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To generate a PDF from an Express route, choose the library based on what your PDF is made from: use PDFKit for a document assembled from data and drawing primitives, Puppeteer to print HTML and CSS, or pdf-lib to create or modify PDF files. For a data-driven report, PDFKit is a straightforward starting point: create a document, pipe its readable stream to the Express response, write the content, then call doc.end() to finish the PDF.
Choose the PDF approach that matches your input
The key decision is not Express versus Node.js: Express handles the HTTP request and response, while a PDF library produces the document. Pick the library according to the source material and the work you need to do.
| Your input or goal | Starting point | What to account for |
|---|---|---|
| Structured data, such as invoice fields or report rows, laid out as a new document | PDFKit | You control layout with document operations. Plan page breaks, fonts, images and long-document behavior yourself. |
| Existing HTML and CSS that should be printed | Puppeteer | Page.pdf() renders using print media by default. Browser installation, lifecycle, page breaks and print styles need to work in your deployment environment. |
| Creating a PDF with JavaScript drawing operations, or modifying and combining PDF content | pdf-lib | Check that its documented editing operations match the structure and features of the files you need to handle. |
These are capability-based choices, not a performance ranking. The official documentation cited here does not establish that one option is universally faster, uses less memory or produces more faithful output. Validate compatibility and operational limits with the package versions, documents and host you actually use.
Build a PDFKit route that streams the response
This example uses ES modules, Express 5.x and PDFKit. Install Express 5 and PDFKit in your project, and use a Node.js version supported by the package versions you install. The Express homepage displayed version 5.2.1 when reviewed, but the response API reference below is for Express 4.x; check the documentation for your installed Express major before relying on version-specific behavior.
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npm install express@5 pdfkitSave the following as server.js in a project configured for ES modules (for example, with "type": "module" in package.json):
import express from 'express';
import PDFDocument from 'pdfkit';
const app = express();
app.get('/report.pdf', (req, res, next) => {
const doc = new PDFDocument({
title: 'Example report',
margins: { top: 54, right: 54, bottom: 54, left: 54 },
});
let failed = false;
const fail = (error) => {
if (failed) return;
failed = true;
if (res.headersSent) {
// The PDF response has started; it cannot be replaced with an error page.
res.destroy(error);
} else {
next(error);
}
};
doc.on('error', fail);
res.on('error', fail);
res.on('close', () => {
// A client may disconnect before generation finishes.
if (!res.writableEnded) doc.destroy();
});
res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/pdf');
res.setHeader('Content-Disposition', 'inline; filename="report.pdf"');
doc.pipe(res);
doc.fontSize(20).text('Example report');
doc.moveDown();
doc.fontSize(12).text('Generated by an Express route.');
doc.end();
});
app.listen(3000, () => {
console.log('Listening on http://localhost:3000');
});Run node server.js and open http://localhost:3000/report.pdf. The browser will generally display the PDF when it supports inline viewing. To request a download instead, use Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="report.pdf". Use a fixed, safe filename or sanitize any dynamically generated filename rather than placing raw user input in a header.
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What the route is doing
- Register an HTTP route.
app.get('/report.pdf', handler)handles a GET request. An Express route must send a response, end the response, or pass control onward; otherwise the request can remain open. Express routing guide. - Set response headers before streaming. The PDF media type is
application/pdf. Choose inline display or attachment download according to the intended experience. - Connect the PDF stream to the response. A PDFKit
PDFDocumentis a readable Node.js stream. Callingdoc.pipe(res)sends its output as it is produced. - Write content and finalize. Add text, images, pages and layout operations, then call
doc.end(). PDFKit does not finish a document automatically. Its first page is created by default; calldoc.addPage()for additional pages. - Handle errors according to response state. Before headers are sent, Express error middleware can handle the error through
next(error). After streaming has begun, the server cannot replace the partial PDF with a clean error response; close the response rather than trying to send a second response.
Express documents res.headersSent and response methods including res.send(), res.attachment() and file-transfer helpers in its 4.x response reference. The code above uses a stream rather than buffering the entire PDF into a Buffer.
Return HTML as a PDF with Puppeteer
Choose Puppeteer when the PDF should reflect a rendered web page or HTML template. Its Page.pdf() method prints with print CSS by default and returns a promise for PDF bytes (Uint8Array). If the intended output should use screen styling instead, emulate screen media before calling page.pdf().
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npm install express@5 puppeteerThis route demonstrates a self-contained HTML document. For application templates, render trusted data into the HTML using your normal template system rather than interpolating unescaped user input.
import express from 'express';
import puppeteer from 'puppeteer';
const app = express();
app.get('/html-report.pdf', async (req, res, next) => {
let browser;
try {
browser = await puppeteer.launch();
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.setContent(`
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<style>
body { font: 12pt sans-serif; margin: 24mm; }
h1 { font-size: 20pt; }
@media print { .screen-only { display: none; } }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Example report</h1>
<p>Printed from HTML and CSS.</p>
</body>
</html>`, { waitUntil: 'load' });
const bytes = await page.pdf({ format: 'A4', printBackground: true });
res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/pdf');
res.setHeader('Content-Disposition', 'attachment; filename="html-report.pdf"');
res.send(Buffer.from(bytes));
} catch (error) {
if (res.headersSent) {
res.destroy(error);
} else {
next(error);
}
} finally {
if (browser) await browser.close();
}
});
app.listen(3000);For a live URL instead of HTML supplied to the page, use await page.goto(url, { waitUntil: 'networkidle0' }) before generating the PDF; choose readiness conditions that fit the page rather than assuming every site becomes idle. Puppeteer’s guide demonstrates navigation, PDF generation and closing the browser. Puppeteer PDF generation guide.
