jspdf vs react-pdf vs pdf-lib vs pdfmake vs pspdfkit
PDF Generation and Manipulation Libraries Comparison
1 Year
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What's PDF Generation and Manipulation Libraries?

These libraries are designed to facilitate the creation, manipulation, and rendering of PDF documents in web applications. They provide various functionalities ranging from simple document generation to complex editing and rendering capabilities, catering to different use cases and developer preferences. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each library can help developers choose the right tool for their specific needs in web development.

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jspdf2,106,15930,16327.3 MB1222 months agoMIT
react-pdf1,244,29110,114552 kB425 months agoMIT
pdf-lib1,200,0897,546-2924 years agoMIT
pdfmake927,21911,94113.6 MB2916 hours agoMIT
pspdfkit47,901-203 MB-3 months agoSEE LICENSE IN https://www.nutrient.io/legal/Nutrient_SDK_User_Evaluation_Subscription_Agreement
Feature Comparison: jspdf vs react-pdf vs pdf-lib vs pdfmake vs pspdfkit

Document Creation

  • jspdf:

    jsPDF allows for straightforward PDF document creation using JavaScript. You can easily add text, images, and shapes, making it suitable for generating simple documents on the fly.

  • react-pdf:

    react-pdf allows you to create PDFs using React components, enabling a seamless integration of document generation within React applications.

  • pdf-lib:

    pdf-lib offers robust document creation capabilities, allowing developers to create PDFs from scratch or modify existing ones. It supports adding various elements like images and text with precise positioning.

  • pdfmake:

    pdfmake uses a declarative syntax to define document structure, making it easy to create complex documents with nested elements, tables, and styles.

  • pspdfkit:

    PSPDFKit provides advanced document creation features, including support for forms, annotations, and interactive elements, making it suitable for professional-grade applications.

PDF Manipulation

  • jspdf:

    jsPDF has limited manipulation capabilities primarily focused on document creation. It does not support editing existing PDFs or advanced manipulation features.

  • react-pdf:

    react-pdf does not provide manipulation features; it is primarily focused on rendering PDFs in React applications.

  • pdf-lib:

    pdf-lib excels in PDF manipulation, allowing users to modify existing PDFs, add annotations, and manipulate document content dynamically.

  • pdfmake:

    pdfmake focuses on document creation rather than manipulation, providing limited capabilities for editing existing PDFs.

  • pspdfkit:

    PSPDFKit offers extensive PDF manipulation features, including editing, merging, and annotating PDFs, making it a comprehensive solution for professional applications.

Ease of Use

  • jspdf:

    jsPDF is straightforward and easy to use, making it ideal for developers who need to quickly generate PDFs without a steep learning curve.

  • react-pdf:

    react-pdf is designed for React developers, making it easy to integrate PDF rendering into React applications, but it may not be as intuitive for those unfamiliar with React.

  • pdf-lib:

    pdf-lib has a moderate learning curve, but its API is well-documented, making it accessible for developers familiar with JavaScript.

  • pdfmake:

    pdfmake's declarative approach may require some time to learn, but it allows for powerful document definitions once mastered.

  • pspdfkit:

    PSPDFKit is a commercial product, and while it offers extensive features, it may require a more significant investment in time to fully utilize its capabilities due to its complexity.

Performance

  • jspdf:

    jsPDF performs well for simple PDF generation tasks, but may struggle with larger documents or complex layouts due to its lightweight nature.

  • react-pdf:

    react-pdf performs well for rendering PDFs in React applications, but performance may be impacted by the size of the documents and the complexity of the components used.

  • pdf-lib:

    pdf-lib is optimized for performance, allowing for efficient manipulation and creation of PDFs without significant overhead.

  • pdfmake:

    pdfmake can handle complex documents efficiently, but performance may vary based on the complexity of the document structure.

  • pspdfkit:

    PSPDFKit is built for performance, providing fast rendering and manipulation of large PDF documents, making it suitable for enterprise-level applications.

Community and Support

  • jspdf:

    jsPDF has a large community and extensive documentation, making it easy to find support and resources for common issues.

  • react-pdf:

    react-pdf has a solid community within the React ecosystem, with good documentation and examples available for developers.

  • pdf-lib:

    pdf-lib has a growing community with good documentation, but may not have as many resources as more established libraries.

  • pdfmake:

    pdfmake has a supportive community and good documentation, but its usage may be less widespread compared to other libraries.

  • pspdfkit:

    PSPDFKit offers professional support and extensive documentation, but it is a commercial product, which may limit community-driven resources.

How to Choose: jspdf vs react-pdf vs pdf-lib vs pdfmake vs pspdfkit
  • jspdf:

    Choose jsPDF if you need a lightweight library for generating simple PDF documents directly in the browser without any dependencies. It is ideal for quick tasks like generating invoices or reports from HTML content.

  • react-pdf:

    Select react-pdf if you are building a React application and need a library that allows you to render PDF documents as React components. It is ideal for applications that need to display PDFs seamlessly within the React ecosystem.

  • pdf-lib:

    Select pdf-lib if you require a library that allows for both creating new PDFs and modifying existing ones. It supports advanced features like adding images, text, and shapes, making it suitable for applications that need to manipulate PDF content dynamically.

  • pdfmake:

    Opt for pdfmake if you want a powerful library that uses a declarative approach to define document structure. It is particularly useful for generating complex documents with tables, lists, and custom styles, making it great for reports and formatted outputs.

  • pspdfkit:

    Choose PSPDFKit if you need a commercial solution with extensive features for PDF viewing, editing, and annotation. It is suitable for enterprise applications that require robust PDF handling capabilities and professional support.

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.