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Managing PDFs in Node with pdf-lib

Blog post from LogRocket

Post Details
Company
Date Published
Author
Joseph Mawa
Word Count
2,685
Language
-
Hacker News Points
-
Summary

PDFs are a widely-used document format known for their ease of creation, consistent appearance across platforms, and security features such as password protection. However, the JavaScript ecosystem has traditionally lacked robust tools for PDF manipulation, a gap filled by the pdf-lib package. This open-source, feature-rich library supports environments like Node.js, Deno, React Native, and browsers, enabling users to create, modify, and manipulate PDFs. Key functionalities include creating new PDFs, adding text and images, modifying existing documents, merging, removing, and inserting pages, and managing metadata and page numbers. Despite its capabilities, pdf-lib has limitations, such as the inability to handle encrypted documents or integrate HTML and CSS content. The package's versatility in different environments and its comprehensive documentation make it a valuable tool for developers needing to manage PDF documents programmatically.