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Print details to verify
- Print versus screen appearance: print media is the default for
page.pdf(). For screen styling, callawait page.emulateMediaType('screen')before printing. - Colors and backgrounds:
printBackground: trueincludes backgrounds. For exact color adjustment, Puppeteer documents the CSS property-webkit-print-color-adjust. - Fonts and images: allow required assets to load before printing. The Puppeteer API waits for fonts by default; remote assets and application-specific readiness may still need explicit checks.
- Page layout: test page breaks, margins, headers and footers with representative long content. Browser rendering is not a guarantee that a screen layout will paginate as intended.
- Runtime operation: browser startup and cleanup are part of request handling. Check browser installation, runtime compatibility, timeouts and concurrency limits on the actual host; no hosting-provider compatibility matrix is established here.
Create or modify a PDF with pdf-lib
When you need JavaScript document operations without rendering a browser page, pdf-lib can create a document, add pages, draw text or images, load an existing PDF and save the resulting bytes. A simple creation route can return those bytes as a buffer:
npm install express@5 pdf-libimport express from 'express';
import { PDFDocument, StandardFonts, rgb } from 'pdf-lib';
const app = express();
app.get('/pdf-lib-report.pdf', async (req, res, next) => {
try {
const pdf = await PDFDocument.create();
const page = pdf.addPage([595.28, 841.89]);
const font = await pdf.embedFont(StandardFonts.Helvetica);
page.drawText('Example report', {
x: 50,
y: 780,
size: 20,
font,
color: rgb(0, 0, 0),
});
const bytes = await pdf.save();
res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/pdf');
res.setHeader('Content-Disposition', 'attachment; filename="pdf-lib-report.pdf"');
res.send(Buffer.from(bytes));
} catch (error) {
next(error);
}
});
app.listen(3000);For modification, load bytes from a trusted or validated source with PDFDocument.load(), apply the required operations, then save the document. Inspect the pdf-lib documentation for the particular page, drawing and embedding operations your use case requires.
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Choose between streaming, buffering and file transfer
- Stream a generated document: PDFKit can pipe directly to the response. This avoids requiring your route to first collect all output into a single buffer, but document generation still has work and resource costs that depend on content and deployment.
- Send generated bytes: Puppeteer returns PDF bytes, and pdf-lib’s
save()returns bytes. Convert the result to a NodeBufferand pass it tores.send(), which Express supports for buffer bodies. - Transfer a saved file: use Express file-transfer methods only when serving an actual file. Treat path selection as a security boundary: never let untrusted request input select arbitrary filesystem paths. Express documents a
rootoption to constrain paths for file transfer in its response API reference.
Streaming, buffering and browser rendering have different operational trade-offs. The reviewed project documentation does not provide a workload-specific speed, memory, page-count or hosting guarantee. Measure representative reports under the runtime and concurrency you intend to use, and set sensible request timeouts and input limits for your application.
Troubleshoot common PDF route failures
| Symptom | Likely cause | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| The request hangs | The handler neither completed the response nor passed an error onward, or document finalization was omitted. | For PDFKit, confirm doc.end() runs. For every route, ensure all success and failure paths finish or delegate the response cycle. |
| The PDF is empty, corrupt or truncated | The stream was not piped, bytes were sent before generation finished, or an error/disconnect interrupted output. | Pipe the PDFKit document before writing and finalize it; for async libraries, await the PDF bytes before sending. Inspect stream errors and client disconnect handling. |
| “Cannot set headers after they are sent” | The route attempted to send an error response after the PDF stream had already started, or more than one code path responded. | Check res.headersSent. Delegate errors before headers are sent; after streaming begins, terminate the response rather than sending a second body. |
| Browser PDF layout differs from the screen | Puppeteer uses print media by default, and print rules or pagination differ from screen rendering. | Review print CSS and page breaks, or explicitly emulate screen media if that is genuinely the desired output. |
| Fonts or visual assets are missing | Assets were not ready or available when the page was printed. | Wait for the required resources or an application-specific readiness condition; verify that deployed URLs and fonts are accessible to the browser process. |
| PDF route works locally but browser launch fails on the host | The deployed runtime may lack a compatible browser or required configuration. | Verify Puppeteer’s installed browser and runtime requirements on the target host. No universal hosting compatibility is established by the documentation cited here. |
| A user can access an unintended file | A request value was used as an unrestricted filesystem path. | Do not map untrusted input directly to paths; constrain file transfers with a trusted root and validate identifiers against application records. |
Or skip the browser setup
If what you need is a capture of a web page rather than a custom PDF assembled from application data, ScreenshotNeo is a website screenshot API and MCP server. It can return PNG, JPEG or WebP screenshots or a PDF; the example below is the supplied Node.js screenshot request, which saves the response as an image. See the ScreenshotNeo API documentation for the PDF request options and response details.
const q = new URLSearchParams({ access_key: 'YOUR_API_KEY', url: 'https://stripe.com' });
const res = await fetch(`https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot?${q}`);
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Frequently Asked Questions
Does Express generate the PDF itself?
No. Express routes the request and sends the response; a PDF library such as PDFKit, Puppeteer or pdf-lib creates the PDF.
Can I use a PDFKit stream for a download?
Yes. Stream it to the response and set the content disposition to attachment with a safe filename.
Which option should I choose for an existing HTML template?
Puppeteer is the browser-rendering option; it prints page content using print media by default.
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