Prettier - NPM (How It Works For Developers)

In modern software development, maintaining clean and consistent code style is crucial for readability, collaboration, and maintainability. Tools like Prettier, which includes built-in type declarations for TypeScript, have become indispensable in this pursuit, automating the often tedious task of code formatting. In this article, we delve into the intricacies of Prettier, exploring its features, benefits, integrations, and best practices. Additionally, we will look into the IronPDF PDF generation library to generate PDFs from Website URLs.

Introduction to Prettier

Prettier is an opinionated code formatter that automatically adjusts the style and formatting of your code according to predefined rules such as maximum line length. It supports various programming languages including JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML, CSS, JSON, and more, making it versatile across different tech stacks and project types. Originally developed by James Long, Prettier has gained significant traction in the developer community for its robust capabilities and ease of use.

Key Features and Benefits

1. Consistent Code Style: Prettier enforces a consistent coding style across your entire codebase, eliminating debates over formatting preferences and ensuring uniformity in code appearance, thus speeding up the code review process.
2. Automatic Formatting: By integrating with your code editor or build process, Prettier automatically formats your code as you type or before commits, saving developers valuable time and effort. It can be configured to run on save or apply only in specific directories.
3. Configurability: While Prettier is opinionated by default, it offers some configurability to adjust certain formatting rules to fit project-specific requirements.
4. Language Support: It supports a wide array of programming languages and formats out of the box, ensuring compatibility with diverse development environments.
5. Code Quality: Improved code readability leads to better comprehension and reduces the likelihood of syntax errors or bugs caused by inconsistent formatting.

Getting Started with Prettier

Installation

To start using Prettier in your projects, you can install it via NPM or yarn:

npm install prettier --save-dev

npm install prettier --save-dev

or

yarn add --dev prettier

yarn add --dev prettier

Usage

• Command Line Interface (CLI): Prettier provides a CLI tool to format files manually or integrate them into scripts for automated formatting tasks.
• Editor Integration: Plugins are available for popular editors like Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text, Atom, and others, enabling real-time formatting as you type.
• Git Hooks: Set up Prettier to run before commits using Git Hooks to ensure all code changes adhere to the defined formatting rules.

Integrations and Ecosystem

Prettier integrates seamlessly with various development tools and workflows:

• IDE Plugins: Integrates with IDEs and text editors to format code on the fly, improving developer productivity and maintaining coding standards.
• Build Systems: Incorporates into build pipelines and Continuous Integration (CI) workflows to enforce consistent code formatting across team projects.
• Version Control: Works harmoniously with version control systems like Git, ensuring formatted code is consistently maintained throughout collaboration.

Best Practices for Prettier

• Use Defaults: Embrace Prettier's default settings initially to foster consistency across your codebase without unnecessary customization.
• Versioning: Regularly update Prettier to leverage new features, bug fixes, and improved language support.
• Configuration: Fine-tune Prettier's configuration to align with project-specific conventions or team preferences while maintaining consistency.
• Educate and Adopt: Encourage team members to adopt Prettier and educate them on its benefits to foster a unified approach to code formatting.

Introduction to IronPDF

IronPDF is a popular PDF generation library used for generating, editing, and converting PDF documents. The IronPDF NPM package is specifically designed for Node.js applications. Here are some key features and details about the IronPDF NPM package:

Key Features

HTML to PDF Conversion

Convert HTML content into PDF documents effortlessly. This feature is particularly useful for generating dynamic PDFs from web content.

URL to PDF Conversion

Generate PDFs directly from URLs, allowing you to capture the content of web pages and save them as PDF files programmatically.

PDF Manipulation

Merge, split, and manipulate existing PDF documents with ease. IronPDF provides functionalities such as appending pages, splitting documents, and more.

PDF Security

Secure your PDF documents by encrypting them with passwords or applying digital signatures. IronPDF offers options to protect your sensitive documents from unauthorized access.

High-Quality Output

Produce high-quality PDF documents with precise rendering of text, images, and formatting. IronPDF ensures that your generated PDFs maintain fidelity to the original content.

Cross-Platform Compatibility

IronPDF is compatible with various platforms, including Windows, Linux, and macOS, making it suitable for a wide range of development environments.

Simple Integration

Easily integrate IronPDF into your Node.js applications using its npm package. The API is well-documented, making it straightforward to incorporate PDF generation capabilities into your projects.

