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Awesome HTML to PDF 📄

A curated list of awesome libraries, tools, and resources for converting HTML to PDF across various programming languages.

Contents

Command Line & Headless Browsers

Tools that can be used across any language via CLI or API.

  • Chromium / Google Chrome - Modern browsers have a built-in headless mode that can print DOM to PDF (--headless --print-to-pdf).
  • wkhtmltopdf - A classic, open-source command line tool to render HTML into PDF using the Qt WebKit rendering engine. (Note: officially archived and no longer maintained).
  • WeasyPrint - A smart HTML and CSS (and SVG) to PDF converter aiming to support web standards. Also works as a CLI tool.
  • PrinceXML - Commercial software that converts HTML to PDF. Highly compliant with CSS standards.
  • Pandoc - The universal document converter; converts Markdown/HTML (and many formats) to PDF via LaTeX, wkhtmltopdf, or Chromium.

Node.js / JavaScript

  • Puppeteer - Headless Chrome Node.js API by Google. Extremely popular for generating PDFs from web pages.
  • Playwright - Microsoft's cross-browser automation library which supports high-quality PDF generation in Chromium.
  • html-pdf-node - A simple HTML to PDF converter using Puppeteer.
  • jsPDF - A library to generate PDFs in client-side JavaScript. (Can render some HTML using html2canvas).

Python

  • WeasyPrint - The awesome visual rendering engine for HTML and CSS that can export to PDF.
  • pdfkit - Python wrapper for the wkhtmltopdf utility.
  • xhtml2pdf - A utility for converting HTML/CSS to PDF, written entirely in Python.
  • Playwright for Python - Python version of the Playwright testing and automation library.

PHP

  • Dompdf - An HTML to PDF converter written in PHP. Mostly CSS 2.1 compliant.
  • Browsershot - Converts HTML to an image or PDF using a headless Chrome (Puppeteer).
  • Snappy - A PHP library allowing thumbnail, snapshot or PDF generation from a URL or an HTML page (wrapper for wkhtmltopdf).
  • mPDF - A PHP class which generates PDF files from UTF-8 encoded HTML.
  • TCPDF - One of the oldest PHP libraries for generating PDF documents, supports basic HTML.

Ruby

  • Wicked PDF - A PDF generation plugin for Ruby on Rails, wrapping wkhtmltopdf.
  • PDFKit - A Ruby wrapper for wkhtmltopdf.
  • Grover - A Ruby gem that uses Puppeteer and Chromium to transform HTML into PDFs.
  • HexaPDF - A versatile PDF creation and manipulation library for Ruby.

Go

  • chromedp - A faster, simpler way to drive browsers supporting the Chrome DevTools Protocol, used for creating PDFs.
  • go-wkhtmltopdf - Golang command-line wrapper for wkhtmltopdf.

Java

  • OpenHTMLToPDF - A pure-Java library for rendering HTML/CSS-formatted documents to PDF.
  • Flying Saucer - XML/CSS renderer, which can be used to convert XHTML/CSS to PDF.
  • iText - Commercial library (with open-source editions) that includes an HTML to PDF add-on (pdfHTML).

C# / .NET

  • PuppeteerSharp - .NET port of the official Node.js Puppeteer API.
  • DinkToPdf - C# wrapper for wkhtmltopdf library that uses Webkit engine.
  • SelectPdf - Provides a free community edition HTML to PDF converter for .NET.

Rust

  • headless_chrome - A high-level API to control headless Chrome or Chromium over the DevTools Protocol. Can be used for printing to PDF.
  • wkhtmltopdf-rs - Rust bindings for the wkhtmltopdf C bindings.

HTML to Markdown

Convert raw HTML back into clean Markdown. Most of these also ship a CLI.

JavaScript / Node.js

  • Turndown - The most popular HTML→Markdown converter for Node.js and the browser; pluggable rules (GFM via turndown-plugin-gfm).
  • node-html-markdown - Fast, spec-compliant HTML→Markdown for Node.js with custom per-tag translators.
  • mdream - Zero-dependency, LLM-optimized, streaming HTML→Markdown (pure JS + Rust/WASM engine); up to 2x fewer tokens than Turndown.
  • h2m-parser - Fast HTML→Markdown parser with Mozilla Readability extraction and a streaming renderer.
  • html-to-markdown (Kreuzberg) - High-performance, CommonMark-compliant converter powered by a shared Rust core (Node.js NAPI bindings).

