How to Generate PDF from HTML with Playwright with using NodeJs (Updated 2025)

Step 01: Setting Up Playwright for HTML to PDF Conversion

First, ensure Node.js is installed on your machine. If not, download it from nodejs.org.

Then, install Playwright via npm:

npm

This command automatically includes all necessary browser engines (Chromium, Firefox, WebKit).

Step 02: Generating Your First "Hello World" PDF

Creating a PDF with Playwright involves running a simple Node.js script. Let's create our first basic example:

Alternative 01: Generating PDF from a URL

Here’s how you can generate a PDF from any URL:

const { chromium } = require('playwright');

(async () => {
  const browser = await chromium.launch();
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  await page.goto('https://example.com');
  await page.pdf({ path: 'example.pdf', format: 'A4' });
  await browser.close();
})();

This script:

• Opens a headless Chromium browser

• Navigates to your chosen URL

• Saves the resulting PDF

Alternative 02: Generating PDF from an HTML File

If you already have an HTML file or a raw HTML string, follow these steps:

Directly using a string without a file:

const { chromium } = require('playwright');

(async () => {
  const browser = await chromium.launch();
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  const htmlContent = '<h1>Hello World</h1><p>This is your first PDF generated by Playwright.</p>';
  await page.setContent(htmlContent);
  await page.pdf({ path: 'hello-world.pdf', format: 'A4' });
  await browser.close();
})();

Playwright Print Configurations (Footer, Header, Margins, etc.)

Playwright allows detailed customizations, such as setting headers, footers, margins, and more:

await page.pdf({
  path: 'configured.pdf',
  format: 'Letter',
  margin: { top: '20px', bottom: '20px' },
  displayHeaderFooter: true,
  headerTemplate: '<span style="font-size:10px;">Header content</span>',
  footerTemplate: '<span style="font-size:10px;">Page <span class="pageNumber"></span></span>'
});

Refer to the Playwright Print Configuration documentation for more detailed options.

Using HTML Template Engines

For dynamic HTML generation, template engines like Handlebars, EJS, or Pug can streamline the process. Here’s an example using Handlebars:

const handlebars = require('handlebars');
const template = handlebars.compile('<h1>{{title}}</h1><p>{{content}}</p>');
const html = template({ title: 'Hello', content: 'Generated PDF content.' });

await page.setContent(html);
await page.pdf({ path: 'templated.pdf', format: 'A4' });

Step 03: Creating a Serverless Architecture to Scale PDF Generation

Playwright can be resource-intensive, consuming significant memory and processing power when rendering complex HTML content. To efficiently handle high volumes of PDF generation requests, using a serverless architecture like AWS Lambda is highly beneficial. This approach reduces costs by scaling automatically and only consuming resources when needed.

Note that you must install the browser engine (e.g., Chromium) on the Lambda layer or any other serverless service you're using. While various installation guides exist online, what worked best for me was using a dockerized container to install the browser engine effectively.

I’ve prepared a detailed step-by-step guide to help you set this up, available here.

Alternative: Scale PDF Generation with Third-Party APIs

For larger SaaS platforms requiring automated PDF generation at scale, if you're developing using no-code platforms like Bubble or creating automation workflows using platforms like n8n, make or zapier, integrating a PDF Generation API like pdforge can offload the heavy lifting.

With pdforge, you can create beautiful PDF documents in minutes using our AI-first PDF Generation. You can fine-tune de design with an easy-to-use opinionated no-code builder and start generating PDFs using our API or native integration with no-code tools. Let the AI do the heavy lifting by generating your templates, creating custom components or even filling all the variables for you.

You can handle high-volume PDF generation from a single backend call.

Here’s an example of how to generate pdf with pdforge via an API call:

fetch('https://api.pdforge.com/v1/pdf/sync', {
  method: 'POST',
  body: JSON.stringify({ templateId: 'your-template' , data: {html:'your-html' } }),
  headers: { 'Authorization' : 'Bearer your-api-key' }
});

You can create your account, experience our no-code builder and create your first layout template without any upfront payment clicking here.

If you prefer a managed service, third-party APIs like pdforge offer scalable HTML-to-PDF generation without infrastructure setup or design changes management from you. These solutions manage everything from HTML template rendering to PDF delivery.

Conclusion

Playwright is a robust, versatile tool for generating PDFs from HTML. Its ability to render pixel-perfect PDFs, combined with rapidly increasing popularity, positions it as an exceptional solution for generating high-quality PDFs with complex layouts at scale.

If you don't want to waste time maintaining pdfs layouts and their infrastructure or if you don't want to keep track of best practices to generate PDFs at scale, third-party PDF APIs like pdforge will save you hours of work and deliver a high quality pdf layout.