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Nero Adaware
Nero Adaware

Posted on • Updated on

React PDF Generating Pdf documents in React Using React-pdf

#react #webdev #tutorial #javascript

This post was originally published on my Blog, check it out for more contents.

Introduction

I was working on a project recently and I got a unique(for me) requirement that needed me to generate pdf file from an array of values in the Browser, usually in my little experience in software development Pdf files are generated in the backend using Puppeteer for node js and FPDF for PHP e.t.c. So I had to look for a React library that could work for my use case, lucky for me I found React-pdf. I found other libraries like @progress/kendo-react-pdf but I decided to go with React-pdf because of its developer-friendly documentation.
The library was built by Diego Muracciole and also maintained by him.
So in the tutorial/ blog post, I will try to explain briefly how react-pdf works and also walk you through how to generate PDf from an array of objects coming from the Moviedb Api.

Features

While going through the documentation when I was trying to pick the appropriate library for my use-case there were some features of React-pdf that convinced me to use it, I will briefly talk about them:

Components

React-Pdf uses React-Primitives spec to create custom components that you can use to create and structure your PDF documents.
These components include:

  • Document
  • Page
  • View
  • Image
  • Text
  • Link
  • Note
  • Canvas
  • PDFViewer
  • PDFDownloadLink
  • BlobProvider

You can checkout the docs for more details on what each component above does, Basically the components about help you create pdf using JSXesques syntax.

Styling

Now that we have an idea of how to create the PDF document how do we style it? React-pdf provides powerful styling solution using the StyleSheet API which helps you style your document using CSS, Media queries and Flexbox. Check the docs for the CSS properties they support.
What if you are a big fan of CSS-in-JS? well, they also support the entire styled-components API.

Fonts

React-Pdf has a Font API that helps you load fonts from different sources and use in your PDF document.

Those were some of the features that made me pick React-pdf. Also when I checked the Github Repository the maintainer Diego Muracciole is quite active and tries to respond to most issues opened.

Demo

So I will briefly work you through a simple example of generating pdf from the MoviesDB API. This demo is going to demonstrate generating the best movies of the year.

Folder Structure 

project
│   package.json
│
│
└───Public
│   │   150.png
│   │   index.html
│   │   star.png
│
│
│
└───src
    │   Movie.jsx
    │   MovieList.jsx
    |   constant.js
    |   index.js
    |   styles.css
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index.js(entry)

import React from "react";
import ReactDOM from "react-dom";
import MovieList from "./MovieList";

import "./styles.css";

function App() {
    return (
        <div className="App">
              <MovieList />
        </div>
    );
}

const rootElement = document.getElementById("root");
ReactDOM.render(<App />, rootElement);
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The index.js is the entry point of the application. It renders the <MovieList/> which is the parent component of our application.

MovieList.jsx

import React, { useState } from "react";
import Axios from "axios";
import { PDFDownloadLink } from "@react-pdf/renderer";
import { API_KEY } from "./constants";
import { PdfDocument } from "./Movie";

const years = [
  { value: "2010", text: "2010" },
  { value: "2011", text: "2011" },
  { value: "2012", text: "2012" },
  { value: "2013", text: "2013" },
  { value: "2014", text: "2014" },
  { value: "2015", text: "2015" },
  { value: "2016", text: "2016" },
  { value: "2017", text: "2017" },
  { value: "2018", text: "2018" },
  { value: "2019", text: "2019" }
];

export default function MovieList() {
  const [year, setYear] = useState("");
  const [movieDetails, setDetails] = useState([]);
  const [show, setHide] = useState(false)

  const fetchMovie = async e => {
    setYear(e.target.value);
    try {
      let res = await Axios(
        `https://api.themoviedb.org/3/discover/movie?api_key=${API_KEY}&primary_release_year=${year}&sort_by=vote_average.desc`
      );
      setDetails(res.data.results);
      setHide(true)
    } catch (error) {
      console.log(error);
    }
  };

  return (
    <div className="container">
      <h2>Best movies of the year</h2>
      <label htmlFor="movies">Select Year</label>
      <select id="movies" className="select" onChange={fetchMovie}>
        <option defaultValue="" disabled>
          Select your option
        </option>
        {years.map((year, index) => {
          return (
            <option key={index} value={year.value}>
              {year.text}
            </option>
          );
        })}
      </select>
      {show &&<PDFDownloadLink
        document={<PdfDocument data={movieDetails} />}
        fileName="movielist.pdf"
        style={{
          textDecoration: "none",
          padding: "10px",
          color: "#4a4a4a",
          backgroundColor: "#f2f2f2",
          border: "1px solid #4a4a4a"
        }}
      >
        {({ blob, url, loading, error }) =>
          loading ? "Loading document..." : "Download Pdf"
        }
      </PDFDownloadLink>}
    </div>
  );
}
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The MovieList.jsx component contains most of the logic in this application. we import PDFDownloadLink from @react-pdf/renderer, this is basically an anchor tag that enables us to generate and download PDF documents. PDFDownloadLink accepts a document props which are the PDF template we will be creating soon using some of the React-primitives listed early in this post. It also accepts a filename prop that can be used to define the filename of the PDF document, a style prop to add inline styling to the link tag, a className prop if you prefer using classes to style and children prop which is the anchor tag contents.