Python

  • html2text - Mature Python HTML→text/Markdown converter.
  • markdownify - Convert HTML to Markdown in Python with a clean API.
  • html-to-markdown (Kreuzberg) - Python wheel powered by the shared Rust core (byte-identical output across runtimes).
  • inscriptis - HTML to formatted text/Markdown with nested-table and list support.
  • trafilatura - Web-page extraction (main text + metadata) with Markdown output.
  • pyhtml2md - Python bindings for the fast C++ html2md library.

PHP

Ruby

Go

Java

C# / .NET

Rust

Elixir / Dart / R / Kotlin / Swift

CLI / Cross-language

Markdown to PDF

Markdown-specific converters (most render Markdown → HTML → PDF, or parse Markdown directly). The per-language HTML→PDF libraries above (Puppeteer, WeasyPrint, etc.) also apply since they sit one step upstream.

JavaScript / Node.js

  • md-to-pdf - Hackable Node.js CLI/API using Puppeteer; custom CSS, headers/footers, page sizes.
  • mdpdf - Simple Markdown → PDF for Node.
  • md-bookify - CLI + MCP server; Markdown → PDF/EPUB with Prism highlighting, KaTeX math, and GFM.
  • @speajus/markdown-to-pdf - TypeScript library built on marked + PDFKit; Mermaid diagrams, images, syntax highlighting.
  • mdpdf-core - Pure-JS Markdown → print-ready PDF (pdf-lib/pdfkit); no Chromium, with outlines, footnotes, and pagination.
  • md-preview-pdf - High-fidelity Markdown → PDF via Puppeteer; Mermaid, KaTeX, 150+ languages, multiple themes.
  • remark-pdf - remark plugin compiling Markdown → PDF/A using pdfkit (no Chromium; works in browser/Node).
  • markdown-pdf (alanshaw) - Node module rendering Markdown to PDF. (Note: relies on deprecated PhantomJS; often non-functional.)

Python

  • inkmd - Pure-Python Markdown → PDF compiler, zero dependencies, deterministic, no browser required.
  • WeasyPrint + Markdown - Render Markdown (via markdown/mistune) to HTML, then to PDF with print-CSS (see Python section).
  • xhtml2pdf - Pure-Python HTML/CSS → PDF usable from Markdown via a renderer.

Cross-language / CLI

  • Pandoc - pandoc input.md -o out.pdf via LaTeX, WeasyPrint, wkhtmltopdf, pagedjs, or Chromium.
  • Marp - Markdown presentation ecosystem; exports slides to PDF.
  • grip - Renders GitHub-flavored Markdown; pair with Print-to-PDF for faithful GitHub-style output.
  • marked + Chromium - marked → HTML → headless Chromium --print-to-pdf.

Desktop apps

Online Services, Docker & APIs

Ready-to-use Docker images, online SaaS APIs, and web editors for PDF generation.

  • SaaS APIs:
    • DocRaptor - High-quality HTML-to-PDF API powered by the commercial PrinceXML engine.
    • Api2Pdf - REST API wrapper around wkhtmltopdf, Headless Chrome, and LibreOffice.
    • PDFShift - Developer-friendly HTML to PDF conversion API.
    • Sejda - Online tool and developer API for converting HTML/Markdown to PDF.
  • Online Editors:
    • Dillinger - A cloud-enabled, HTML5, buzzword-ridden Markdown editor that exports directly to PDF.
    • StackEdit - In-browser Markdown editor with powerful PDF export functionality.
  • Docker & Self-Hosted:
    • Gotenberg - A Docker-powered stateless API for PDF generation. Uses Chromium and LibreOffice under the hood. Very popular for microservice architectures.
    • Browserless - A cloud or self-hosted service for running headless Chrome workloads, including heavy PDF generation.

Kotlin & Scala (JVM)

  • OpenHTMLToPDF - Pure-Java (works on the JVM), so it can be used directly from Kotlin and Scala.
  • Flying Saucer - XML/CSS renderer that runs on the JVM and exports XHTML/CSS to PDF.
  • Playwright for Java - Official Java binding for Playwright; usable from Kotlin and Scala for Chromium-based PDFs.

Elixir

  • chromic_pdf - Convert HTML to PDF using headless Chromium, with a clean Elixir API and live browser management.
  • pdf_generator - Wrapper around wkhtmltopdf for generating PDFs from HTML in Elixir.

