nodejs-convert-file-server

Convert from MS Office, images to PDF, get thumbnails for file previews, optimize files for quick rendering.

Built with:

• Node.js
• Express.js
• PDFTron Node.js SDK

I put together a get started blog to walk through this project.

And you can follow this step-by-step video to recreate it yourself.

Installation

Clone the repo and run:

npm start

The server will be listening on port 9000. http://localhost:9000

Test

To test the proper functionality of the file server, you can run:

npm test

API Calls

List file directory

The endpoint returns all files present in the files directory in JSON format.

HTTP Request

GET http://localhost:9000/files

Get file

The endpoint returns the requested file.

HTTP Request

GET http://localhost:9000/files/:filename

Get thumbnail

The endpoint returns the thumbnail for the specified file. Uses PDFTron Node.js API.

HTTP Request

GET http://localhost:9000/thumbnail/:filename

Convert to PDF

The endpoint converts the file to a PDF. Conversion is possible for the following file formats: DOC, DOCX, PPTX, PPT, XLSX, PNG, JPEG, JPG, TIFF, TXT. Uses PDFTron Node.js API.

HTTP Request

GET http://localhost:9000/convert/:filename

Convert to PDF from HTML

The endpoint converts the HTML to a PDF. There are several settings available to get the best results. Uses PDFTron Node.js API for HTML2PDF.

HTTP Request

GET http://localhost:9000/convertHTML/:filename-:pathToHTML

Example

Converts an HTML form to a PDF http://localhost:9000/convertHTML/myhtml-index.html

Optimize PDF

The endpoint converts the PDF to an optimized PDF to be used with PDFTron WebViewer. Uses PDFTron Node.js API.

HTTP Request

GET http://localhost:9000/optimize/:filename

Extract Text from a PDF

Returns text from a PDF at a specified page number.

HTTP Request

GET http://localhost:9000/textextract/:filename-:pagenumber

Generate PDF

Creates a blank PDF with a single page.

HTTP Request

GET http://localhost:9000/generate/:filename

Replace Content in PDF

Replaces a placeholder string in a PDF.

HTTP Request

GET http://localhost:9000/replaceContent/:name

Example

Replaces placeholder strings in the template PDF letter with provided name and returns a ready to be sent file. The _ replaced with spaces. http://localhost:9000/replaceContent/John_Smith

Watermark PDF

Watermarks a PDF document with the provided watermark.

HTTP Request

GET http://localhost:9000/watermark/:filename-:watermark

Example

Places a watermark on every page in red. http://localhost:9000/watermark/webviewer.pdf-awesome