Skip to main content

Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/barchart/aws-lambda-pdf-generator/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

AWS Lambda PDF Generator is a serverless web service that accepts an HTML document over a REST API and returns a rendered PDF file — all without managing a single server. Built for developers and teams that need reliable, on-demand PDF generation inside an AWS environment, it deploys entirely within your own AWS account using the Serverless framework, AWS API Gateway, and AWS Lambda. Under the hood, a headless Chromium browser (loaded from a Lambda Layer) renders the HTML with full CSS and JavaScript support before Puppeteer captures the output as a PDF binary.

Quickstart

Deploy the service and generate your first PDF in under 10 minutes.

Deployment

Configure stages, regions, and AWS permissions for your deployment.

API Reference

Explore the /print endpoint request schema and response formats.

Architecture

Understand how API Gateway, Lambda, and the Chromium Layer work together.

​
How It Works

Every PDF is generated through a single HTTP round-trip. The client sends a POST request containing the HTML source to the API Gateway endpoint. API Gateway forwards the request payload to the Lambda function, which parses the JSON body and launches a headless Chromium browser via @sparticuz/chromium. Puppeteer loads the HTML into a new browser page, waits for all network activity to settle (networkidle0), then calls page.pdf() to render the page as a PDF binary. The binary is returned directly in the HTTP response with a Content-Type: application/pdf header. The flow in summary:
  1. Client — sends POST /print with a JSON body containing html (required), source (optional label), and settings (optional Puppeteer PDF options).
  2. AWS API Gateway — receives the request, enforces CORS, and proxies the payload to Lambda.
  3. AWS Lambda — runs the Node.js 20.x handler, loads Chromium from the attached Lambda Layer, and starts Puppeteer.
  4. Puppeteer + Chromium — renders the HTML document fully (including CSS and JavaScript) and generates a PDF binary.
  5. Response — the Lambda function returns the PDF binary to API Gateway, which streams it back to the client as application/pdf.
For large responses that exceed API Gateway’s 10 MB payload limit, the service can offload the PDF to an S3 bucket and return a redirect, allowing very large documents to be retrieved without hitting gateway constraints.
ARM architecture is not currently supported. The @sparticuz/chromium Lambda Layer that provides the headless Chromium binary has not yet released ARM-compatible builds, so the service must be deployed to x86_64 Lambda functions. Follow the @sparticuz/chromium project for updates on ARM support.

​
Technology Stack

The service is built entirely on open-source tooling and managed AWS services:
  • Serverless Framework v3 — infrastructure-as-code tool that provisions and deploys API Gateway, Lambda, and IAM resources from a single serverless.yml configuration.
  • AWS API Gateway — HTTP endpoint that receives client requests, handles CORS, and proxies events to the Lambda function.
  • AWS Lambda (Node.js 20.x) — serverless compute runtime that executes the PDF generation handler with 2,048 MB of memory and a 30-second timeout.
  • Puppeteer v22 (puppeteer-core 22.4.0) — high-level browser automation library used to load HTML content and call page.pdf() to produce the PDF output.
  • Chromium v122 (via AWS Lambda Layer) — headless browser engine packaged as a Lambda Layer artifact (chromium-v122.zip) and mounted at runtime.
  • @sparticuz/chromium 122.0.0 — Node.js package that provides the correct Chromium executable path, launch arguments, and graphics-mode configuration tuned for the Lambda execution environment.

​
License

AWS Lambda PDF Generator is released under the MIT License. You are free to use, modify, and distribute it in both commercial and non-commercial projects. Source code is available on GitHub at https://github.com/barchart/aws-lambda-pdf-generator.

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get started for freeTalk to us