pdfy

Convert web articles to PDF using the Reader View Chrome extension and headless Chrome (Puppeteer).

Features

• 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 (configurable style)
• 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, or path to a local HTML file

Options:
  -t, --theme <theme>        Reader View theme (light, dark, sepia, groove-dark, solarized-light, solarized-dark, nord-light, nord-dark)
  --highlight-style <style>  highlight.js style (e.g. github, monokai, solarized-light, atom-one-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 /path/to/saved/page.html
node src/index.js https://example.com/article --theme dark --css config/rules.css
node src/index.js /path/to/saved/page.html --theme dark --highlight-style monokai
node src/index.js https://example.com/article --prefs config/reader-view-preferences.json
node src/index.js https://example.com/article --highlight-style monokai
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
highlightStyle	string	'github'	highlight.js style name
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.

HTTP Server

Run as a headless service via Docker or directly with Node:

# Start server
npm run start:server

# Or via Docker
docker compose up -d

Endpoints

POST /convert   Generate a PDF from a URL
GET  /health    Health check (browser status, uptime)
GET  /          Help page

Usage

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/convert \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://example.com/article","theme":"dark"}' \
  -o article.pdf

Body field	Type	Description
url	string	Article URL (required unless html is provided)
theme	string	Reader View theme
css	string	Custom CSS string
highlightStyle	string	highlight.js style (default: "github")
html	string	Pre-fetched HTML (bypasses URL fetch)
prefs	object	Extension preferences

Credits

• Reader View Chrome extension
• Mozilla Readability
• Puppeteer
• highlight.js