HTML to PDF NodeJS

Install the IronPDF Library for Node.js

Install the IronPDF Node.js package by running the NPM command given below in your chosen Node project:

npm install @ironsoftware/ironpdf

npm install @ironsoftware/ironpdf

You can also download and install the IronPDF package manually.

Install the IronPDF Engine Manually (optional)

IronPDF for Node.js currently requires an IronPDF Engine binary to work properly.

Install the IronPDF Engine binary by installing the appropriate package for your operating system:

Apply a License Key (optional)

By default, IronPDF will brand all documents that it generates or modifies with a titled background watermark.

Obtain a license key at ironpdf.com/nodejs/licensing/ to generate PDF documents without watermarks.

To use IronPDF without the added watermark branding, you must set the licenseKey property on the global IronPdfGlobalConfig object with a valid license key. The source code for making this happen is given below:

import { IronPdfGlobalConfig } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";

// Get the global config object
var config = IronPdfGlobalConfig.getConfig();

// Set the license key for IronPDF
config.licenseKey = "{YOUR-LICENSE-KEY-HERE}";

import { IronPdfGlobalConfig } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";

// Get the global config object
var config = IronPdfGlobalConfig.getConfig();

// Set the license key for IronPDF
config.licenseKey = "{YOUR-LICENSE-KEY-HERE}";

Purchase a license key from our licensing page, or contact us to obtain a free trial license key.

The proceeding sections of this tutorial will assume that we have a license key and that we have set it in a separate JavaScript file called config.js. We import this script wherever we will make use of IronPDF functionality:

import { PdfDocument } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script
// ...

import { PdfDocument } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script
// ...

Create a PDF File from an HTML String

PdfDocument.fromHtml is a method that allows you to generate PDFs from strings of raw web page markup.

This method offers the most flexibility of the three approaches. This is because data in the HTML string can be sourced from virtually anywhere: text files, data streams, an HTML template, generated HTML data, etc.

The code example below demonstrates how to use the PdfDocument.fromHtml method in practice:

import { PdfDocument } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script

// Create a PDF from the HTML String "Hello world!"
const pdf = await PdfDocument.fromHtml("<h1>Hello from IronPDF!</h1>");

// Save the PDF document to the file system.
await pdf.saveAs("html-string-to-pdf.pdf");

import { PdfDocument } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script

// Create a PDF from the HTML String "Hello world!"
const pdf = await PdfDocument.fromHtml("<h1>Hello from IronPDF!</h1>");

// Save the PDF document to the file system.
await pdf.saveAs("html-string-to-pdf.pdf");

As shown above, we call the PdfDocument.fromHtml method with a text string containing the markup code for a level one headline element.

PdfDocument.fromHtml returns a Promise that resolves to an instance of the PdfDocument class. A PdfDocument represents a PDF file that the library has produced from some source content. This class forms the cornerstone of most of IronPDF's core features, driving significant PDF creation and editing use cases.

Finally, we use the saveAs method on the PdfDocument to save the file to disk. The saved PDF file is shown below.

The PDF generated from the HTML string "<h1>Hello from IronPDF!</h1>". The PDF files that PdfDocument.fromHtml generates appear just as web page content would appear.

Create a PDF File from an HTML File

PdfDocument.fromHtml doesn't just work with HTML strings. The method also accepts a path to a local HTML document.

In our next example, we will work with this sample web page.

Our sample HTML page as it appears in Google Chrome. Download this page and similar ones from the File Samples website: https://filesamples.com/samples/code/html/sample2.html

The following lines of code convert the entire sample document into a PDF. In place of an HTML string, we call PdfDocument.fromHtml with a valid file path to our sample file:

import { PdfDocument } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script

// Render a PDF from an HTML File
const pdf = await PdfDocument.fromHtml("./sample2.html");

// Save the PDF document to the same folder as our project.
await pdf.saveAs("html-file-to-pdf-1.pdf");

import { PdfDocument } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script

// Render a PDF from an HTML File
const pdf = await PdfDocument.fromHtml("./sample2.html");

// Save the PDF document to the same folder as our project.
await pdf.saveAs("html-file-to-pdf-1.pdf");

We have included the contents of the resulting PDF below. Notice that IronPDF not only preserves the appearance of the original HTML document, but it also retains the functionality of links, forms, and other common interactive elements.

This PDF was generated from the previous code example. Compare its appearance with the previous image, and note the remarkable resemblance!

If you've examined the source code for the sample page, you will notice it is more complex. It uses more types of HTML elements (paragraphs, unordered lists, line breaks, horizontal rules, hyperlinks, images, etc.) and also includes some amount of scripting (used for setting cookies).

