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README.md

OpenPDF-html

OpenPDF-html is an HTML-to-PDF rendering engine built on a modernized fork of Flying Saucer, designed to integrate seamlessly with the OpenPDF library and support HTML5 and CSS3 features.

OpenPDF-html is a fork of Flying Saucer circa v9.12.0, focused on bringing modern HTML and CSS rendering capabilities to the OpenPDF library.

Purpose

The goal of this project is to upgrade and maintain the HTML-to-PDF rendering engine, ensuring support for modern web standards. This enables developers to generate high-quality PDF documents from HTML5 and CSS3 content using OpenPDF.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).

License (LGPL version 2.1)

Features

  • Modern HTML5 support (in progress)
  • Uses htmlunit-neko as HTML parser, enabling HTML5-compliant parsing with error tolerance
  • Improved CSS3 compatibility
  • Seamless integration with OpenPDF
  • Modular architecture for easier maintenance and extension
  • API compatible with Flying saucer, except package names are org.openpdf instead of org.xhtmlrenderer.

htmlunit-neko Parser Integration

OpenPDF-html leverages the htmlunit-neko parser for HTML5-compliant parsing with the following features:

  • Error Tolerant: Handles malformed HTML gracefully by automatically fixing common mistakes
  • HTML5 Compliant: Supports modern HTML5 semantic elements (header, footer, nav, article, section, aside, main, figure, etc.)
  • Data Attributes: Full support for HTML5 data-* attributes
  • Void Elements: Proper handling of HTML5 void elements (br, hr, img, input, etc.)
  • Configurable: Extensive configuration options for parsing behavior

Using HtmlResource for Direct DOM Parsing

For direct HTML parsing using htmlunit-neko's DOMParser:

import org.openpdf.resource.HtmlResource;
import org.openpdf.resource.HtmlParserConfig;
import org.w3c.dom.Document;

// Parse HTML string with default settings
HtmlResource resource = HtmlResource.load("<html><body><h1>Hello</h1></body></html>");
Document doc = resource.getDocument();

// Parse with custom configuration
HtmlParserConfig config = HtmlParserConfig.builder()
    .reportErrors(true)
    .allowSelfClosingTags(true)
    .encoding("UTF-8")
    .build();
HtmlResource resource = HtmlResource.load(html, config);

Available Configuration Options

Option Default Description
reportErrors false Enable detailed error reporting during parsing
allowSelfClosingTags false Allow XHTML-style self-closing tags (<div/>)
allowSelfClosingIframe false Allow self-closing iframe tags
parseNoScriptContent true Parse content within <noscript> as HTML
scriptStripCommentDelims false Strip HTML comment delimiters from scripts
styleStripCommentDelims false Strip HTML comment delimiters from styles
elementNameCase default Element name handling: "upper", "lower", "default"
attributeNameCase default Attribute name handling: "upper", "lower", "default"
encoding auto Character encoding (e.g., "UTF-8")

Example

You can find a simple working example here: HelloWorldPdf.java

import org.openpdf.pdf.ITextRenderer;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;

public class HelloWorldPdf {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        String html = """
            <html>
              <head>
                <style>
                  body { font-family: sans-serif; }
                  h1 { color: navy; }
                </style>
              </head>
              <body>
                <h1>Hello, World!</h1>
                <p>This PDF was generated using openpdf-html.</p>
              </body>
            </html>
            """;

        try (FileOutputStream outputStream = new FileOutputStream("openpdf-html-hello.pdf")) {
            ITextRenderer renderer = new ITextRenderer();
            renderer.setDocumentFromString(html);
            renderer.layout();
            renderer.createPDF(outputStream);
        }

        System.out.println("PDF created: flying-saucer-hello.pdf");
    }
}

Related Projects

Roadmap

  • Refactor architecture for better modularity
  • Add support for HTML5 tags and CSS3 properties
  • Add comprehensive tests and sample HTML templates
  • JavaScript

Contributions

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to submit issues, pull requests, or ideas to help improve HTML and CSS support in OpenPDF.

History

OpenPDF-html is a fork of Flying Saucer forked in june 2025 and is used in accordance with the license https://github.com/flyingsaucerproject/flyingsaucer/blob/main/LICENSE-LGPL-2.1.txt

Flying Saucer – Origins

  • Founded: 2004
  • Founder: Josh Marinacci
  • Where: Launched on Java.net as an open-source project
  • Why: To build a pure-Java XHTML + CSS 2.1 renderer—simpler than full browser engines like Gecko/WebKit.
  • Goal: Standards-compliant rendering for embedding in Java apps or generating PDFs (with iText), without scripting or heavy browser features.
  • Notable: Sun Microsystems once considered bundling it with F3 (early JavaFX Script), but it stayed independent.
  • License: LGPL