getting-started

name	getting-started
description	Generate PDFs through API2PDF in NestJS. Use when converting HTML or URLs to PDFs in apis.

Register the module with a useFactory that switches on NODE_ENV

import { Module } from '@nestjs/common'
import { ConfigService } from '@nestjs/config'
import { Api2PdfModule } from '@wisemen/nestjs-api-2-pdf'

@Module({
  imports: [
    Api2PdfModule.forRootAsync({
      inject: [ConfigService],
      useFactory: (config: ConfigService) => {
        if (config.getOrThrow('NODE_ENV') === 'test') {
          return {
            provider: 'mock'
          }
        }

        return {
          provider: 'api2pdf',
          apiKey: config.getOrThrow('API2PDF_API_KEY'),
          baseUrl: config.getOrThrow('API2PDF_BASE_URL')
        }
      }
    })
  ],
  exports: [Api2PdfModule]
})
export class DefaultApi2PdfModule {}

Generate a PDF from HTML

import { Injectable } from '@nestjs/common'
import { Api2PdfClient } from '@wisemen/nestjs-api-2-pdf'

@Injectable()
export class InvoicePdfService {
  constructor(private readonly pdfClient: Api2PdfClient) {}

  async generate(uploadUrl: string, html: string): Promise<void> {
    await this.pdfClient.generatePdfFromHtml({
      html,
      uploadUrl,
      fileName: 'invoice.pdf',
      inline: false
    })
  }
}

Generate a PDF from a URL

await this.pdfClient.generatePdfFromUrl({
  url: 'https://example.com/invoice/123',
  uploadUrl,
  fileName: 'invoice.pdf',
  inline: false,
  extraHTTPHeaders: {
    'Accept-Language': locale
  }
})

Best practices

• The html content and filename should be locale-aware values. Use your preferred i18n helpers.
• PDF generation is preferably done asynchronously in a job.

Layout and upload options

generatePdfFromHtml() and generatePdfFromUrl() support:

• fileName
• uploadUrl url location where the resulting pdf will be uploaded (with a PUT method)
• inline: true to open in the browser, false to trigger download behavior.
• options for layout settings like landscape, printBackground, marginTop, marginLeft, marginRight
• storage.extraHTTPHeaders for headers sent with the upload request

Notes

• Inject Api2PdfClient regardless of whether the configured provider is api2pdf or mock.
• The package always uploads the generated file to uploadUrl with a PUT request.
• generatePdfFromUrl() has optional ensureReachable option. This option validates if the passed url is reachable, before sending to API2PDF. This ensures that API2PDF does not take a screenshot of an unreachable endpoint (eg 503), since puppeteer option WaitForNavigation sees the 503 response as a navigation.