IronPDF is capable of rendering web content that is far more complex than what we have been using so far. To demonstrate this, let us consider the following page:

An article written about Puppeteer, a Node Library popularized for its ability to control Chrome programmatically using a headless browser instance

The page depicted above is of an article written about the Puppeteer Node Library. Puppeteer runs headless browser sessions that Node developers use to automate numerous browser tasks on the server side or on the client side (one of which includes server-side HTML PDF Generation).

The new page sources numerous assets (CSS files, images, script files, etc.) and uses an even more complex layout. For this next example, we will be converting a saved copy of this page (along with its source assets) into a pixel-perfect PDF.

The code snippet below assumes that the page is saved in the same directory as our project as "sample4.html":

import { PdfDocument } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script

// Render a PDF from even more complex HTML code.
PdfDocument.fromHtml("./sample4.html").then(async (pdf) => {
    return await pdf.saveAs("html-file-to-pdf-2.pdf");
});

import { PdfDocument } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script

// Render a PDF from even more complex HTML code.
PdfDocument.fromHtml("./sample4.html").then(async (pdf) => {
    return await pdf.saveAs("html-file-to-pdf-2.pdf");
});

The following image shows the results of the above code snippet.

If it looks good in Google Chrome, then it will look good when converted into a PDF. This includes CSS and JavaScript-heavy page designs.

Create a PDF File from a URL

IronPDF can convert HTML strings and HTML files of any size and complexity. You are not limited to just using raw markup from strings and files, however. IronPDF can also request HTML from a URL.

Consider the Wikipedia article located at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF.

The Wikipedia article about the PDF format, as it appears in a standards-compliant web browser.

Use this source code to convert this Wikipedia article into a PDF:

import { PdfDocument } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script

// Convert the Web Page to a pixel-perfect PDF file.
const pdf = await PdfDocument.fromUrl("https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF");

// Save the document.
await pdf.saveAs("url-to-pdf.pdf");

import { PdfDocument } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script

// Convert the Web Page to a pixel-perfect PDF file.
const pdf = await PdfDocument.fromUrl("https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF");

// Save the document.
await pdf.saveAs("url-to-pdf.pdf");

Above, we use PdfDocument.fromUrl to convert the web page into a PDF within a few lines of code. IronPDF will grab the HTML code for the web address for you and render it seamlessly. No HTML files or text strings are required!

The PDF generated from calling PdfDocument.fromUrl on a Wikipedia article. Note its similarities to the original web page.

Create a PDF File from a Zip Archive

Use PdfDocument.fromZip to convert a specific HTML file located in a compressed (zip) file into a PDF.

For instance, let's assume that we have a Zip file in the project directory with the following internal structure:

html-zip.zip
├─ index.html
├─ style.css
├─ logo.png

The index.html file contains the code:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
    <title>Hello world!</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css">
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>Hello from IronPDF!</h1>
    <a href="https://ironpdf.com/nodejs/">
      <img src="logo.png" alt="IronPDF for Node.js">
    </a>
  </body>
</html>

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
    <title>Hello world!</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css">
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>Hello from IronPDF!</h1>
    <a href="https://ironpdf.com/nodejs/">
      <img src="logo.png" alt="IronPDF for Node.js">
    </a>
  </body>
</html>

style.css declares five CSS rules:

@font-face {
  font-family: 'Gotham-Black';
  src: url('gotham-black-webfont.eot?') format('embedded-opentype'), 
       url('gotham-black-webfont.woff2') format('woff2'), 
       url('gotham-black-webfont.woff') format('woff'), 
       url('gotham-black-webfont.ttf') format('truetype'), 
       url('gotham-black-webfont.svg') format('svg');
  font-weight: normal;
  font-style: normal;
  font-display: swap;
}

body {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  justify-content: center;
  margin-left: auto;
  margin-right: auto;
  margin-top: 200px;
  margin-bottom: auto;
  color: white;
  background-color: black;
  text-align: center;
  font-family: "Helvetica"
}

h1 {
  font-family: "Gotham-Black";
  margin-bottom: 70px;
  font-size: 32pt;
}

img {
  width: 400px;
  height: auto;
}

p {
  text-decoration: underline;
  font-size: smaller;
}

Lastly, logo.png depicts our product logo:

The sample image inside a hypothetical HTML zip file.

When calling the fromZip method, specify a valid path to the zip in the first argument, along with a JSON object that sets the mainHtmlFile property with the name of the HTML file from the zip that we want to convert.

