Express Guide

Generate PDFs in your Express.js app with Deckle.

Generate PDFs in Express

Add PDF generation to an Express.js application.

1. Install

npm install @getdeckle/sdk express

2. Set Up

// server.ts
import express from 'express';
import { Deckle } from '@getdeckle/sdk';

const app = express();
app.use(express.json());

const df = new Deckle(process.env.DECKLE_API_KEY!);

// Generate PDF from HTML
app.post('/api/generate', async (req, res) => {
  try {
    const pdf = await df.generate({
      html: req.body.html,
      options: req.body.options,
    });
    res.json(pdf);
  } catch (err) {
    res.status(500).json({ error: err.message });
  }
});

// Generate invoice from template
app.post('/api/invoices/:id/pdf', async (req, res) => {
  // Fetch invoice data from your database
  const invoice = await getInvoice(req.params.id);

  const pdf = await df.fromTemplate({
    template: 'tmpl_invoice_v2',
    data: {
      company: invoice.customerName,
      items: invoice.lineItems,
      total: invoice.total,
    },
  });

  res.json(pdf);
});

app.listen(3000, () => console.log('Server running on :3000'));

3. Download Endpoint

// Proxy the PDF download
app.get('/api/invoices/:id/download', async (req, res) => {
  const invoice = await getInvoice(req.params.id);

  const pdf = await df.fromTemplate({
    template: 'tmpl_invoice_v2',
    data: invoice,
    output: 'base64',
  });

  const buffer = Buffer.from(pdf.data!, 'base64');
  res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/pdf');
  res.setHeader('Content-Disposition', `attachment; filename="invoice-${req.params.id}.pdf"`);
  res.send(buffer);
});