jspdf vs react-pdf vs html2pdf.js vs react-to-pdf
PDF Generation Libraries Comparison
1 Year
jspdfreact-pdfhtml2pdf.jsreact-to-pdfSimilar Packages:
What's PDF Generation Libraries?

These libraries are designed to facilitate the creation and manipulation of PDF documents in web applications. They provide various functionalities for converting HTML content to PDF, generating PDFs from scratch, and rendering PDFs within React applications. Each library has its unique strengths and use cases, making them suitable for different development scenarios.

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jspdf2,091,22130,05427.3 MB13121 days agoMIT
react-pdf1,345,33310,002552 kB374 months agoMIT
html2pdf.js272,3574,3746.48 MB501a month agoMIT
react-to-pdf72,29630772.2 kB5110 days agoMIT
Feature Comparison: jspdf vs react-pdf vs html2pdf.js vs react-to-pdf

PDF Generation Method

  • jspdf:

    jsPDF allows for programmatic PDF generation, enabling developers to create documents from scratch using JavaScript. It provides a wide range of features for adding text, images, shapes, and more, giving full control over the PDF content and layout.

  • react-pdf:

    react-pdf enables rendering of PDF documents as React components, allowing developers to leverage React's component-based architecture. It focuses on displaying existing PDFs rather than generating new ones, making it suitable for applications that need to present PDF content dynamically.

  • html2pdf.js:

    html2pdf.js combines the capabilities of html2canvas and jsPDF to convert HTML elements into PDF documents. It captures the rendered HTML and styles, making it easy to generate visually accurate PDFs directly from the DOM.

  • react-to-pdf:

    react-to-pdf simplifies the process of converting React components into PDF documents. It allows developers to specify which components to convert, making it easy to generate PDFs from specific parts of the application without complex configurations.

Ease of Use

  • jspdf:

    jsPDF has a steeper learning curve due to its extensive feature set, but it offers powerful capabilities for developers who need detailed control over PDF creation.

  • react-pdf:

    react-pdf is designed specifically for React applications, making it easy for React developers to integrate PDF rendering into their projects without additional complexity.

  • html2pdf.js:

    html2pdf.js is user-friendly and requires minimal setup, making it accessible for developers who need quick PDF generation without deep knowledge of PDF manipulation.

  • react-to-pdf:

    react-to-pdf is straightforward to use, especially for React developers, as it allows for easy conversion of components with simple API calls.

Customization Options

  • jspdf:

    jsPDF offers extensive customization options for PDF documents, including fonts, colors, and layout configurations, allowing for highly tailored PDF outputs.

  • react-pdf:

    react-pdf provides customization through React props, enabling developers to style PDF components using CSS-in-JS, which is familiar to React developers.

  • html2pdf.js:

    html2pdf.js allows for basic customization of the PDF output, including page size, margins, and orientation, but it primarily focuses on preserving the HTML layout.

  • react-to-pdf:

    react-to-pdf allows for some customization of the PDF output, but it mainly focuses on converting existing React components, limiting deep customization of the PDF structure.

Performance

  • jspdf:

    jsPDF is optimized for performance when generating PDFs programmatically, but performance can vary based on the complexity of the content being added to the PDF.

  • react-pdf:

    react-pdf performs well in rendering existing PDFs, but performance may be impacted by the size of the PDF and the complexity of the components being rendered.

  • html2pdf.js:

    html2pdf.js can be slower for large or complex HTML documents due to the rendering process, but it is generally efficient for standard use cases.

  • react-to-pdf:

    react-to-pdf is efficient for converting React components, but performance can be affected by the complexity of the components and the amount of data being processed.

Community and Support

  • jspdf:

    jsPDF has a large community and extensive documentation, providing a wealth of resources, examples, and community support for developers.

  • react-pdf:

    react-pdf benefits from the React ecosystem, with active community support and documentation tailored for React developers, making it easy to find solutions and examples.

  • html2pdf.js:

    html2pdf.js has a growing community and is well-documented, making it easier to find support and examples for common use cases.

  • react-to-pdf:

    react-to-pdf has a smaller community compared to the others, but it is straightforward and well-documented, making it easy to get started.

