Self-Hosting

Skip pdfn Cloud and run the full pipeline yourself. You control the browser, the infrastructure, and the output.

Want managed PDF generation? Use client.generate() with pdfn Cloud — no infra or browser management needed.

How it works

React Component → render() → HTML → Puppeteer/Playwright → PDF

render() converts your React template to self-contained HTML
You pass that HTML to Puppeteer or Playwright to generate a PDF

Setup

Puppeteer
Playwright

npm install @pdfn/react puppeteer

import { pdfn } from '@pdfn/react';
import puppeteer from 'puppeteer';
import fs from 'node:fs';
import Invoice from './pdfn-templates/invoice';

async function generatePdf() {
  const client = pdfn();

  // 1. Render React to HTML
  const { data, error } = await client.render({ react: <Invoice /> });

  if (error) {
    console.error(error.message);
    return;
  }

  // 2. Convert HTML to PDF
  const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
  const page = await browser.newPage();

  await page.setContent(data.html, { waitUntil: 'networkidle0' });
  await page.waitForFunction(() => window.PDFN?.ready === true);

  const pdf = await page.pdf({
    preferCSSPageSize: true,
    printBackground: true,
  });

  await browser.close();

  fs.writeFileSync('invoice.pdf', pdf);
}

generatePdf();

npm install @pdfn/react playwright

import { pdfn } from '@pdfn/react';
import { chromium } from 'playwright';
import fs from 'node:fs';
import Invoice from './pdfn-templates/invoice';

async function generatePdf() {
  const client = pdfn();

  // 1. Render React to HTML
  const { data, error } = await client.render({ react: <Invoice /> });

  if (error) {
    console.error(error.message);
    return;
  }

  // 2. Convert HTML to PDF
  const browser = await chromium.launch();
  const page = await browser.newPage();

  await page.setContent(data.html, { waitUntil: 'networkidle' });
  await page.waitForFunction(() => window.PDFN?.ready === true);

  const pdf = await page.pdf({
    preferCSSPageSize: true,
    printBackground: true,
  });

  await browser.close();

  fs.writeFileSync('invoice.pdf', pdf);
}

generatePdf();

Add @pdfn/tailwind if your templates use Tailwind CSS. See Styling.

Required PDF options

Always use these two options when calling page.pdf():

await page.pdf({
  preferCSSPageSize: true,  // Respect page size from template
  printBackground: true,    // Include background colors
});

And always wait for pdfn to finish pagination before generating:

await page.waitForFunction(() => window.PDFN?.ready === true);

This ensures fonts are loaded and page breaks are calculated.

Comparison

	pdfn Cloud	Self-Hosted
Setup	Managed — no infra or browser setup	You manage infra and Chromium
Scaling	Auto-scales	You handle scaling
Compliance	PDF/A-1b, PDF/A-2b, PDF/A-3b	Not available
Cost	Usage-based pricing	Your infrastructure costs

Self-Hosting

How it works

Setup

Required PDF options

Comparison

Next steps

Styling

Troubleshooting

​How it works

​Setup

​Required PDF options

​Comparison

​Next steps

Styling

Troubleshooting

How it works

Setup

Required PDF options

Comparison

Next steps