Installation

To install the IronPDF NPM package, use the following command:

yarn add @ironsoftware/ironpdf @ironsoftware/ironpdf-engine-windows-x64

yarn add @ironsoftware/ironpdf @ironsoftware/ironpdf-engine-windows-x64

Generate PDF Document Using IronPDF and Use Prettier NPM package

Install Dependencies: First, create a new Next.js project using the following command as described here.

npx create-next-app@latest prettier-pdf --use-npm --example "https://github.com/vercel/next-learn/tree/main/basics/learn-starter"

npx create-next-app@latest prettier-pdf --use-npm --example "https://github.com/vercel/next-learn/tree/main/basics/learn-starter"

Next, navigate to your project directory:

cd prettier-pdf

cd prettier-pdf

Install the required packages:

yarn add @ironsoftware/ironpdf @ironsoftware/ironpdf-engine-windows-x64
yarn add -D prettier

yarn add @ironsoftware/ironpdf @ironsoftware/ironpdf-engine-windows-x64
yarn add -D prettier

Create an empty config file to let editors and other tools know you are using Prettier:

node --eval "require('fs').writeFileSync('.prettierrc','{}\n')"

node --eval "require('fs').writeFileSync('.prettierrc','{}\n')"

Create a .prettierignore file to let the Prettier CLI and editors know which files to not format. Here’s a sample below:

# Ignore artifacts:
build
coverage
# Ignore all HTML files:
**/*.html

Create a PDF

Now, let’s create a simple example of generating a PDF using IronPDF.

PDF Generation API: The first step is to create a backend API to generate the PDF document. Since IronPDF only runs server-side, we need to create an API to call when a user wants to generate a PDF. Create a file at pages/api/pdf.js and add the contents below.

IronPDF requires a license key, which can be obtained from the license page and used in the following code.

// pages/api/pdf.js

import { IronPdfGlobalConfig, PdfDocument } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
// Apply your IronPDF license key
IronPdfGlobalConfig.getConfig().licenseKey = "Your license key";

export default async function handler(req, res) {
  try {
    const url = req.query.url;
    const pdf = await PdfDocument.fromUrl(url);
    const data = await pdf.saveAsBuffer();

    // Configure response headers to ensure the PDF file is downloaded
    res.setHeader("Content-Type", "application/pdf");
    res.setHeader(
      "Content-Disposition",
      "attachment; filename=awesomeIron.pdf"
    );
    res.send(data);
  } catch (error) {
    console.error("Error generating PDF:", error);
    res.status(500).end();
  }
}

// pages/api/pdf.js

import { IronPdfGlobalConfig, PdfDocument } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
// Apply your IronPDF license key
IronPdfGlobalConfig.getConfig().licenseKey = "Your license key";

export default async function handler(req, res) {
  try {
    const url = req.query.url;
    const pdf = await PdfDocument.fromUrl(url);
    const data = await pdf.saveAsBuffer();

    // Configure response headers to ensure the PDF file is downloaded
    res.setHeader("Content-Type", "application/pdf");
    res.setHeader(
      "Content-Disposition",
      "attachment; filename=awesomeIron.pdf"
    );
    res.send(data);
  } catch (error) {
    console.error("Error generating PDF:", error);
    res.status(500).end();
  }
}

Now modify the index.js code to use Prettier and IronPDF as shown below.

import Head from "next/head";
import styles from "../styles/Home.module.css";
import React, { useState } from "react";

export default function PrettierDemo() {
  const [text, setText] = useState("");

  // Function to generate PDF using the IronPDF backend API
  const generatePdf = async () => {
    try {
      const response = await fetch("/api/pdf?url=" + text);
      const blob = await response.blob();
      const url = window.URL.createObjectURL(new Blob([blob]));
      const link = document.createElement("a");
      link.href = url;
      link.setAttribute("download", "awesomeIron.pdf");
      document.body.appendChild(link);
      link.click();
      link.parentNode.removeChild(link);
    } catch (error) {
      console.error("Error generating PDF:", error);
    }
  };

