Reputation: 15524
In my Node/Express app I have the following code, which suppose to read a PDF document from a file, and send it to the browser:
var file = fs.createReadStream('./public/modules/datacollectors/output.pdf', 'binary');
var stat = fs.statSync('./public/modules/datacollectors/output.pdf');
res.setHeader('Content-Length', stat.size);
res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/pdf');
res.setHeader('Content-Disposition', 'attachment; filename=quote.pdf');
res.pipe(file, 'binary');
res.end();
I do not get any errors, but I do not get the file in my browser either. What am I doing wrong?
Upvotes: 62
Views: 161769
Reputation: 83
If you are using the Swagger/OpenAPI then you can look in responses section of below code.
/api/pdf_from_html:
post:
tags:
- PDF
description: Create PDF from html
produces:
- application/pdf
consumes:
- application/json
parameters:
- name: contents
description: HTML content to convert to pdf
in: body
required: true
schema:
$ref: "#/definitions/pdf"
responses:
200:
description: Returns a PDF encoded in base64
content:
application/pdf:
schema:
type: string
format: base64
Upvotes: 0
Reputation: 1
i guess it is simple if you want to show it in the browser change content disposition header to "inline" instead of "attachment; filename=quote.pdf" inline show it directly in the browser instead of download it, it worked fine for me
Upvotes: 0
Reputation: 601
Here's the easiest way:
app.get('/', (req, res) => res.download('./file.pdf'))
If this gives you trouble. Check the Express.js version or any middlewares that might be necessary.
Cheers
Upvotes: 15
Reputation: 802
I think I found your answer in another post Display PDF file in a browser using node js.
After testing your code in Chrome, it immediately starts the download of the PDF file. But if you want to display the content of the PDF file you could try below:
var data =fs.readFileSync('./public/modules/datacollectors/output.pdf');
res.contentType("application/pdf");
res.send(data);
This should directly send PDF content into the browser.
Hope this answers your question.
Upvotes: 53
Reputation: 75
Best way to download a PDF on REST API call.
var path = require('path');
var file = path.join(__dirname, 'file.pdf');
res.download(file, function (err) {
if (err) {
console.log("Error");
console.log(err);
} else {
console.log("Success");
}
});
Upvotes: 3
Reputation: 17498
You have to pipe from Readable Stream to Writable stream not the other way around:
var file = fs.createReadStream('./public/modules/datacollectors/output.pdf');
var stat = fs.statSync('./public/modules/datacollectors/output.pdf');
res.setHeader('Content-Length', stat.size);
res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/pdf');
res.setHeader('Content-Disposition', 'attachment; filename=quote.pdf');
file.pipe(res);
Also you are setting encoding in wrong way, pass an object with encoding if needed.
Upvotes: 96