We convert the index.html file inside the zip folder in like manner:

import { PdfDocument } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script

// Render the HTML from a zip archive
PdfDocument.fromZip("./html-zip.zip", {
  mainHtmlFile: "index.html"
}).then(async (pdf) => {
  return await pdf.saveAs("html-zip-to-pdf.pdf");
});

import { PdfDocument } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script

// Render the HTML from a zip archive
PdfDocument.fromZip("./html-zip.zip", {
  mainHtmlFile: "index.html"
}).then(async (pdf) => {
  return await pdf.saveAs("html-zip-to-pdf.pdf");
});

PDF Creation using the PdfDocument.fromZip function. This function successfully renders the HTML code contained in the ZIP file, with its contained assets.

Customize PDF Generation Output

import { PdfDocument, defaultChromePdfRenderOptions, AffixFonts } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script

// Initialize render options with default settings
var options = defaultChromePdfRenderOptions();

// Build a Custom Text-Based Header
options.textHeader = {
  centerText: "https://www.adobe.com",
  dividerLine: true,
  font: AffixFonts.CourierNew,
  fontSize: 12,
  leftText: "URL to PDF"
};

// Build a custom Text-Based Footer
options.textFooter = {
  centerText: "IronPDF for Node.js",
  dividerLine: true,
  fontSize: 14,
  font: AffixFonts.Helvetica,
  rightText: "HTML to PDF in Node.js"
};

// Render a PDF from a URL
PdfDocument.fromUrl("https://www.google.com/", { renderOptions: options }).then(async (pdf) => {
  return await pdf.saveAs("add-custom-headers-footers-1.pdf");
});

import { PdfDocument, defaultChromePdfRenderOptions, AffixFonts } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script

// Initialize render options with default settings
var options = defaultChromePdfRenderOptions();

// Build a Custom Text-Based Header
options.textHeader = {
  centerText: "https://www.adobe.com",
  dividerLine: true,
  font: AffixFonts.CourierNew,
  fontSize: 12,
  leftText: "URL to PDF"
};

// Build a custom Text-Based Footer
options.textFooter = {
  centerText: "IronPDF for Node.js",
  dividerLine: true,
  fontSize: 14,
  font: AffixFonts.Helvetica,
  rightText: "HTML to PDF in Node.js"
};

// Render a PDF from a URL
PdfDocument.fromUrl("https://www.google.com/", { renderOptions: options }).then(async (pdf) => {
  return await pdf.saveAs("add-custom-headers-footers-1.pdf");
});

import { PdfDocument, defaultChromePdfRenderOptions } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script

// Initialize render options with default settings
var options = defaultChromePdfRenderOptions();

// Define a rich HTML header
options.htmlHeader = {
  htmlFragment: "<strong>https://www.google.com/</strong>",
  dividerLine: true,
  dividerLineColor: "blue",
  loadStylesAndCSSFromMainHtmlDocument: true,
};

// Define a rich HTML footer
options.htmlFooter = {
  htmlFragment: "<img src='logo.png' alt='IronPDF for Node.js' style='display: block; width: 150px; height: auto; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;'>",
  dividerLine: true,
  loadStylesAndCSSFromMainHtmlDocument: true
};

// Render a PDF from a URL
await PdfDocument.fromUrl("https://www.google.com/", { renderOptions: options }).then(async (pdf) => {
  return await pdf.saveAs("add-html-headers-footers.pdf");
});

import { PdfDocument, defaultChromePdfRenderOptions } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script

// Initialize render options with default settings
var options = defaultChromePdfRenderOptions();

// Define a rich HTML header
options.htmlHeader = {
  htmlFragment: "<strong>https://www.google.com/</strong>",
  dividerLine: true,
  dividerLineColor: "blue",
  loadStylesAndCSSFromMainHtmlDocument: true,
};

// Define a rich HTML footer
options.htmlFooter = {
  htmlFragment: "<img src='logo.png' alt='IronPDF for Node.js' style='display: block; width: 150px; height: auto; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;'>",
  dividerLine: true,
  loadStylesAndCSSFromMainHtmlDocument: true
};

// Render a PDF from a URL
await PdfDocument.fromUrl("https://www.google.com/", { renderOptions: options }).then(async (pdf) => {
  return await pdf.saveAs("add-html-headers-footers.pdf");
});

import { PdfDocument, defaultChromePdfRenderOptions, PaperSize, FitToPaperModes, PdfPaperOrientation } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script

// Initialize render options with default settings
var options = defaultChromePdfRenderOptions();

