Ironpress

Pure rust HTML/CSS/Markdown to PDF converter. No browser, no system dependencies.

Try it in your browser | Parity dashboard | Wiki

Performance

| Document | Time | Pages/sec | |----------|------|-----------| | Simple HTML (<h1> + <p>) | 16 us | 62,500 | | Styled HTML (CSS, lists, links) | 71 us | 14,000 | | Markdown (headings, code, lists) | 141 us | 7,000 | | Table (5 rows, styled headers) | 341 us | 2,900 | | Full report (tables, flex, progress bars) | 587 us | 1,700 |

Chrome headless takes ~2,500 ms per page. ironpress is 4,000x faster.

Quick start

use ironpress::html_to_pdf;

let pdf = html_to_pdf("<h1>Hello</h1><p>World</p>").unwrap();
std::fs::write("output.pdf", pdf).unwrap();

let pdf = ironpress::markdown_to_pdf("# Hello\n\nWorld").unwrap();

CLI

cargo install ironpress

ironpress input.html output.pdf
ironpress document.md output.pdf
ironpress --page-size letter --landscape --margin 54 input.html output.pdf
ironpress --header "Report" --footer "Page {page} of {pages}" input.html output.pdf
echo '<h1>Hello</h1>' | ironpress --stdin output.pdf

Builder API

use ironpress::{HtmlConverter, PageSize, Margin};

let pdf = HtmlConverter::new()
    .page_size(PageSize::LETTER)
    .margin(Margin::uniform(54.0))
    .header("My Document")
    .footer("Page {page} of {pages}")
    .convert("<h1>Custom page</h1>")
    .unwrap();

Features at a glance

| Area | Highlights | Details | |------|-----------|---------| | HTML | 50+ elements: headings, tables, lists, forms, media, <img>, inline <svg> | Layout Engine | | CSS | Flexbox, grid, multi-column, calc(), variables, @media, @page, @font-face | CSS Support | | Fonts | Base-14 PDF fonts, custom TTF embedding with subsetting, system font discovery, Unicode/CJK fallback | Font System | | Math | LaTeX via $...$ / $$...$$: fractions, roots, matrices, Greek, operators | Math Engine | | SVG | Vector rendering: path, shapes, gradients, transforms, clip paths, viewBox | Layout Engine | | Images | JPEG + PNG, data URIs, local files, remote URLs (remote feature) | Architecture | | PDF | PDF 1.4, bookmarks, link annotations, headers/footers, gradients, streaming output | PDF Rendering | | WASM | npm install ironpress - runs 100% client-side in the browser | WASM & Playground | | Testing | 2200+ unit tests, property-based tests, 6 fuzz targets, parity dashboard | Testing Strategy |

Custom fonts

let pdf = HtmlConverter::new()
    .add_font("Inter", std::fs::read("Inter.ttf").unwrap())
    .convert(r#"<p style="font-family: Inter">Shaped with HarfBuzz</p>"#)
    .unwrap();

Fonts are shaped with rustybuzz, subset to used glyphs only, and embedded as CIDFontType2. Characters outside WinAnsi (CJK, Arabic, emoji) are rendered via automatic Unicode font fallback. See Font System.

Math

The equation $E = mc^2$ is famous.

$$\sum_{k=1}^{n} k = \frac{n(n+1)}{2}$$

Full LaTeX support: fractions, roots, matrices, Greek letters, operators, delimiters, accents. See Math Engine.

Python / Ruby

pip install ironpress

import ironpress
pdf = ironpress.html_to_pdf("<h1>Hello</h1>")

gem install ironpress

require "ironpress"
pdf = Ironpress.html_to_pdf("<h1>Hello</h1>")

WASM

npm install ironpress

import init, { htmlToPdf, markdownToPdf } from 'ironpress';
await init();

const pdf = htmlToPdf('<h1>Hello</h1>');
const blob = new Blob([pdf], { type: 'application/pdf' });

See WASM & Playground.

Security

HTML is sanitized by default: <script>, <iframe>, event handlers, and javascript: URLs are stripped. Resources are sandboxed (local-only by default, 10 MB cap). SVG sanitizer strips dangerous elements. PNG decompression capped at 50 MB. Disable with .sanitize(false) if you trust the input.

How it works

HTML/Markdown → Sanitize → Parse (html5ever) → Style cascade → Layout engine → PDF 1.4

See Architecture for the full pipeline.

License

MIT