Project setup

1. Copy the source/ directory into your project, e.g. src/vendor/pdf-lib/.

2. In tsconfig.json, add a path alias so imports resolve correctly:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "baseUrl": ".",
    "paths": {
      "src/*": ["src/vendor/pdf-lib/src/*"]
    }
  }
}

3. If you use Babel (e.g. with Jest), add babel-plugin-module-resolver:

{
  "plugins": [
    ["module-resolver", {
      "alias": { "src": "./src/vendor/pdf-lib/src" }
    }]
  ]
}

4. Import directly from the barrel:

import { PDFDocument, StandardFonts, rgb } from './vendor/pdf-lib/src/index';

5. No environment variables are required. The library has no runtime configuration beyond what you pass to its API.

Public API

PDFDocument

class PDFDocument {
  static create(options?: PDFDocumentOptions): Promise<PDFDocument>;
  static load(pdf: string | Uint8Array | ArrayBuffer, options?: PDFDocumentOptions): Promise<PDFDocument>;
  addPage(size?: [number, number] | PageSizes): PDFPage;
  insertPage(index: number, size?: [number, number] | PageSizes): PDFPage;
  removePage(index: number): void;
  getPage(index: number): PDFPage;
  getPageCount(): number;
  embedFont(font: StandardFonts | string | Uint8Array | ArrayBuffer, options?: EmbedFontOptions): Promise<PDFFont>;
  embedPng(png: string | Uint8Array | ArrayBuffer): Promise<PDFImage>;
  embedJpg(jpg: string | Uint8Array | ArrayBuffer): Promise<PDFImage>;
  getForm(): PDFForm;
  save(options?: SaveOptions): Promise<Uint8Array>;
  saveAsBase64(options?: Base64SaveOptions): Promise<string>;
}

The central class. Use PDFDocument.create() to start a new document and PDFDocument.load() to modify an existing one. Call save() to get the final Uint8Array for writing to disk or sending over HTTP.

PDFPage

class PDFPage {
  drawText(text: string, options?: PDFPageDrawTextOptions): void;
  drawImage(image: PDFImage, options?: PDFPageDrawImageOptions): void;
  drawRectangle(options?: PDFPageDrawRectangleOptions): void;
  drawLine(options?: PDFPageDrawLineOptions): void;
  drawSvgPath(path: string, options?: PDFPageDrawSVGOptions): void;
  setFont(font: PDFFont): void;
  setFontSize(size: number): void;
  getSize(): { width: number; height: number };
  setSize(width: number, height: number): void;
  moveTo(x: number, y: number): void;
}

Obtained from PDFDocument.addPage() or PDFDocument.getPage(). Use it to draw text, images, vector shapes, and SVG paths. The coordinate origin is the bottom-left corner.

PDFForm

class PDFForm {
  getTextField(name: string): PDFTextField;
  getCheckBox(name: string): PDFCheckBox;
  getDropdown(name: string): PDFDropdown;
  getRadioGroup(name: string): PDFRadioGroup;
  createTextField(name: string): PDFTextField;
  createCheckBox(name: string): PDFCheckBox;
  createDropdown(name: string): PDFDropdown;
  createRadioGroup(name: string): PDFRadioGroup;
  flatten(options?: FlattenOptions): void;
}

Accessed via pdfDoc.getForm(). Use it to read, fill, create, or flatten interactive form fields. Call flatten() to bake field values into the page content permanently.

Working examples

Scenario - Create a PDF with text and a rectangle

Creates a new single-page PDF, draws a colored rectangle and a line of text, then writes the result to disk.

import { PDFDocument, StandardFonts, rgb, PageSizes } from './vendor/pdf-lib/src/index';
import { writeFileSync } from 'fs';

async function createPDF() {
  const doc = await PDFDocument.create();
  const page = doc.addPage(PageSizes.A4);

  const font = await doc.embedFont(StandardFonts.Helvetica);

  page.drawRectangle({
    x: 50,
    y: 700,
    width: 200,
    height: 40,
    color: rgb(0.2, 0.4, 0.8),
    opacity: 0.8,
  });

  page.drawText('Hello, pdf-lib!', {
    x: 55,
    y: 712,
    size: 18,
    font,
    color: rgb(1, 1, 1),
  });

  const bytes = await doc.save();
  writeFileSync('output.pdf', bytes);
}

createPDF();

Scenario - Load and modify an existing PDF form

Loads an existing PDF that contains form fields, fills them, then saves a flattened copy.

import { PDFDocument } from './vendor/pdf-lib/src/index';
import { readFileSync, writeFileSync } from 'fs';

async function fillForm() {
  const existingPdfBytes = readFileSync('form_template.pdf');
  const doc = await PDFDocument.load(existingPdfBytes);

  const form = doc.getForm();

  const nameField = form.getTextField('full_name');
  nameField.setText('Jane Doe');

  const agreeBox = form.getCheckBox('agree_terms');
  agreeBox.check();

  const roleDropdown = form.getDropdown('role');
  roleDropdown.select('Engineer');

  // Bake values into page content - no longer editable
  form.flatten();

  const bytes = await doc.save();
  writeFileSync('filled_form.pdf', bytes);
}

fillForm();

