Show HN: Htmldocs – Typeset and generate pdfs with React

After a year since v1, I’m open-sourcing htmldocs, a React-based library for building PDF documents using modern web development tools. Write document templates in JSX, style with Tailwind, and render them to pixel-perfect PDFs with a Chromium pipeline—no more LaTeX headaches or Word/Google Docs limitations.

I originally built this because I needed a better way to generate invoices and tailor resumes to job descriptions dynamically. Existing solutions had major trade-offs:

- Google Docs/Word → Easy but lack APIs & version control

- LaTeX → Structured output but painful syntax & no API

- Figma → Flexible but not designed for automation

With htmldocs, you can:

- Define document templates and props in JSX (just like web components)

- Use modern CSS (flexbox, grid, Tailwind, etc.)

- Render server-side via a headless Chromium pipeline

- Upload templates for remote PDF generation via an API

Most of the world still runs on PDFs—contracts, reports, invoices, resumes, etc. It’s time we had a developer-first approach to document generation, just like we build for the web.

What frustrations have you had with existing document solutions? Would love to hear your ideas, experiences, and feedback.

Interesting solution. Have always used HTML & CSS for my resume found it a much better fit than LaTeX.