Queued PDF generation

PDF generation can be slow, especially with the Browsershot or Cloudflare driver. If you don't need the PDF immediately, you can dispatch the generation to a background queue using saveQueued().

##Basic usage

use Spatie\LaravelPdf\Facades\Pdf;

Pdf::view('pdfs.invoice', ['invoice' => $invoice])
    ->format('a4')
    ->saveQueued('invoice.pdf');

This will render the HTML from the Blade view eagerly, then dispatch a queued job that generates the PDF and saves it to the given path.

##Callbacks

You can chain then() and catch() callbacks to react to the job's success or failure:

Pdf::view('pdfs.invoice', ['invoice' => $invoice])
    ->saveQueued('invoice.pdf')
    ->then(fn (string $path, ?string $diskName) => Mail::to($user)->send(new InvoiceMail($path)))
    ->catch(fn (Throwable $e) => Log::error('PDF generation failed', ['error' => $e->getMessage()]));

The then callback receives the path the PDF was saved to and the disk name (or null for local saves). This makes it easy to retrieve the file afterwards:

->then(function (string $path, ?string $diskName) {
    $contents = $diskName
        ? Storage::disk($diskName)->get($path)
        : file_get_contents($path);
})

The catch callback receives the exception.

##Queue configuration

You can specify the connection and queue name directly:

Pdf::view('pdfs.invoice', $data)
    ->saveQueued('invoice.pdf', connection: 'redis', queue: 'pdfs');

Or use chained methods for full control — these are proxied to Laravel's PendingDispatch:

Pdf::view('pdfs.invoice', $data)
    ->saveQueued('invoice.pdf')
    ->onQueue('pdfs')
    ->onConnection('redis')
    ->delay(now()->addMinutes(5));

##Saving to a disk

When using disk(), the queued job will save the PDF to the specified disk:

Pdf::view('pdfs.invoice', $data)
    ->disk('s3')
    ->saveQueued('invoices/invoice.pdf')
    ->then(function (string $path, ?string $diskName) {
        $url = Storage::disk($diskName)->url($path);
        // ...
    });

##Customizing the job

You can replace the job class used by saveQueued() in your config/laravel-pdf.php:

'job' => \App\Jobs\GeneratePdfJob::class,

Your custom class should extend the default job:

namespace App\Jobs;

use Spatie\LaravelPdf\Jobs\GeneratePdfJob as BaseJob;

class GeneratePdfJob extends BaseJob
{
    public int $tries = 3;

    public int $timeout = 120;

    public int $backoff = 30;
}

This lets you set defaults like retry attempts, timeouts, or a default queue for all queued PDF jobs.

##Limitations

saveQueued() cannot be used with withBrowsershot(). The closure passed to withBrowsershot() may capture objects or state that cannot be reliably serialized for the queue. An exception will be thrown if you try.

##Testing

When using Pdf::fake(), you can assert that PDFs were queued:

use Spatie\LaravelPdf\Facades\Pdf;
use Spatie\LaravelPdf\PdfBuilder;

Pdf::fake();

// ... your code that queues a PDF ...

Pdf::assertQueued('invoice.pdf');

// Or use a callable for more detailed assertions:
Pdf::assertQueued(function (PdfBuilder $pdf, string $path) {
    return $path === 'invoice.pdf' && $pdf->contains('Total');
});

// Assert nothing was queued:
Pdf::assertNotQueued();

// Assert a specific path was not queued:
Pdf::assertNotQueued('other.pdf');