Scenario - Embed an image and copy pages between documents

Embeds a PNG image on a page and copies a page from a second PDF into the main document.

import { PDFDocument, PageSizes } from './vendor/pdf-lib/src/index';
import { readFileSync, writeFileSync } from 'fs';

async function embedAndCopy() {
  const mainDoc = await PDFDocument.create();
  const page = mainDoc.addPage(PageSizes.Letter);

  // Embed PNG
  const pngBytes = readFileSync('logo.png');
  const pngImage = await mainDoc.embedPng(pngBytes);
  const { width, height } = pngImage.scale(0.5);
  page.drawImage(pngImage, { x: 50, y: 600, width, height });

  // Copy first page from another PDF
  const secondPdfBytes = readFileSync('report.pdf');
  const secondDoc = await PDFDocument.load(secondPdfBytes);
  const [copiedPage] = await mainDoc.copyPages(secondDoc, [0]);
  mainDoc.addPage(copiedPage);

  const bytes = await mainDoc.save();
  writeFileSync('combined.pdf', bytes);
}

embedAndCopy();

File walkthrough

• index.ts - Top-level barrel; re-exports everything from api/, core/, types/, and utils/.
• api/ - All user-facing classes and helpers. Start here for application code.
• api/form/ - Form field classes and appearance stream helpers for interactive AcroForm widgets.
• api/image/ - Image alignment enum used by PDFPage.drawImage positioning helpers.
• api/text/ - Text alignment enum and multi-line text layout engine used by drawText.
• api/PDFDocument.ts - The root document class; owns the PDF context and all embed/save logic.
• api/PDFPage.ts - Page drawing surface; wraps a content stream with a friendly drawing API.
• api/PDFFont.ts - Font wrapper; exposes widthOfTextAtSize and heightAtSize for layout.
• api/PDFImage.ts - Image wrapper; exposes width, height, and scale.
• api/PDFEmbeddedPage.ts - Wraps a foreign page as a reusable XObject for drawPage.
• api/PDFJavaScript.ts - Represents a document-level JavaScript action attachment.
• api/StandardFonts.ts - Enum of the 14 built-in PDF fonts (no embedding needed).
• api/colors.ts - Factory functions rgb(), cmyk(), grayscale() for color values.
• api/rotations.ts - degrees() and radians() rotation value constructors.
• api/sizes.ts - Named page size tuples like PageSizes.A4, PageSizes.Letter.
• api/operators.ts / api/operations.ts - Low-level PDF content stream operator wrappers.
• api/objects.ts - PDF object literal helpers used internally by operators.
• api/errors.ts - Exported error classes for type-safe catch blocks.
• core/ - PDF specification internals: object model, parser, cross-reference tables, stream codecs.
• types/ - Shared TypeScript interfaces and type aliases consumed across api/ and core/.
• utils/ - Pure utility functions (array helpers, type guards, encoding) used throughout.

Common pitfalls and fixes

• Path alias not resolved at runtime: The src/* alias in tsconfig.json is compile-time only; ensure tsconfig-paths or babel-plugin-module-resolver is configured for Jest and Node execution.
• copyPages is async and must be awaited: PDFDocument.copyPages() returns a Promise<PDFPage[]>; forgetting await results in adding a Promise object instead of a page.
• Coordinate system is bottom-left origin: y: 0 is the bottom of the page; large y values place content near the top - the opposite of CSS/canvas.
• PDFDocument.load rejects encrypted PDFs by default: Pass { ignoreEncryption: true } as the second argument to load encrypted documents (fields will be read-only).
• StandardFonts do not support non-Latin characters: For UTF-8 or UTF-16 text, embed a custom TTF/OTF font via embedFont(fontBytes) instead.
• save() returns Uint8Array, not a Buffer: In Node.js, wrap with Buffer.from(bytes) before passing to fs.writeFileSync or an HTTP response if a Buffer is explicitly required.

Vibe-coding prompt template

I have a local copy of the pdf-lib source (upstream npm: user@example.com) at
`src/vendor/pdf-lib/`. I also have USAGE.md in the same directory as this prompt.

Please help me integrate pdf-lib into my existing TypeScript/Node.js project
step by step:

1. Read USAGE.md and the file layout under `src/vendor/pdf-lib/source/`.
2. Add the required tsconfig path alias so `src/*` resolves correctly.
3. Install runtime dependencies: @pdf-lib/standard-fonts, @pdf-lib/upng, pako, tslib.
4. Create a utility module at `src/lib/pdf.ts` that exports helper functions
   using PDFDocument, PDFPage, PDFFont, PDFForm, and PDFImage from
   `src/vendor/pdf-lib/src/index`.
5. Integrate the helpers into my existing Express route handlers to
   generate and serve PDFs over HTTP.
6. Show me how to fill and flatten an AcroForm template loaded from disk.

Use only the real exports visible in USAGE.md. Do not invent API methods.

License and credit

pdf-lib is released under the MIT License. See source/LICENSE if present, or refer to the official repository. Upstream package: user@example.com by Andrew Dillon (Hopding).

This product’s unique contribution is clean room implementation of valuable code block into AVCP compatible standard.

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