dompdf.js

July 14, 2026 · View on GitHub

dompdf.js is a pure-frontend DOM-to-PDF engine powered by Rust, WebAssembly, and TypeScript. It renders vector PDFs directly in the browser without depending on jsPDF, and is designed for long documents, editable text, custom fonts, and pagination-heavy layouts.

Live demo: dompdfjs.lisky.com.cn
Migration notes: docs/migration-compat.md

Highlights

Rust + WASM rendering pipeline
Vector PDF output with selectable text
Pagination support for large documents
Custom font embedding with Unicode text
Header/footer rendering
PDF compression and encryption
Browser-only architecture, no server required

Installation

The repository and npm package are both named dompdf.js.

npm

npm install dompdf.js

CDN

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/dompdf.js@latest/dist/dompdf.min.js"></script>

Quick Start

import dompdf from 'dompdf.js';

const element = document.querySelector('#capture');
const blob = await dompdf(element, {
  format: 'a4',
  pagination: true,
  onProgress(progress) {
    if (progress.stage === 'rendering' && progress.currentPage && progress.totalPages) {
      console.log(`Rendering ${progress.currentPage}/${progress.totalPages}`);
    }
  },
});

const url = URL.createObjectURL(blob);
const a = document.createElement('a');
a.href = url;
a.download = 'example.pdf';
a.click();
URL.revokeObjectURL(url);

How It Works

The main thread walks the DOM and records a snapshot.
A Web Worker receives the snapshot and prepares render data.
A Rust/WASM module writes PDF bytes.
The browser returns the result as a Blob.

This architecture avoids canvas screenshot bottlenecks and keeps the UI responsive during export.

Supported Capabilities

Capability	Status	Notes
Pagination	Stable	Supports multi-page output and large documents
Text rendering	Stable	Unicode text, custom fonts, alignment, line height
Images	Stable	Raster images, SVG, data URLs
Backgrounds and borders	Stable	Background color, gradients, border radius
Header/footer	Stable	Object form and per-page callback form
Progress callbacks	Stable	`onProgress` reports collection, page counting, and render progress
Compression	Stable	Real DEFLATE compression in the WASM writer
Encryption	Stable	User/owner password and permission flags
Legacy jsPDF hooks	Compatibility only	`onJspdfReady` / `onJspdfFinish` are accepted but are no-ops

Pagination Notes

Enable pagination with pagination: true. For best results, set the DOM container width to match the target page width in CSS pixels. A4 width at 96 DPI is 794px.

See page_sizes.md for common page sizes and pixel references.

await dompdf(document.querySelector('#capture'), {
  pagination: true,
  format: 'a4',
  onProgress(progress) {
    if (progress.stage === 'countingPages' && progress.totalPages) {
      console.log(`Total pages: ${progress.totalPages}`);
    }
    if (progress.stage === 'rendering' && progress.currentPage && progress.totalPages) {
      console.log(`Rendering page ${progress.currentPage}/${progress.totalPages}`);
    }
  },
  pageConfig: {
    header: {
      content: 'Document Header',
      height: 50,
      contentFontSize: 12,
      contentPosition: 'center',
    },
    footer: {
      content: 'Page ${currentPage} / ${totalPages}',
      height: 50,
      contentFontSize: 12,
      contentPosition: 'center',
    },
  },
});

Fine-grained page control

divisionDisable: keep a block together on one page
pageBreak: force a new page before an element
excludePage / excludePages: skip header/footer on selected pages

Font Configuration

For non-Latin text, embed a font explicitly.

import dompdf from 'dompdf.js';

const fontBuffer = await fetch('/fonts/SourceHanSansSC-Regular.ttf').then((res) =>
  res.arrayBuffer(),
);

await dompdf(document.querySelector('#capture'), {
  fontConfig: {
    fontFamily: 'SourceHanSansSC-Regular',
    fontBytes: new Uint8Array(fontBuffer),
    fontStyle: 'normal',
    fontWeight: 400,
  },
});

The repo ships an example font file at examples/SourceHanSansSC-Regular.ttf for local demos and verification.

Important Compatibility Notes

This project intentionally keeps a small set of legacy options for upgrade compatibility. A few of them are accepted but not implemented in the new rendering architecture:

onJspdfReady
onJspdfFinish
jsPDF instance mutation patterns from the legacy pipeline

See docs/migration-compat.md for migration guidance.

Local Development

Requirements

Node.js 18+
Rust toolchain
wasm32-unknown-unknown target

Common commands

npm install
npm run build
npm test
npm run serve

npm test builds the WASM module and runs the smoke verification script in scripts/verify.mjs.

Examples

examples/index.html: feature-focused playground
examples/comparison.html: compare dompdf.js with other client-side generators
examples/markdown-editor.html: Markdown editor with live preview and PDF export

Project Structure

dompdf.js/
├── src/                  # TypeScript entry and snapshot pipeline
├── wasm/                 # Rust PDF writer
├── dist/                 # Published build output
├── examples/             # Local demos
├── docs/                 # Design notes and migration docs
└── scripts/              # Build and verification scripts