// Set top, left, right, and bottom page margins in millimeters. 
options.margin = {
  top: 50,
  bottom: 50,
  left: 60,
  right: 60
};
options.paperSize = PaperSize.A5;
options.fitToPaperMode = FitToPaperModes.FitToPage;
options.paperOrientation = PdfPaperOrientation.Landscape;
options.grayScale = true;

// Create a PDF from the Google.com Home Page
PdfDocument.fromUrl("https://www.google.com/", { renderOptions: options }).then(async (pdf) => {
  return await pdf.saveAs("set-margins-and-page-size.pdf");
});

import { PdfDocument, defaultChromePdfRenderOptions, PaperSize, FitToPaperModes, PdfPaperOrientation } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script

// Initialize render options with default settings
var options = defaultChromePdfRenderOptions();

// Set top, left, right, and bottom page margins in millimeters. 
options.margin = {
  top: 50,
  bottom: 50,
  left: 60,
  right: 60
};
options.paperSize = PaperSize.A5;
options.fitToPaperMode = FitToPaperModes.FitToPage;
options.paperOrientation = PdfPaperOrientation.Landscape;
options.grayScale = true;

// Create a PDF from the Google.com Home Page
PdfDocument.fromUrl("https://www.google.com/", { renderOptions: options }).then(async (pdf) => {
  return await pdf.saveAs("set-margins-and-page-size.pdf");
});

Generate PDFs from Dynamic Web Pages

For web pages that contain content that is not immediately available and rendered on page load, it may be necessary to pause the rendering of that page's content until certain conditions have been satisfied.

For instance, the developer may want to generate a PDF containing content that only appears 15 seconds after the page loads. In another case, this same content may only appear once some complex client-side code executes.

To handle both of these edge cases (and many more), the Node release of IronPDF defines the WaitFor mechanism. Developers can include this property in their ChromePdfRenderOptions settings to instruct IronPDF's Chrome Rendering engine to convert a page's content when certain events occur.

The following code block sets IronPDF to wait for 20 seconds to elapse before capturing our home page's content as a PDF:

import { PdfDocument, defaultChromePdfRenderOptions, WaitForType } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script

// Configure the Chrome Renderer to wait until 20 seconds has passed
// before rendering the web page as a PDF.
var options = defaultChromePdfRenderOptions();
options.waitFor = {
  type: WaitForType.RenderDelay,
  delay: 20000
}
PdfDocument.fromUrl("https://ironpdf.com/nodejs/", { renderOptions: options }).then(async (pdf) => {
  return await pdf.saveAs("waitfor-renderdelay.pdf");
});

import { PdfDocument, defaultChromePdfRenderOptions, WaitForType } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script

// Configure the Chrome Renderer to wait until 20 seconds has passed
// before rendering the web page as a PDF.
var options = defaultChromePdfRenderOptions();
options.waitFor = {
  type: WaitForType.RenderDelay,
  delay: 20000
}
PdfDocument.fromUrl("https://ironpdf.com/nodejs/", { renderOptions: options }).then(async (pdf) => {
  return await pdf.saveAs("waitfor-renderdelay.pdf");
});

The next code block configures IronPDF to wait until an element on a popular SEO text editor can be selected successfully.

import { PdfDocument, defaultChromePdfRenderOptions, WaitForType } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script

// Configure the Chrome Renderer to wait up to 20 seconds for a specific element to appear
var options = defaultChromePdfRenderOptions();
options.waitFor = {
  type: WaitForType.HtmlElement,
  htmlQueryStr: "div.ProseMirror",
  maxWaitTime: 20000,
}
PdfDocument.fromUrl("https://app.surferseo.com/drafts/s/V7VkcdfgFz-dpkldsfHDGFFYf4jjSvvjsdf", { renderOptions: options }).then(async (pdf) => {
  return await pdf.saveAs("waitfor-htmlelement.pdf");
});

import { PdfDocument, defaultChromePdfRenderOptions, WaitForType } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
import './config.js'; // Import the configuration script

// Configure the Chrome Renderer to wait up to 20 seconds for a specific element to appear
var options = defaultChromePdfRenderOptions();
options.waitFor = {
  type: WaitForType.HtmlElement,
  htmlQueryStr: "div.ProseMirror",
  maxWaitTime: 20000,
}
PdfDocument.fromUrl("https://app.surferseo.com/drafts/s/V7VkcdfgFz-dpkldsfHDGFFYf4jjSvvjsdf", { renderOptions: options }).then(async (pdf) => {
  return await pdf.saveAs("waitfor-htmlelement.pdf");
});