pdf generation api

Here are common PDF generation API options, depending on what you need:

1) Browser-based HTML to PDF

Best if you already have HTML/CSS templates.

• Puppeteer (Node.js)
• Playwright (Node.js, Python, etc.)
• wkhtmltopdf (older but still used)

Example use cases:

• invoices
• reports
• receipts
• web page snapshots

2) API services

Best if you want a hosted API and don’t want to manage rendering.

Popular services:

• DocRaptor
• PDFShift
• APITemplate.io
• Anvil
• CloudConvert
• PDFMonkey

Typical flow:

1. Send HTML/template/data to API
2. API returns generated PDF
3. Save or serve the PDF

3) Language libraries

Best if you want to generate PDFs directly in your app.

• Python: ReportLab, WeasyPrint
• Java: iText, OpenPDF
• C#: PdfSharp, iText
• PHP: TCPDF, Dompdf
• Node.js: pdfkit, jsPDF

Example: Node.js with Puppeteer

const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');

(async () => {
  const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  await page.setContent('<h1>Hello PDF</h1>');
  await page.pdf({ path: 'output.pdf', format: 'A4' });
  await browser.close();
})();

Example: Python with WeasyPrint

from weasyprint import HTML

HTML(string="<h1>Hello PDF</h1>").write_pdf("output.pdf")

If you want, I can also give you:

• a REST API design for PDF generation,
• a working example in your preferred language,
• or a recommended service stack for your use case.