How to Choose: jspdf vs react-pdf vs html2pdf.js vs react-to-pdf
  • jspdf:

    Select jsPDF if you require extensive control over PDF generation, such as creating complex documents programmatically. It is best suited for applications that need to generate PDFs from scratch or manipulate existing PDF files with a variety of features.

  • react-pdf:

    Opt for react-pdf if you are working within a React environment and want to render PDF documents as React components. This library is perfect for applications that require displaying PDFs directly in the UI and allows for a seamless integration with React's component lifecycle.

  • html2pdf.js:

    Choose html2pdf.js if you need a straightforward solution to convert HTML elements directly into PDF documents with minimal configuration. It is ideal for projects where you want to maintain the styling of HTML content in the PDF output.

  • react-to-pdf:

    Use react-to-pdf when you want to convert React components into PDF documents easily. This library is beneficial for scenarios where you want to generate PDFs from specific parts of your React application without needing to manage the PDF generation logic extensively.

README for jspdf

jsPDF

Continous Integration Code Climate Test Coverage GitHub license Total alerts Language grade: JavaScript Gitpod ready-to-code

A library to generate PDFs in JavaScript.

You can catch me on twitter: @MrRio or head over to my company's website for consultancy.

jsPDF is now co-maintained by yWorks - the diagramming experts.

Live Demo | Documentation

Install

Recommended: get jsPDF from npm:

npm install jspdf --save
# or
yarn add jspdf

Alternatively, load it from a CDN:

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jspdf/3.0.1/jspdf.umd.min.js"></script>

Or always get latest version via unpkg

<script src="https://unpkg.com/jspdf@latest/dist/jspdf.umd.min.js"></script>

The dist folder of this package contains different kinds of files:

  • jspdf.es.*.js: Modern ES2015 module format.
  • jspdf.node.*.js: For running in Node. Uses file operations for loading/saving files instead of browser APIs.
  • jspdf.umd.*.js: UMD module format. For AMD or script-tag loading.
  • polyfills*.js: Required polyfills for older browsers like Internet Explorer. The es variant simply imports all required polyfills from core-js, the umd variant is self-contained.

Usually it is not necessary to specify the exact file in the import statement. Build tools or Node automatically figure out the right file, so importing "jspdf" is enough.

Usage

Then you're ready to start making your document:

import { jsPDF } from "jspdf";

// Default export is a4 paper, portrait, using millimeters for units
const doc = new jsPDF();

doc.text("Hello world!", 10, 10);
doc.save("a4.pdf");

If you want to change the paper size, orientation, or units, you can do:

// Landscape export, 2×4 inches
const doc = new jsPDF({
  orientation: "landscape",
  unit: "in",
  format: [4, 2]
});

doc.text("Hello world!", 1, 1);
doc.save("two-by-four.pdf");

Running in Node.js

const { jsPDF } = require("jspdf"); // will automatically load the node version

const doc = new jsPDF();
doc.text("Hello world!", 10, 10);
doc.save("a4.pdf"); // will save the file in the current working directory

Other Module Formats

AMD
require(["jspdf"], ({ jsPDF }) => {
  const doc = new jsPDF();
  doc.text("Hello world!", 10, 10);
  doc.save("a4.pdf");
});
Globals
const { jsPDF } = window.jspdf;

const doc = new jsPDF();
doc.text("Hello world!", 10, 10);
doc.save("a4.pdf");

Optional dependencies

Some functions of jsPDF require optional dependencies. E.g. the html method, which depends on html2canvas and, when supplied with a string HTML document, dompurify. JsPDF loads them dynamically when required (using the respective module format, e.g. dynamic imports). Build tools like Webpack will automatically create separate chunks for each of the optional dependencies. If your application does not use any of the optional dependencies, you can prevent Webpack from generating the chunks by defining them as external dependencies:

// webpack.config.js
module.exports = {
  // ...
  externals: {
    // only define the dependencies you are NOT using as externals!
    canvg: "canvg",
    html2canvas: "html2canvas",
    dompurify: "dompurify"
  }
};

In Vue CLI projects, externals can be defined via the configureWebpack or chainWebpack properties of the vue.config.js file (needs to be created, first, in fresh projects).

