Load PDF in PhantomJS without a UI

Other Questions Headless Browser
1

I have a PDF file stored on an S3 server that I want to open using PhantomJS and capture screenshots of it. However, each attempt results in a failure status. I have searched for solutions but haven’t found anything straightforward. Here’s the code I’m using:

var webPage = require('webpage').create();
var pdfUrl = 'http://vfs.velma.com/Velma/testcard.pdf';
webPage.open(pdfUrl, function(result) {
if (result !== 'success') {
    console.log(result);
    phantom.exit();
} 
console.log(result);
phantom.exit();
});

I’ve gone through the documentation but couldn’t find any details on PDF handling. My main goal is to take screenshots of the PDF and overlay an image using jQuery. Can this be accomplished solely with PhantomJS and jQuery?

2

PhantomJS doesn't support direct PDF rendering. However, you can use pdf2image utility for conversion and PhantomJS for overlaying images.

var webPage = require('webpage').create(); var pdfAsImageUrl = 'converted_image_page.png'; webPage.open(pdfAsImageUrl, function(result) { if (result !== 'success') { console.log('Failed to load PDF as image'); phantom.exit(); } webPage.includeJs('https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.0.min.js', function() { webPage.evaluate(function() { // Use jQuery for image overlay }); webPage.render('output.png'); // Capture screenshot phantom.exit(); }); });

Try converting PDF pages to images first, then handle overlay with PhantomJS.

3

While PhantomJS is a powerful tool for headless web automation, it does indeed have limitations when it comes to handling PDFs directly. As explained in the previous response, PhantomJS does not natively render PDF files. One effective workaround is to convert each PDF page into an image and then proceed with your overlay intention.

A direct way to achieve this is by using an external tool like pdf2image or ImageMagick to convert the PDF pages to images, which you can then process in PhantomJS. Here is a more detailed breakdown of how you can accomplish this:

  1. Convert the PDF Pages: Use a library or command-line tool to convert your PDF file into separate images for each page. For example, using ImageMagick:
convert -density 150 testcard.pdf -quality 90 page.png

This command will output images like page-0.png, page-1.png, etc.

  1. Load and Manipulate in PhantomJS: Once converted, these images can be handled by PhantomJS. You can overlay an image on them using jQuery within the PhantomJS environment.
var webPage = require('webpage').create();
var converterPageIndex = 0; // Specify the page index or loop through them if needed
var pdfAsImageUrl = 'page-' + converterPageIndex + '.png';
webPage.open(pdfAsImageUrl, function(result) {
    if (result !== 'success') {
        console.log('Failed to load PDF page as image');
        phantom.exit();
    }
    webPage.includeJs('https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.0.min.js', function() {
        webPage.evaluate(function() {
            // Utilize jQuery to overlay your image here
        });
        webPage.render('output-page-' + converterPageIndex + '.png'); // Capture the final image
        phantom.exit();
    });
});

By segmenting the PDF into images first, you can effectively bypass PhantomJS's limitations and achieve your goal of overlaying and capturing the screens. Ensure you're handling the sequence of pages if dealing with multi-page PDFs.