Create pdf documents from liquid templates.

This library uses [btrz-liquid-templates]((https://www.npmjs.com/package/btrz-liquid-templates) and PDFMake and link them together while adding some helpers to easily generate PDFs from templates.

The vesion of PDFMake has been inlined and modified to allow for text rotation.

Install

npm i btrz-pdf

Restrictions

The documents generated only uses Helvetica fonts.

Methods

Async method that returns a buffer, best used with Express to return the PDF in the response or to generate documents to be merged later on.

Parameters

name definition
liquidTemplate object representing a pdfmake document with valid liquidSyntax
data Object with data needed by the liquid template

Async method that combines buffers into PDF documents

Parameters

name definition
buffers An array of buffers

Async method using a cb to return a buffer, best used with Express to return the PDF in the response.

Parameters

name definition
liquidTemplate object representing a pdfmake document with valid liquidSyntax
data Object with data needed by the liquid template
cb A callback with the signature (err, buffer)

Async method that returns a promise with a PDF document

Parameters

name definition
liquidTemplate object representing a pdfmake document with valid liquidSyntax
data Object with data needed by the liquid template

Returns an empty PDFmake document definition with some default styles

{
  "defaultStyle": {
    "font": "Helvetica",
    "fontSize": 10,
    "lineHeight": 1.3
  },
  "styles": {
    "header": {
      "fontSize": 16,
      "bold": true,
      "margin": [0, 0, 0, 10]
    },
    "subheader": {
      "fontSize": 14,
      "bold": true,
      "margin": [0, 20, 0, 0]
    },
    "innerheader": {
      "fontSize": 12,
      "bold": true
    },
    "tableHeader": {
      "fontSize": 8,
      "bold": true,
      "margin": [0, 4, 0, 0]
    },
    "table": {
      "fontSize": 8,
      "margin": [0, 8, 0, 0]
    },
    "attachedTable": {
      "fontSize": 8
    },
    "cell": {
      "margin": [0, 4, 0, 0]
    },
    "cellError": {
      "margin": [0, 4, 0, 0],
      "color": "#FF0000"
    },
    "cellMoney": {
      "margin": [0, 4, 0, 0],
      "alignment": "right"
    },
    "cellMoneyError": {
      "margin": [0, 4, 0, 0],
      "color": "#FF0000",
      "alignment": "right"
    },
    "footer": {
      "fontSize": 8
    }
  },
  "content": []
}

Async method that returns a PDFmake document defintion after processing the template and the data

Parameters

name definition
liquidTemplate object representing a pdfmake document with valid liquidSyntax
data Object with data needed by the liquid template

Usage

  const btrzPdf = require("btrz-pdf");

  //Returns a PDF as data with Express
  async returnPDF(req, res) {
    try {
      const buffer = await PDF.returnPdfBuffer(template, data);
      res.setHeader("Content-Disposition", `attachment;filename="${filename}.pdf"`)
      res.setHeader("Content-type", "application/pdf");
      res.write(buffer);
      res.send();
      return; 
    } catch (err) {
      res.status(500).send(error);
    }
  }


  const btrzPdf = require("btrz-pdf");

  //Returns a PDF as data with Express
  async mergeAndReturnPdf(req, res) {
    try {
      const items = [item1, item2, item3];
      const buffers = Promise.all(items.map((item) => {
        data.item;
        return PDF.returnPdfBuffer(template, data);
      }))
      const result = await PDF.mergePdfBufffers(buffers);
      res.setHeader("Content-Disposition", `attachment;filename="${filename}.pdf"`)
      res.setHeader("Content-type", "application/pdf");
      res.write(result);
      res.send();
      return;
    } catch (err) {
      res.status(500).send(error);
    }
  }


  const btrzPdf = require("btrz-pdf");

  //Returns a PDF as data with Express
  async previewPdf(req, res) {
    try {
      PDF.returnPdfBinary(template, data, (error, binary) => {
        if (error) {
          res.status(500).send(error);
        } else {
          res.contentType("application/pdf");
          res.send(binary);
        }
      });
      return; 
    } catch (err) {
      res.status(500).send(error);
    }
  }


  const btrzPdf = require("btrz-pdf");

  //Returns a PDFmake document defintion from the template and the data
  async getLiquid(req, res) {
    try {
      const document = await PDF.toDocumentDefinition(template, data);
      res.send(document);
    } catch (err) {
      res.status(500).send(error.message);
    }
  }

Custom document defintions

Default is text not rotated.

You can add "direction": "rotate-right" to rotate the text and barcodes in the template 90 degrees. You can add "direction": "inverse" to rotate the text and barcodes in the template 180 degrees. You can add "direction": "rotate-left" to rotate the text and barcodes in the template 270 degrees.

You can use this new document properties to add headers or footers with page numbers and total pages. The use is the same for both. This properties need to be declared at the same level as the content property and not inside the content property.

"headerFn": {
        "text": " currentPage of pageCount",
        "style": "headerFooter"
}

"footerFn": {
        "text": " currentPage of pageCount",
        "style": "headerFooter"
}

In the example below assuming the header.content is the text “Page #” it will print something like this for the first page of a document with 5 pages.


Page # 1 of 5