Dart

  • html_to_pdf - Flutter/Dart package that renders HTML to PDF using a WebView.
  • printing - Flutter plugin for printing and generating PDF documents (can render widgets/HTML to PDF).

R

  • pagedown - R package by RStudio to render HTML and R Markdown into PDF via headless Chrome (paged.js).
  • webshot - Capture screenshots (and PDFs) of web pages from R, backed by headless Chrome.

Perl

  • PDF::WebKit - Perl wrapper around wkhtmltopdf for HTML to PDF generation.
  • WKHTMLTOPDF - Simple Perl interface to the wkhtmltopdf command-line tool.

C / C++

  • wkhtmltopdf (libwkhtmltox) - The C++ library and libwkhtmltox C API behind the wkhtmltopdf CLI tool; embeddable directly in C/C++ apps.
  • litehtml - Lightweight HTML/CSS rendering engine in C++ (pair it with a container like litebrowser/wkhtmltox to produce PDFs).

Print-CSS & Browser Libraries

JavaScript/CSS libraries that bring print-layout features (paged media, running headers, page breaks) to any HTML pipeline:

  • Paged.js - A free, open-source polyfill that implements the W3C Paged Media and Generated Content specs in the browser; ideal for books and reports.
  • Vivliostyle - Open-source CSS Typesetting engine supporting EPUB/Web publications and paginated HTML to PDF.
  • CJK - A collection of print-CSS examples and a print-css.rocks engine for high-quality print output.

Specifications & Standards

The formats and specs that HTML-to-PDF tooling implements or targets:

  • PDF 2.0 (ISO 32000-2) - The current PDF specification; most modern engines aim for 2.0 compatibility.
  • PDF/A - The ISO standard for long-term archival of electronic documents (no external dependencies, embedded fonts).
  • PDF/UA - PDF for Universal Accessibility (ISO 14289), important for accessible/section-508 output.
  • PDF/X - PDF for graphic arts / print-ready exchange (ISO 15930).
  • W3C Paged Media Module - CSS spec for paged output: @page, margins, page size, and page selectors.
  • W3C CSS Fragmentation - Controls how content breaks across pages/columns (break-before, break-inside).
  • HTML & CSS Print - Print-specific CSS features that drive pagination and print media.

Low-Level PDF Libraries

Building blocks that operate directly on the PDF format (create, inspect, or manipulate PDFs) rather than rendering HTML:

  • libharu - Free C/C++ library for generating PDF files from scratch.
  • PDFium - Google's open-source PDF rendering engine (C++), embedded in Chromium; also usable for headless PDF output.
  • MuPDF - Lightweight C library and mutool CLI for rendering, converting, and editing PDFs.
  • qpdf - C++ library and CLI to inspect, transform, and linearize/optimize PDFs (great for post-processing output).
  • Apache PDFBox - Pure-Java library to create, render, and manipulate PDF documents.
  • iText Core - The core low-level library for Java and .NET (C#) to build and manipulate PDFs.
  • pikepdf - Python library (binding for QPDF) for reading, writing, and transforming PDFs.
  • borb - Pure-Python PDF library for creating and editing PDFs with a clean, document-object API.
  • ReportLab - A robust, time-tested Python library for generating PDFs and graphics.
  • Prawn - A fast, nimble PDF generation library for Ruby.
  • gofpdf - A PDF document generator with high level support for text, drawing and images in Go.
  • FPDI / FPDF - PHP classes for generating and manipulating PDFs without external dependencies.
  • PDFKit - Pure-JS library for server-side PDF generation in Node.js (programmatic, not HTML-based).

Engine Comparison

Here is a high-level comparison of the most common engines powering these tools:

Engine / Tool Underlying Tech Modern CSS/JS Support Setup Complexity Best For
Puppeteer / Playwright Headless Chromium Excellent Medium Complex SPAs, modern UI, charts
wkhtmltopdf Qt WebKit (Old) Poor (No Flexbox/Grid) Low Legacy systems, simple layouts
WeasyPrint Native Python Good (No JS) Low Python-centric setups, print media
PrinceXML Proprietary Excellent (No JS) Medium High-end print publishing, commercial
Dompdf / mPDF Native PHP Moderate (No JS) Low Shared hosting, simple PHP generation

Language Coverage Matrix

Which approach is available in which language. ✅ = mature option, ◐ = possible but limited, ➖ = not applicable / uncommon.

