@qrcommunication/gigapdf-lib

TypeScript SDK for gigapdf-lib — a zero-dependency Rust→WASM PDF engine. Read, edit, render, OCR, search, sign, encrypt, fill forms, annotate, and convert PDFs ↔ Office/HTML/RTF. The engine .wasm is self-contained: no third-party runtime dependencies.

Install

pnpm add @qrcommunication/gigapdf-lib
# or: npm i @qrcommunication/gigapdf-lib

Quick start

import { GigaPdfEngine } from "@qrcommunication/gigapdf-lib";

// Node: loads the bundled gigapdf.wasm from the package.
const giga = await GigaPdfEngine.loadDefault();

// Browser / explicit control: pass a URL, Response, or bytes.
// const giga = await GigaPdfEngine.load("/gigapdf.wasm");

const doc = giga.open(pdfBytes); // Uint8Array

// Read
const lines = doc.structuredText(1); // [{ text, x, y, w, h }]
const hits = doc.search("invoice"); // [{ page, text, x, y, w, h }]
const words = doc.ocr(1, 2); // OCR a scanned page at 2× scale

// Edit (operates on the real content stream — no cosmetic overlay)
doc.replaceText(1, 0, "New value");
doc.redact(1, 72, 700, 180, 14); // physically remove content in a region
doc.addHighlight(1, 72, 690, 252, 704, 0xffff00);

// Convert
const docx = doc.toDocx(); // also: toPptx/toOdp/toOdt/toXlsx/toOds/toHtml/toText/toRtf/toPdfA
const png = doc.renderPage(1, 2); // rasterize a page

// Save
const out = doc.save(); // or doc.saveCompressed()
doc.close();

Office / HTML / RTF → PDF

const fromDocx = giga.officeToPdf(officeBytes); // docx/xlsx/pptx/odt/ods/odp auto-detected
const fromHtml = giga.htmlToPdf("<h1>Hello</h1>");
const fromRtf = giga.rtfToPdf(rtfString);

Build an interactive form (no pdf-lib)

// Coordinates are PDF user space (origin bottom-left): [x0, y0, x1, y1].
doc.addTextField(1, "fullname", [50, 700, 300, 720], "", { maxLen: 60 });
doc.addCheckbox(1, "subscribe", [50, 670, 64, 684], true, { export: "Yes" });
doc.addRadioGroup(1, "plan", [
  { export: "Basic", rect: [50, 640, 64, 654] },
  { export: "Pro", rect: [80, 640, 94, 654] },
], { selected: "Pro" });
doc.addComboBox(1, "country", [50, 610, 200, 626], ["FR", "US", "DE"], { selected: "FR" });
doc.addListBox(1, "langs", [50, 540, 200, 600], ["en", "fr", "de"], { multi: true });

// Optional per-field styling.
doc.addTextField(1, "vat", [50, 510, 200, 528], "", {
  style: { fontSize: 11, color: 0x102030, border: 0x888888, background: 0xf5f5f5 },
});

const filled = doc.fields(); // read them straight back: kind + value + options

Fonts — three sources, no host font files required

// 1. Base-14 standard fonts — no embedding, no network.
doc.addStandardText(1, 72, 720, 24, "Heading", "Helvetica-Bold", 0x111111);
doc.addStandardText(1, 72, 690, 12, "body in Times", "Times-Roman");

// 2. Any family / Google Font — the host fetches, the engine embeds. embedFont
//    accepts any outline file: glyf .ttf OR OpenType-CFF .otf (auto-detected).
const url = giga.fontRequestUrl("Roboto", 400); // Google Fonts CSS2 URL
const css = await (await fetch(url, { headers: { "User-Agent": "Mozilla/4.0" } })).text();
const ttf = new Uint8Array(await (await fetch(giga.parseCssFontUrl(css))).arrayBuffer());
const fontObj = doc.embedFont("Roboto", ttf);
doc.addText(1, 72, 660, 18, "Selectable embedded text", fontObj, 0x111111);
// Font-aware editing: replace the run's text — re-encoded through Roboto's cmap.
doc.replaceText(1, doc.textRuns(1).length - 1, "Edited in the same font");

// 3. Reuse a face the PDF already embeds: list → extract → re-embed → draw.
const face = doc.embeddedFonts().find((f) => f.format === "truetype");
if (face) {
  const prog = doc.extractFont(face.baseFont)!;        // { format, bytes }
  const reused = doc.embedFont("Reused", prog.bytes);
  doc.addText(1, 72, 630, 14, "drawn in the document's own font", reused);
}

Recipes

Task-oriented snippets using the high-level classes. Each assumes const giga = await GigaPdfEngine.loadDefault() (Node) or GigaPdfEngine.load(url) (browser), Uint8Array in/out, and a final close().