In Angular projects, externals can be defined using custom webpack builders.

In React (create-react-app) projects, externals can be defined by either using react-app-rewired or ejecting.

TypeScript/Angular/Webpack/React/etc. Configuration:

jsPDF can be imported just like any other 3rd party library. This works with all major toolkits and frameworks. jsPDF also offers a typings file for TypeScript projects.

import { jsPDF } from "jspdf";

You can add jsPDF to your meteor-project as follows:

meteor add jspdf:core

Polyfills

jsPDF requires modern browser APIs in order to function. To use jsPDF in older browsers like Internet Explorer, polyfills are required. You can load all required polyfills as follows:

import "jspdf/dist/polyfills.es.js";

Alternatively, you can load the prebundled polyfill file. This is not recommended, since you might end up loading polyfills multiple times. Might still be nifty for small applications or quick POCs.

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jspdf/3.0.1/polyfills.umd.js"></script>

Use of Unicode Characters / UTF-8:

The 14 standard fonts in PDF are limited to the ASCII-codepage. If you want to use UTF-8 you have to integrate a custom font, which provides the needed glyphs. jsPDF supports .ttf-files. So if you want to have for example Chinese text in your pdf, your font has to have the necessary Chinese glyphs. So, check if your font supports the wanted glyphs or else it will show garbled characters instead of the right text.

To add the font to jsPDF use our fontconverter in /fontconverter/fontconverter.html. The fontconverter will create a js-file with the content of the provided ttf-file as base64 encoded string and additional code for jsPDF. You just have to add this generated js-File to your project. You are then ready to go to use setFont-method in your code and write your UTF-8 encoded text.

Alternatively you can just load the content of the *.ttf file as a binary string using fetch or XMLHttpRequest and add the font to the PDF file:

const doc = new jsPDF();

const myFont = ... // load the *.ttf font file as binary string

// add the font to jsPDF
doc.addFileToVFS("MyFont.ttf", myFont);
doc.addFont("MyFont.ttf", "MyFont", "normal");
doc.setFont("MyFont");

Advanced Functionality

Since the merge with the yWorks fork there are a lot of new features. However, some of them are API breaking, which is why there is an API-switch between two API modes:

  • In "compat" API mode, jsPDF has the same API as MrRio's original version, which means full compatibility with plugins. However, some advanced features like transformation matrices and patterns won't work. This is the default mode.
  • In "advanced" API mode, jsPDF has the API you're used from the yWorks-fork version. This means the availability of all advanced features like patterns, FormObjects, and transformation matrices.

You can switch between the two modes by calling

doc.advancedAPI(doc => {
  // your code
});
// or
doc.compatAPI(doc => {
  // your code
});

JsPDF will automatically switch back to the original API mode after the callback has run.

Support

Please check if your question is already handled at Stackoverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/jspdf. Feel free to ask a question there with the tag jspdf.

Feature requests, bug reports, etc. are very welcome as issues. Note that bug reports should follow these guidelines:

  • A bug should be reported as an mcve
  • Make sure code is properly indented and formatted (Use ``` around code blocks)
  • Provide a runnable example.
  • Try to make sure and show in your issue that the issue is actually related to jspdf and not your framework of choice.

Contributing

jsPDF cannot live without help from the community! If you think a feature is missing or you found a bug, please consider if you can spare one or two hours and prepare a pull request. If you're simply interested in this project and want to help, have a look at the open issues, especially those labeled with "bug".

You can find information about building and testing jsPDF in the contribution guide

Credits

  • Big thanks to Daniel Dotsenko from Willow Systems Corporation for making huge contributions to the codebase.
  • Thanks to Ajaxian.com for featuring us back in 2009. (Internet Archive Wayback Machine reference)
  • Our special thanks to GH Lee (sphilee) for programming the ttf-file-support and providing a large and long sought after feature
  • Everyone else that's contributed patches or bug reports. You rock.

License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2010-2021 James Hall, https://github.com/MrRio/jsPDF (c) 2015-2021 yWorks GmbH, https://www.yworks.com/

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.