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Guides for PDF development

Guides, tutorials, and tips for working with PDFs: from free tools to programmatic generation.

How we built a client-side PDF compressor (no uploads, text stays selectable)

Engineering deep-dive: recompressing images inside a PDF with pdf-lib, DecompressionStream, PNG predictors, and OffscreenCanvas workers, entirely in the browser.

Aug 6, 20268 min read

Business Documents

How to generate a purchase order PDF (template + API)

Generate purchase order PDFs from an HTML template with dynamic line items, then render with a headless browser or a hosted API. Node.js and Python code.

Aug 5, 202610 min read

PDF Security

How to add a digital signature to a PDF programmatically

Digitally sign a PDF in code: the difference between a visible signature image and a cryptographic PKCS#7 signature, with Node.js and Python libraries and an honest scope.

Aug 4, 202610 min read

PDF Manipulation

How to remove blank pages from a PDF (auto-detect, free)

Remove blank pages from a PDF automatically. Detect and delete empty pages in your browser, with Python (pypdf), or Node.js (pdf-lib and pdf.js), no upload.

Aug 4, 20269 min read

Developer Guides

How to render right-to-left (Arabic, Hebrew) text in PDF

Render Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian text correctly in HTML to PDF: set dir=rtl, load a font with the right glyphs, and let Chromium shape the bidi text.

Aug 3, 202611 min read

Use Cases

How to generate a PDF from Google Forms responses

Turn Google Forms submissions into PDFs automatically: an Apps Script on-submit trigger that maps responses to a template and renders a PDF, emailed or saved to Drive.

Aug 3, 202612 min read

Developer Guides

How to generate PDFs with Google Apps Script

Generate PDFs in Google Apps Script: the built-in getAs("application/pdf") for Docs and Sheets, HtmlService, or a hosted PDF4.dev API for full HTML and CSS control.

Aug 2, 20269 min read

PDF Manipulation

How to insert pages into a PDF (blank page or from another file)

Insert pages into a PDF at any position: add a blank page or copy pages from another file. Browser, Python (pypdf), Node.js (pdf-lib), and CLI methods.

Aug 2, 202610 min read

Developer Guides

How to add a table of contents to a PDF

Add a clickable table of contents and PDF bookmarks: build it from HTML anchors when converting with Chromium, or add outline entries to an existing PDF with pdf-lib.

Aug 1, 202611 min read

Developer Guides

PDF generation in Elixir: ChromicPDF, Phoenix, and a PDF API compared

Generate PDFs in Elixir and Phoenix: ChromicPDF for HTML to PDF via headless Chromium, pdf_generator, Gutenex, and a hosted PDF4.dev API, with code and tradeoffs.

Aug 1, 202611 min read

Developer Guides

PDF generation in Supabase Edge Functions

Generate PDFs from Supabase Edge Functions: why the Deno runtime has no Chromium, using pdf-lib or jsPDF, or calling a hosted PDF4.dev API for HTML to PDF.

Jul 31, 202610 min read

Comparisons

Dompdf vs mPDF: PHP HTML to PDF compared (2026)

Dompdf and mPDF both turn HTML into PDF in pure PHP. CSS support, fonts, tables, performance and which one to pick, plus when a browser engine wins.

Jul 30, 202612 min read

Developer Guides

PDF generation on Vercel Functions: what works and what does not

Generate PDFs on Vercel: serverless functions with Playwright and @sparticuz/chromium, why the Edge runtime cannot, plus a hosted PDF4.dev API that needs no browser.

Jul 29, 202610 min read

Developer Guides

How to generate multilingual PDFs from HTML (Chinese, Arabic, RTL, emoji)

Render Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, RTL text, and color emoji in HTML-to-PDF. Fix tofu boxes with the right fonts, unicode-range, and dir attributes.

Jul 29, 20268 min read

AI & PDF

How to generate PDFs from Cursor with an MCP server

Wire PDF4.dev into Cursor over MCP so the AI editor can create templates and render PDFs from your codebase. One-click config, the tools exposed, and a real workflow.

Jul 28, 20269 min read

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