Merge several PDFs

const doc = giga.open(first);                 // the base document
for (const extra of [second, third]) doc.appendPages(extra); // append every page
const merged = doc.saveCompressed();
doc.close();

Split — extract a page range into a new PDF

const doc = giga.open(pdfBytes);
const partA = doc.extractPages([1, 2, 3]);    // a NEW, self-contained PDF…
const partB = doc.extractPages([4, 5, 6]);    // …links / fields / dests to dropped pages pruned
doc.close();

Encrypt (AES-256) and re-open

// `fileId` is the document /ID (any stable string). AES-256 auto-generates the
// 32-byte key via Web Crypto; pass `opts.keySeed` to supply your own.
const locked = doc.saveEncrypted("user-pw", "doc-001", {
  ownerPassword: "owner-pw",
  algorithm: "aes256",           // "rc4" | "aes128" | "aes256" (default)
  // permissions: -44,           // PDF permission bitmask (optional)
});
doc.close();

const reopened = giga.openEncrypted(locked, "user-pw"); // null on a wrong password
reopened?.close();
// Inspect without opening:
const info = giga.encryptionInfo(locked); // { encrypted, permissions, version, revision }

Digital signature

// (a) Self-signed — an ephemeral digital ID. `random` ≥ 256 host-entropy bytes.
//     fields = "name\treason\tdate\tnotBefore\tnotAfter" (PDF date strings).
const fields = "Jane Doe\tApproved\tD:20260618120000Z\t260618000000Z\t360618000000Z";
const random = crypto.getRandomValues(new Uint8Array(256));
const signed = doc.sign(fields, random);

// (b) PKCS#12 — your CA / eIDAS certificate + RSA key (.p12/.pfx), imported
//     natively. Throws on a wrong password / malformed file.
const signed2 = doc.signP12(p12Bytes, "p12-password", {
  name: "Jane Doe",
  reason: "I approve this document",
  date: "D:20260618120000Z",
  location: "Paris",
});
doc.close();

Annotate, then flatten

doc.addHighlight(1, 72, 690, 252, 704, 0xffff00);
doc.addTextNote(1, 300, 700, 0xff0000, { contents: "Check this clause", author: "Reviewer" });
doc.addSquare(1, 60, 680, 264, 712, 0xff0000, null);   // stroke red, no fill
const all = doc.annotations(1);                         // read back, with full metadata
doc.flattenAnnotations(1);                              // bake into page content (non-interactive)
const out = doc.save();
doc.close();

HTML + CSS → PDF with auto-fetched Google Fonts

import type { HtmlFontRequest, HtmlFont } from "@qrcommunication/gigapdf-lib";

// Phase 1: ask the engine which fonts the HTML needs; the HOST fetches them
// (the wasm has no network). Phase 2: render with those fonts embedded.
async function fetchFonts(reqs: HtmlFontRequest[]): Promise<HtmlFont[]> {
  return Promise.all(reqs.map(async (r) => {
    const css = await (await fetch(r.url, {
      headers: { "User-Agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0)" }, // → TTF, not WOFF2
    })).text();
    const ttf = new Uint8Array(await (await fetch(giga.parseCssFontUrl(css))).arrayBuffer());
    return { family: r.family, weight: r.weight, italic: r.italic, ttf };
  }));
}

const html = `<body style="font-family: Roboto"><h1>Invoice</h1><p>Net 30.</p></body>`;
const fonts = await fetchFonts(giga.htmlNeededFonts(html));
const pdf = giga.htmlRender(html, fonts, 595, 842, 36);  // A4 in points, 36pt margin
// Named sizes, per-side margins and a header/footer with {{page}}/{{pages}} tokens:
// giga.htmlRenderWith(html, fonts, { pageSize: "A4", header, footer });

Make a scanned PDF searchable (OCR → invisible text layer)

const doc = giga.open(scannedPdf);
const scale = 2;                                  // rasterise at 2× = 144 dpi for OCR
for (let page = 1; page <= doc.pageCount(); page++) {
  const { height } = doc.pageInfo(page);
  const words = doc.ocr(page, scale);             // OcrWord[] in raster pixels (top-left)
  // Map each word box back to PDF user space (bottom-left, Y up) and stamp an
  // invisible (render-mode 3) text layer — selectable & searchable, pixel-aligned.
  doc.addTextLayer(page, words.map((w) => ({
    x: w.x / scale,
    y: height - (w.y + w.h) / scale,
    size: w.h / scale,
    text: w.text,
  })));
}
const searchable = doc.save();
doc.close();