Movie.jsx

import React from "react";
import {
    Page,
    Text,
    View,
    Document,
    StyleSheet,
    Image
} from "@react-pdf/renderer";
import moment from "moment";

const POSTER_PATH = "https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154";

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
    page: {
        backgroundColor: "#ffffff"
    },
    section: {
        margin: 10,
        padding: 10,
        flexGrow: 1
    },
    movieContainer: {
        backgroundColor: "#f6f6f5",
        display: "flex",
        flexDirection: "row",
        padding: 5
    },
    movieDetails: {
        display: "flex",
        marginLeft: 5
    },
    movieTitle: {
        fontSize: 15,
        marginBottom: 10
    },
    movieOverview: {
        fontSize: 10
    },

    image: {
        height: 200,
        width: 150
    },
    subtitle: {
        display: "flex",
        justifyContent: "space-between",
        flexDirection: "row",
        width: 150,
        alignItems: "center",
        marginBottom: 12
    },
    vote: {
        display: "flex",
        flexDirection: "row"
    },
    rating: {
        height: 10,
        width: 10
    },
    vote_text: {
        fontSize: 10
    },
    vote_pop: {
        fontSize: 10,
        padding: 2,
        backgroundColor: "#61C74F",
        color: "#fff"
    },
    vote_pop_text: {
        fontSize: 10,
        marginLeft: 4
    },
    overviewContainer: {
        minHeight: 110
    },
    detailsFooter: {
        display: "flex",
        flexDirection: "row"
    },
    lang: {
        fontSize: 8,
        fontWeight: 700
    },
    vote_average: {
        fontSize: 8,
        marginLeft: 4,
        fontWeight: "bold"
    }
});

export function PdfDocument(props) {
    console.log("pdf props", props.data);
    return (
        <Document>
            <Page style={styles.page}>
                {props.data
                    ? props.data.map((a, index) => {
                            return (
                                <View key={index} style={styles.movieContainer}>
                                    <Image
                                        style={styles.image}
                                        source={
                                            a.poster_path !== null
                                                ? `${POSTER_PATH}${a.poster_path}`
                                                : "150.jpg"
                                        }
                                    />
                                    <View style={styles.movieDetails}>
                                        <Text style={styles.movieTitle}>{a.title}</Text>
                                        <View style={styles.subtitle}>
                                            <View style={styles.vote}>
                                                <Image source="star.png" style={styles.rating} />
                                                <Text style={styles.vote_text}>{a.vote_count}</Text>
                                            </View>
                                            <View style={styles.vote}>
                                                <Text style={styles.vote_pop}>{a.popularity}</Text>
                                                <Text style={styles.vote_pop_text}>Popularity</Text>
                                            </View>
                                        </View>
                                        <View style={styles.overviewContainer}>
                                            <Text style={styles.movieOverview}>{a.overview}</Text>
                                        </View>
                                        <View style={styles.detailsFooter}>
                                            <Text style={styles.lang}>
                                                Language: {a.original_language.toUpperCase()}
                                            </Text>
                                            <Text style={styles.vote_average}>
                                                Average Votes: {a.vote_average}
                                            </Text>
                                            <Text style={styles.vote_average}>
                                                Release Date:{" "}
                                                {moment(a.release_date, "YYYY-MM-DD").format(
                                                    " MMMM D Y"
                                                )}
                                            </Text>
                                        </View>
                    </View>
                    </View>
                );
                })
            : ""}
            </Page>
        </Document>
    );
}
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This Movie.jsx component is the template of the PDF we are generating, Here we define how the structure of the PDF using React-primitives(VIEW, DOCUMENT) and also style. So I'd briefly talk about the some of React-pdf API's I used here.

  • StyleSheet.create() : It helps you define the styles you want to use in the document, It accepts an object containing all the CSS you want to use in the Document and it returns an object which you can apply to any of the PDF elements via the style prop.

  • Document : The PDFDownloadLink document prop accepts only a component of type Document so this must be the root of your components when creating the PDF template and accepts only child of type Page, The Document is simply a wrapper around your PDF template and it accepts some optional props

  • Page : This indicates a Page in the document and you can have multiple Pages in a document. It accepts some props to define the size of the page, orientation or if you want page wrapping wrap. props

  • View : I will like to compare this component to the HTML div, it helps you section or divide the document. props

  • Text : This component is used for displaying text on the document and applying styles to it. props

  • Image : This component is used for displaying images(network or local) on the document, these images could be PNG, JPG or base64.

