML and CSS along with a variety of templating and styles engines.

Install:

npm install --global pdf-puppet

Usage:

Usage: pdf-puppet <config> <output>

Options:
  -v, --version        output the version number
  -c, --config <file>  Path to the config yaml file. (default: "puppet")
  -o, --out <file>     Path to the output pdf file. (default: "output.pdf")
  -h, --help           output usage information

Commands:
  dev                  run a development server to render the markup before generating the pdf

Example:

pdf-puppet -c ./demo/twig/invoice.yml -o invoice.pdf

This will build the PDF using the files and data in the invoice.yml file and output it in the invoice.pdf file.

Dev Server

The dev server has 3 routes:

• The fallback route that generates the HTML markup in the browser
• Any route with .pdf in its name generates the pdf data
• The route /viewer generates a page that shows the pdf and reloads on changes

Templating engines

The following are supported:

• Handlebars
• HTML (plain, no data)
• Mustache
• Pug
• Twig

Style engines

The following are supported:

• CSS
• SCSS

Config file

You can find sample config files in the demo folder. Here is a breakdown of the different parts --

• title: Title of document, it will appear in the title section during development
• template: Path to the template file
• styles: Path to the style file
• markupEngine: Markup/Template engine to be used (pug, twig, etc.)
• format: Print format (e.g. A4, A5, A6, etc.), overrides height and width
• height: Specify height, defaults to auto-height
• width: Specify width, defaults to auto-width
• outputType: Specify your target output type (html, pdf), defaults to pdf
• dev: Development settings object
  • port: Port for the dev server
  • host: Host for the dev server
  • open: Opens the browser automatically if set to true
• data: Data object to be passed to the template