macOS Node.js PDF library integration

This guide will help you run PDFTron samples and integrate a free trial of the PDFTron SDK into Node.js projects on Windows. Your free trial includes unlimited trial usage and support from solution engineers.

Get the npm package

linkPrerequisites

• Node.js Version: 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

linkInitial setup

Install the npm package:

npm install @pdftron/pdfnet-node

If your OS or Node.js version is not supported, the installation will fail.

PDFTron SDK for Node.js requires a shared library in the lib folder. There are 2 ways to do this.

• Option 1: Set up a DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable to include the lib folder for the dynamic loader. To set this in a persistent manner, it can be added to ~/.bash_profile, ortherwise it will be set in the current terminal only.

export DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH=<path to node_modules>/@pdftron/pdfnet-node/lib

• Option 2: Link to libPDFNetC.dylib from a pre-defined folder for shared libraries. Note that this operation will need to be performed again when upgrading to a newer version of PDFTron SDK for Node.js, otherwise the Node.js version would get out of sync with the native library.

ln -s -f <path to node_modules>/@pdftron/pdfnet-node/lib/PDFNetC.dylib /usr/local/lib/PDFNetC.dylib

linkRun the samples

1. Open a command line console
2. Change the directory to the samples folder
3. Run all samples:

sh runall.sh

You can also enter any individual sample folder to run them separately. For example, here's how to run the AddImageTest sample:

cd AddImageTest
sh RunTest.sh

linkIntegrate into your project

Import the PDFTron SDK by using the following in your Node.js code:

const { PDFNet } = require('@pdftron/pdfnet-node');

At the end of your code, don't forget to call PDFNet.shutdown(), otherwise your Node.js program will keep hanging.

Here is an example for creating a blank pdf page:

const { PDFNet } = require('@pdftron/pdfnet-node'); //you may need to set up NODE_PATH environment variable to make this work.

const main = async() => {
  try {
    const doc = await PDFNet.PDFDoc.create();
    let page = await doc.pageCreate();
    doc.pagePushBack(page);
    doc.save('blank.pdf', PDFNet.SDFDoc.SaveOptions.e_linearized);
  } catch (err) {
    console.log(err);
  }
};

PDFNet.runWithCleanup(main, 0).then(function(){PDFNet.shutdown();});

linkNext step

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