pdf-lib
Create and modify PDF documents in any JavaScript environment.
Designed to work in any modern JavaScript runtime. Tested in Node, Browser, and React Native environments.
## Table of Contents
* [Motivation](#motivation)
* [Features](#features)
* [Usage Examples](#usage-examples)
* [Document Creation](#document-creation)
* [Document Modification](#document-modification)
* [Copying Pages](#copying-pages)
* [Embed Font and Measure Text](#embed-font-and-measure-text)
* [Installation](#installation)
* [API Documentation](#api-documentation)
* [Contributing](#contributing)
* [Prior Art](#prior-art)
* [License](#license)
## Motivation
`pdf-lib` was created to address the JavaScript ecosystem's lack of robust support for PDF manipulation (especially for PDF _modification_).
Two of `pdf-lib`'s design requirements since its inception are to:
1. Support modification (editing) of existing documents.
2. Work in all JavaScript environments - not just in Node or the browser.
There are other good open source JavaScript PDF libraries available. However, most of them can only _create_ documents, they cannot _modify_ existing ones (e.g. [`pdfkit`](https://github.com/devongovett/pdfkit), [`jspdf`](https://github.com/MrRio/jsPDF), [`pdfmake`](https://github.com/bpampuch/pdfmake)). [`hummus`](https://github.com/galkahana/HummusJS) is a NodeJS library capable of both creating and modifying PDF documents. However, `hummus` is a Node wrapper around a [C++ library](https://github.com/galkahana/PDF-Writer). This means that it cannot run in _all_ JavaScript environments. For example, you cannot use `hummus` in the Browser or in React Native.
## Features
* Create new PDFs
* Modify existing PDFs
* _**New:**_ [Copy pages between PDFs](#copying-pages)
* Add Pages
* Insert Pages
* Remove Pages
* Draw Text
* Draw Images
* Draw Vector Graphics
* Embed Fonts
* _**New:**_ UTF-8 and UTF-16 character sets are supported
* _**New:**_ Measure width and height of text
* Embed Images
## Usage Examples
More detailed examples are available [here](https://github.com/Hopding/pdf-lib/tree/master/examples).
### Document Creation
```javascript
import { PDFDocumentFactory, PDFDocumentWriter, StandardFonts, drawText } from 'pdf-lib';
const pdfDoc = PDFDocumentFactory.create();
const [timesRomanRef, timesRomanFont] = pdfDoc.embedStandardFont(
StandardFonts.TimesRoman,
);
const page = pdfDoc
.createPage([350, 500])
.addFontDictionary('TimesRoman', timesRomanRef);
const contentStream = pdfDoc.createContentStream(
drawText(timesRomanFont.encodeText('Creating PDFs in JavaScript is awesome!'), {
x: 50,
y: 450,
size: 15,
font: 'TimesRoman',
colorRgb: [0, 0.53, 0.71],
}),
);
page.addContentStreams(pdfDoc.register(contentStream));
pdfDoc.addPage(page);
const pdfBytes = PDFDocumentWriter.saveToBytes(pdfDoc);
```
### Document Modification
```javascript
import { PDFDocumentFactory, PDFDocumentWriter, StandardFonts, drawText } from 'pdf-lib';
// This should be a Uint8Array.
// This data can be obtained in a number of different ways.
// If your running in a Node environment, you could use fs.readFile().
// In the browser, you could make a fetch() call and use res.arrayBuffer().
const existingPdfDocBytes = ...
const pdfDoc = PDFDocumentFactory.load(existingPdfDocBytes);
const [helveticaRef, helveticaFont] = pdfDoc.embedStandardFont(
StandardFonts.Helvetica,
);
const pages = pdfDoc.getPages();
const page = pages[0];
page.addFontDictionary('Helvetica', helveticaRef);
const contentStream = pdfDoc.createContentStream(
drawText(helveticaFont.encodeText('This text was added to the PDF with JavaScript!'), {
x: 25,
y: 25,
size: 24,
font: 'Helvetica',
colorRgb: [0.95, 0.26, 0.21],
}),
);
page.addContentStreams(pdfDoc.register(contentStream));
const pdfBytes = PDFDocumentWriter.saveToBytes(pdfDoc);
```
### Copying Pages
```javascript
import { PDFDocumentFactory, PDFDocumentWriter } from 'pdf-lib';
// These should be a Uint8Arrays. (see Document Modification example for more details)
const firstDonorPdfBytes = ...
const secondDonorPdfBytes = ...
const firstDonorPdfDoc = PDFDocumentFactory.load(firstDonorPdfBytes);
const secondDonorPdfDoc = PDFDocumentFactory.load(secondDonorPdfBytes);
// We'll copy the fourth page from the first donor document, and the
// first page from the second donor document.
const firstDonorPage = firstDonorPdfDoc.getPages()[3];
const secondDonorPage = secondDonorPdfDoc.getPages()[0];
const pdfDoc = PDFDocumentFactory.create();
// Copy over the pages from the donor documents into our new document
pdfDoc.addPage(firstDonorPage);
pdfDoc.insertPage(0, secondDonorPage);
const pdfBytes = PDFDocumentWriter.saveToBytes(pdfDoc);
```
### Embed Font and Measure Text
This example demonstrates the use of the `font.widthOfTextAtSize()` and
`font.heightOfFontAtSize()` methods for a `font` embedded with
`pdfDoc.embedNonstandardFont`. But note that these methods also exist on standard
fonts embedded with `pdfDoc.embedStandardFont`.
```javascript
import { PDFDocumentFactory, PDFDocumentWriter, drawText, drawRectangle } from 'pdf-lib';
// This should be a Uint8Array.
// This data can be obtained in a number of different ways.
// If your running in a Node environment, you could use fs.readFile().
// In the browser, you could make a fetch() call and use res.arrayBuffer().
const fontBytes = ...
const pdfDoc = PDFDocumentFactory.create();
const [fontRef, font] = pdfDoc.embedNonstandardFont(fontBytes);
const page = pdfDoc
.createPage([350, 500])
.addFontDictionary('FontName', fontRef);
const text = 'This is text in an embedded font!';
const textSize = 15;
const textWidth = font.widthOfTextAtSize(text, textSize);
const textHeight = font.heightOfFontAtSize(textSize);
const contentStream = pdfDoc.createContentStream(
// Draw text on page
drawText(font.encodeText(text), {
x: 50,
y: 450,
size: textSize,
font: 'FontName',
colorRgb: [0, 0.53, 0.71],
}),
// Draw a box around the text
drawRectangle({
x: 50,
y: 450,
width: textWidth,
height: textHeight,
borderColorRgb: [1],
borderWidth: 0.5,
}),
);
page.addContentStreams(pdfDoc.register(contentStream));
pdfDoc.addPage(page);
const pdfBytes = PDFDocumentWriter.saveToBytes(pdfDoc);
```
## Installation
### NPM Module
To install the latest stable version:
```bash
# With npm
npm install --save pdf-lib
# With yarn
yarn add pdf-lib
```
This assumes you're using [npm](https://www.npmjs.com/) or [yarn](https://yarnpkg.com/lang/en/) as your package manager.
### UMD Module
You can also download `pdf-lib` as a UMD module from [unpkg](https://unpkg.com/#/). The UMD builds have been compiled to ES5, so they should work [in any modern browser](https://caniuse.com/#feat=es5). UMD builds are useful if you aren't using a package manager or module bundler. For example, you can use them directly in the `