Language Headless Browser Native Engine wkhtmltopdf Wrapper Notable Picks
Node.js / JS ✅ Puppeteer, Playwright ◐ jsPDF ✅ Puppeteer, Playwright
Python ✅ Playwright ✅ WeasyPrint, xhtml2pdf ✅ pdfkit WeasyPrint, Playwright
PHP ✅ Browsershot ✅ Dompdf, mPDF, TCPDF ✅ Snappy Browsershot, Dompdf
Ruby ✅ Grover ✅ HexaPDF ✅ Wicked PDF, PDFKit Grover, Wicked PDF
Go ✅ chromedp ➖ ✅ go-wkhtmltopdf chromedp
Java ✅ Playwright Java ✅ OpenHTMLToPDF, Flying Saucer ➖ OpenHTMLToPDF
C# / .NET ✅ PuppeteerSharp ◐ SelectPdf ✅ DinkToPdf PuppeteerSharp
Rust ✅ headless_chrome ➖ ✅ wkhtmltopdf-rs headless_chrome
Kotlin / Scala ✅ Playwright Java ✅ OpenHTMLToPDF, Flying Saucer ➖ OpenHTMLToPDF
Elixir ✅ chromic_pdf ➖ ✅ pdf_generator chromic_pdf
Dart ◐ WebView-based ◐ printing ➖ html_to_pdf
R ✅ pagedown, webshot ➖ ➖ pagedown
Perl ➖ ➖ ✅ PDF::WebKit PDF::WebKit
C / C++ ◐ embed Chromium ◐ litehtml ✅ libwkhtmltox libwkhtmltox

Takeaways:

  • Every mainstream language has at least one headless-browser or wkhtmltopdf path.
  • True native HTML/CSS engines are concentrated in Python, PHP, Ruby, and the JVM.
  • For pixel-perfect, JS-heavy output, headless Chromium (Puppeteer/Playwright/chromedp/Grover/chromic_pdf) is the universal answer across languages.

Approaches: Pros and Cons

When choosing a library from the lists above, it's helpful to understand the trade-offs of the underlying approaches.

1. Headless Browsers (Puppeteer, Playwright, chromedp)

  • Pros: Perfect rendering identical to a real browser. Supports all modern CSS (Flexbox, Grid) and executes JavaScript perfectly. Ideal for charts, web fonts, and Single Page Applications (SPAs).
  • Cons: High resource consumption (memory/CPU). Slower generation time. Can be tricky to deploy in serverless environments (e.g., AWS Lambda, Vercel) due to large browser binary sizes.

2. Native Language Libraries (Dompdf, WeasyPrint, OpenHTMLToPDF)

  • Pros: Easy to install via standard package managers. Lightweight compared to headless browsers. Very fast for simple, text-heavy documents. No external system dependencies or binaries required.
  • Cons: Often struggle with modern CSS layout modules. Most do not support executing JavaScript, meaning client-side rendered elements (like JS charts or React/Vue apps) will not render.

3. Command Line Wrappers (wkhtmltopdf wrappers)

  • Pros: Historically the standard across all languages. Very easy to use if the binary is already installed on your server.
  • Cons: Uses an extremely outdated rendering engine. It lacks support for modern CSS features and ES6+ JavaScript. It is officially deprecated and unmaintained.

4. Print-CSS Engines (WeasyPrint, PrinceXML, Paged.js)

  • Pros: Purpose-built for print layout — excellent support for @page, page breaks, headers/footers, tables spanning pages, and book-level typography. No browser binary needed.
  • Cons: No JavaScript execution. Requires authoring your HTML/CSS with print media in mind rather than screen design. Best suited to documents, reports, and books rather than web-app screenshots.

5. Cloud / SaaS APIs (API-based conversion)

  • Pros: Zero infrastructure — no browser binaries or system dependencies to maintain. Scales automatically, handles complex JS, and typically offers templating, storage, and webhooks. Great for serverless or high-throughput setups.
  • Cons: Recurring cost and vendor lock-in. Data leaves your infrastructure (privacy/compliance consideration). Network latency and rate limits apply.

Contributing

Contributions are very welcome! Please feel free to open a pull request if you have a great library to add.

License

CC0

To the extent possible under law, the contributors have waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.

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A curated list of awesome libraries, tools, and resources for converting HTML to PDF across various programming languages.

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