HTML to PDF in Node.js

Updated July 2026 · HTTP client: native fetch — Node 18+, zero dependencies

The shortest reliable path from HTML to PDF in Node.js is not a rendering library — it’s an HTTP call to a rendering API. Your app sends HTML, a managed Chromium engine renders it exactly as Chrome would, and a PDF comes back. No browser binaries in your deploy, no native dependencies, no page-break surprises.

Complete example (generate-pdf.mjs)

Set NIPPYPDF_API_KEY in your environment, then this is the whole program:

// generate-pdf.mjs — run with: node generate-pdf.mjs
import { writeFile } from 'node:fs/promises';

const res = await fetch('https://api.nippypdf.com/v1/pdf', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.NIPPYPDF_API_KEY}`,
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    html: '<h1>Invoice #1042</h1><p>Total: $2,508.00</p>',
    format: 'A4',
    margin: '20mm',
    print_background: true,
  }),
});

if (!res.ok) {
  throw new Error(`NippyPDF error ${res.status}: ${await res.text()}`);
}

await writeFile('invoice.pdf', Buffer.from(await res.arrayBuffer()));
console.log('Wrote invoice.pdf');

All request options

POST https://api.nippypdf.com/v1/pdf accepts JSON; the response body is the binary PDF. Options mirror Chromium’s print pipeline:

{
  "html": "<h1>…</h1>",              // or "url": "https://example.com/invoice/1042"
  "format": "A4",                     // "A4" | "Letter" | "Legal" | { "width": "210mm", "height": "297mm" }
  "margin": "20mm",                   // uniform, or { "top": "…", "right": "…", "bottom": "…", "left": "…" }
  "landscape": false,
  "scale": 1.0,                       // 0.1 – 2.0
  "print_background": true,
  "wait_until": "networkidle",        // "load" | "domcontentloaded" | "networkidle"
  "header_html": "<span></span>",     // running header (use sparingly)
  "footer_html": "<span class=\"pageNumber\"></span> / <span class=\"totalPages\"></span>"
}

For pagination control — keeping blocks together, repeating table headers, paper sizes — see the page-break CSS guide.

The self-hosted alternatives, honestly

• Puppeteer: the standard self-hosted route — great output, but you inherit browser infrastructure: OOM management, process recycling, 280MB deploys. Read more →
• pdfkit / jsPDF: programmatic PDF drawing, no HTML/CSS — fine for simple docs, painful for anything designed in a browser.

If those trade-offs are fine for your workload, they are honest choices. The API exists for teams who want Chrome’s output without operating Chrome.

FAQ

Try your own markup in the live in-browser demo, or jump to another language: Python, PHP, Ruby, C#, Go.