Demo Application

Conclusion

Before I used this library I never thought it was possible to generate PDF on the client-side, Not only does react-pdf allow you do that but get to use JSXesque syntax to structure and design the PDF document. I know the demo is quite trivial but I think this library might be useful in some use cases.

Top comments (24)

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unionindesign profile image
Stephen Marshall •

Thanks for this! If anyone is curious about a real-life use case, I'm doing the same thing at work right now...

  • Digital mktg team: We need to generate a 35 page PDF SEO report with all the stats!
  • Seo team: OK! Go to our SEO service provider, and get the data you need from their GUI!
  • Digital mktg team: Umm, that's a lot of steps and takes a long time/not very efficient way to generate such a lengthy report! And we need to make a lot them!
  • Business Intelligence (Me): Say no more! I'll build a react app, and make an API call to get the data we need, and generate the report on the fly so you can download it!
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lexiebkm profile image
Alexander B.K. •

I probably have visited React-pdf site several months ago, I am not sure. But then I found pdfmake, I tried it and it met my requirements, so I have been using it until now.
However, maybe I will give React-Pdf a try.

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retzion profile image
Reuven Etzion •

Could not find module in path: '@react-pdf/unicode-properties' relative to '/node_modules/@react-pdf/fontkit/dist/fontkit.browser.es.js'

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esperantkela profile image
Espérant Kela • • Edited

hello nero

I am using @react-pdf render for my react application.

it generated the component in pdf, the problem now is at the level of display of the data coming from my api which are saved in html tags. it displays like this:

<h1>My Title</h1>
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or I would like it to display without the tags. there is also no way to use dangerouslySetInnerHTML

please kindly help me. I'm stuck on it

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kirlisakal profile image
kirlisakal •

In this example, I can quickly get PDF doc, however, on my project, I want to get data-table report, and it is too slow... after 5 minutes, I canceled.
Do you think is there a reason for this?

Here is my code:

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finallynero profile image
Nero Adaware •

Can you a simple demo in codesandbox

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kirlisakal profile image
kirlisakal •

Hi Nero,
There are PDF Render codes on my question post, jsFiddle, HTML section.
fields and records array, and this is simple structure.

I guess, for each styling property, renderer works too much. When try to minimize styling it renders quicker.

Thread Thread
 
airtonix profile image
Zenobius Jiricek •
  1. you're not include react or react-pdf in that fiddle. ( jsfiddle.net/y2nu9ek7 )
  2. you've just put the jsx in the html section.

Like Nero says.... if you want help from anyone put your example up on a sandbox that properly supports playing with react.

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alexand72192972 profile image
Alexander Chavers •

What is the proper way to reference the source for images stored as a byte array? I get a PDF to generate just fine, but only with URLs, not using my incoming byte arrays.

Currently looking at something like this:

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siddharth0x profile image
Siddharth • • Edited

I am using a similar logic, but it's making my page unresponsive.
Can someone help
this.state.prescription - is the state variable where api response is stored

{Object.keys(this.state.prescription).length > 0 ? <PDFDownloadLink document={<DownloadPrescription prescription={this.state.prescription} />} fileName="prescription.pdf">
                            <i class="bi bi-download section1_row_icons"></i>
                        </PDFDownloadLink> : null}
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sagar1987 profile image
sagar-1987 •

Hello Nero its a wonderful solution , Thanks for that , I have a requirement where i have a download button in a table rows , so on click of download button of a specific row of table i need make a API call to get the details which need to be displayed in PDF, How can we achieve this using this solution . Thanks . Waiting for the reply :)

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kritikgarg profile image
kritikgarg • • Edited

👏 Thank you for sharing an excellent post, Nero! It's amazing to see how React-pdf simplifies the process of generating PDF documents in React. 👨‍💻 As a developer, I found this very helpful for those who want to incorporate PDF generation into their React applications. 📄💻

👉 Along with this, I recently came across an informative article on Effortlessly Generate PDF Quotes with Salesforce that provides a complete guide on how to generate PDF quotes with Salesforce. It's a great resource for those who are looking to generate quote PDFs in Salesforce. 📄💻

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lexiebkm profile image
Alexander B.K. •

I have tried it yesterday. Seeing that the document used JSX, I thought it could contain HTML element. But I was disappointed, because it didn't support HTML element at all. My goal is to use HTML table in this react-pdf library, because my app deals with data records that will be displayed in tabular format, like in HTML table.
This means I still have to find my own way in order to display my data in tabular format, using only available features in this library : view, text and styles.

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airtonix profile image
Zenobius Jiricek •

You'd have to do something around the use of the Text component and some awesome styling to implement your own table

View full discussion (24 comments)

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