  // Handle input changes, updating the state
  const handleChange = (event) => {
    setText(event.target.value);
  };

  return (
    <div className={styles.container}>
      <Head>
        <title>Generate PDF Using IronPDF</title>
        <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico" />
      </Head>
      <main>
        <h1>Demo Prettier and Generate PDF Using IronPDF</h1>
        <p>
          <span>Enter Url To Convert to PDF:</span>{" "}
          <input type="text" value={text} onChange={handleChange} />
        </p>
        <button style={{ margin: 20, padding: 5 }} onClick={generatePdf}>
          Generate PDF
        </button>
      </main>
      <style jsx>{`
        main {
          padding: 5rem 0;
          flex: 1;
          display: flex;
          flex-direction: column;
          justify-content: center;
          align-items: center;
        }
      `}</style>
      <style jsx global>{`
        html,
        body {
          padding: 0;
          margin: 0;
          font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto,
            Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, Fira Sans, Droid Sans, Helvetica Neue,
            sans-serif;
        }
        * {
          box-sizing: border-box;
        }
      `}</style>
    </div>
  );
}

import Head from "next/head";
import styles from "../styles/Home.module.css";
import React, { useState } from "react";

export default function PrettierDemo() {
  const [text, setText] = useState("");

  // Function to generate PDF using the IronPDF backend API
  const generatePdf = async () => {
    try {
      const response = await fetch("/api/pdf?url=" + text);
      const blob = await response.blob();
      const url = window.URL.createObjectURL(new Blob([blob]));
      const link = document.createElement("a");
      link.href = url;
      link.setAttribute("download", "awesomeIron.pdf");
      document.body.appendChild(link);
      link.click();
      link.parentNode.removeChild(link);
    } catch (error) {
      console.error("Error generating PDF:", error);
    }
  };

  // Handle input changes, updating the state
  const handleChange = (event) => {
    setText(event.target.value);
  };

  return (
    <div className={styles.container}>
      <Head>
        <title>Generate PDF Using IronPDF</title>
        <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico" />
      </Head>
      <main>
        <h1>Demo Prettier and Generate PDF Using IronPDF</h1>
        <p>
          <span>Enter Url To Convert to PDF:</span>{" "}
          <input type="text" value={text} onChange={handleChange} />
        </p>
        <button style={{ margin: 20, padding: 5 }} onClick={generatePdf}>
          Generate PDF
        </button>
      </main>
      <style jsx>{`
        main {
          padding: 5rem 0;
          flex: 1;
          display: flex;
          flex-direction: column;
          justify-content: center;
          align-items: center;
        }
      `}</style>
      <style jsx global>{`
        html,
        body {
          padding: 0;
          margin: 0;
          font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto,
            Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, Fira Sans, Droid Sans, Helvetica Neue,
            sans-serif;
        }
        * {
          box-sizing: border-box;
        }
      `}</style>
    </div>
  );
}

Format the code using yarn prettier:

yarn prettier . --write

yarn prettier . --write

Now run the application using the command:

yarn dev

yarn dev

Output

PDF

IronPDF License

IronPDF npm package runs on a license key. IronPDF offers a free-trial license key to allow users to experience its features before making a purchase.

Place the License Key in the following placeholder:

import { IronPdfGlobalConfig, PdfDocument } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
// Apply your IronPDF license key
IronPdfGlobalConfig.getConfig().licenseKey = "Add Your key here";

import { IronPdfGlobalConfig, PdfDocument } from "@ironsoftware/ironpdf";
// Apply your IronPDF license key
IronPdfGlobalConfig.getConfig().licenseKey = "Add Your key here";

Conclusion

Prettier stands as a cornerstone tool in modern software development, streamlining code formatting with precision and efficiency. Its ability to enforce consistent coding styles across different languages and integrate seamlessly into existing workflows makes it indispensable for teams striving for clean, maintainable codebases. By automating code formatting tasks, Prettier enables developers to focus more on writing quality code and less on stylistic minutiae, ultimately enhancing productivity and collaboration in software projects. Embrace Prettier to elevate your code style quality and streamline your development process today.

IronPDF empowers Node.js developers to elevate PDF handling capabilities within their applications, offering unparalleled functionality, reliability, and performance. By leveraging IronPDF's advanced features for PDF generation, conversion, and manipulation, developers can streamline document workflows, enhance user experiences, and meet diverse business requirements with confidence. Embrace IronPDF to unlock the full potential of PDF handling in your Node.js projects and deliver professional-grade document solutions effortlessly.