Extracts article content via Mozilla Readability
Renders using Reader View for clean typography
Supports all Reader View themes: light, dark, sepia, groove-dark, solarized-light, solarized-dark, nord-light, nord-dark
Custom CSS injection
Syntax highlighting via highlight.js
Automatic reading time estimation
Configurable extension preferences

Installation

npm install

The Reader View extension is downloaded and extracted automatically on first run.

CLI Usage

node src/index.js --help

Usage: pdfy [options] <url>

Arguments:
  url                      URL of the article to convert

Options:
  -t, --theme <theme>      Reader View theme (light, dark, sepia, groove-dark, solarized-light, solarized-dark, nord-light, nord-dark)
  -c, --css <path>         path to custom CSS file
  --config <path>          path to config file (.pdfyrc, .pdfyrc.json, pdfy.config.js)
  -p, --prefs <path>       path to extension preferences JSON
  -o, --output <path>      output file path (default: ./output/<title>.pdf)
  -l, --log-level <level>  logging level (fatal, error, warn, info, debug)
  -h, --help               display help for command

Configuration

pdfy automatically discovers a config file in the current directory. Supported formats:

.pdfyrc (JSON)
.pdfyrc.json (JSON)
pdfy.config.js (ESM module exporting a default object)

Example .pdfyrc:

{
  "theme": "dark",
  "css": "config/rules.css",
  "prefs": "config/reader-view-preferences.json",
  "output": "./output/article.pdf"
}

Example pdfy.config.js:

export default {
  theme: 'dark',
  css: 'config/rules.css',
  prefs: 'config/reader-view-preferences.json',
  output: './output/article.pdf'
}

CLI flags always override config file values. Use --config <path> to specify a custom config file location.

Examples

node src/index.js https://example.com/article
node src/index.js https://example.com/article --theme dark --css config/rules.css
node src/index.js https://example.com/article --prefs config/reader-view-preferences.json
node src/index.js https://example.com/article --config .pdfyrc
npm start -- https://example.com/article --theme dark --css config/rules.css

Running tests

npm test

The test script reads URLs from src/test/test.txt and runs multiple scenarios (default, dark, sepia, custom CSS, etc.).

Library Usage

Use pdfy programmatically in your own Node.js applications:

import { convert, launchBrowser, BotProtectionError, VALID_THEMES } from 'pdfy'

// Simple usage
const { title, pdfBuffer } = await convert('https://example.com/article')
fs.writeFileSync('article.pdf', pdfBuffer)

// With options
const result = await convert('https://example.com/article', {
  theme: 'dark',
  css: 'body { color: #333 }',
  prefs: { fontSize: 20 },
  output: './article.pdf'     // saves to disk and returns buffer
})
console.log(`Generated: ${result.title}`)

// Reuse browser across conversions (for servers)
const browser = await launchBrowser()
const a = await convert('https://example.com/1', { browser, theme: 'dark' })
const b = await convert('https://example.com/2', { browser, theme: 'sepia' })
await browser.close()

// Handle bot protection
try {
  await convert('https://example.com/article')
} catch (err) {
  if (err instanceof BotProtectionError) {
    // Prompt user to provide the article HTML manually
  }
}

API

convert(url, options?) — returns { title, pdfBuffer, outputPath }

Option	Type	Default	Description
`theme`	string	`'light'`	Reader View theme
`css`	string	`null`	Custom CSS string
`prefs`	object	`{}`	Extension preferences
`output`	string	`null`	File path to write PDF (returns buffer when omitted)
`browser`	Browser	`null`	Reuse a Puppeteer browser instance
`html`	string	`null`	Pre-fetched HTML content (skips URL fetch)

launchBrowser() — launches a Puppeteer browser with the Reader View extension loaded.

BotProtectionError — thrown when the target page appears to be behind bot protection.

README.md

pdfy

Features