Metadata & bookmarks (outline)

doc.setMetadata("Title", "Quarterly report");
doc.setMetadata("Author", "Finance");
doc.setOutline([
  { title: "Summary", level: 0, page: 1 },
  { title: "Details", level: 0, page: 2 },
  { title: "Appendix", level: 1, page: 5 },
]);
const out = doc.save();
doc.close();

Next.js (output: "standalone")

loadDefault() reads gigapdf.wasm from the package directory. In standalone output, add it to the route's outputFileTracingIncludes so it is copied into the bundle:

// next.config.ts
outputFileTracingIncludes: {
  "/api/pdf/*": ["./node_modules/@qrcommunication/gigapdf-lib/gigapdf.wasm"],
}

Or call GigaPdfEngine.load(bytes) with bytes you read yourself.

API surface

Full, per-method reference: docs/SDK.md documents every method (parameters, return, notes) grouped by domain. Exact signatures and defaults also ship in the bundled .d.ts.

• GigaPdfEngine — load/loadDefault, open/openEncrypted, txtToPdf/htmlToPdf/rtfToPdf/officeToPdf, fontCatalog/fontRequestUrl/parseCssFontUrl.
• GigaPdfDoc — text intelligence (textRuns, structuredText, search, ocr, ocrText, elements, elementAt), editing (replaceText, removeElement, moveElement, duplicateElement, redact), vector drawing (addRectangle, drawLine, addEllipse, addPolygon, addPath (SVG path), addImage (PNG/JPEG, alpha + opacity)), pages (rotatePage, deletePage, movePage, appendPages, extractPages, resizePage, addPage, copyPage, pageInfo), renderPage, fonts (base-14 addStandardText, embed any TrueType/OpenType via embedFont/addText, font-aware editing replaceText, the document's own faces embeddedFonts/extractFont, neededFonts), conversions (toText/Html/Docx/Pptx/Odp/Odt/Xlsx/Ods/Rtf/PdfA, plus engine-level gridsToXlsx/gridsToOds to emit Office output from a host-built table grid), security (saveEncrypted, self-signed sign, PKCS#12 signP12), metadata (getMetadata, setMetadata), embedded files (attachments — extract every /EmbeddedFiles entry with its decoded bytes), annotations (addSquare, addHighlight, addLineAnnotation, addFreeText, addUnderline, addStrikeOut, addInk, addStamp, annotations, removeAnnotation, flattenAnnotations), links (links, addUriLink, addGotoLink, named destinations addNamedDest/namedDests/addGotoLinkNamed), outline (outline, setOutline), forms — read/fill (fields, setTextField, setCheckbox, setRadio, setChoice) and create (addTextField, addCheckbox, addRadioGroup, addComboBox, addListBox, each with an optional FieldStyle), and optional-content layers (layers, addLayer, setLayerVisibility, setLayerLocked, removeLayer).
• HTML rendering engine (on GigaPdfEngine) — htmlNeededFonts(html) returns the Google fonts to download (phase 1); htmlRender(html, fonts, pageW?, pageH?, margin?) renders HTML + CSS to PDF with those fonts embedded (phase 2). No headless browser. Block / inline / table / flex (flex-direction, justify-content, flex-grow) / grid (grid-template-columns) layout, selector cascade, pagination, and forced page breaks via CSS page-break-before|after: always / break-*: page or a <pagebreak> tag. See the exhaustive list of supported HTML elements, CSS properties, units, colours and selectors in docs/HTML-CSS.md.
• JavaScript — a document's inline <script>s run before layout through a built-in zero-dependency JS engine (no Chromium/Playwright), so script-driven content is rendered. It covers classes + super, closures, destructuring, RegExp, Map/Set, Symbol, eval/Function, and DOM bindings (document.getElementById, querySelector(All) with >/+/~/[attr], textContent, innerHTML, createElement/appendChild, classList, style). function*/async bodies compile to a suspendable bytecode VM, so generators are truly lazy (infinite generators, bidirectional .next(v), yield*) and await yields with spec microtask ordering. This happens automatically inside htmlRender/htmlNeededFonts — no extra call needed.

Every method is fully typed. Always close() a document when done to free the WASM handle.

License

PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0 © Rony Licha / QR Communication. Free for noncommercial use; a commercial license is required otherwise. See LICENSE.