Using the Cloudflare driver

The Cloudflare driver uses Cloudflare's Browser Rendering API to generate PDFs. Unlike the Browsershot driver, it does not require Node.js or a Chrome binary on your server. Instead, it makes a simple HTTP call to Cloudflare's API, which renders your HTML and returns a PDF.

This approach was inspired by this tweet by Dries Vints.

##Getting started

1. Make sure you have a Cloudflare account
2. In the Cloudflare dashboard, go to Manage account > Account API tokens in the sidebar
3. Click Create Token and create a token with the Account.Browser Rendering permission
4. Your Account ID can be found in the address bar of the Cloudflare dashboard URL

5. Add the following to your .env file:

LARAVEL_PDF_DRIVER=cloudflare
CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN=your-api-token
CLOUDFLARE_ACCOUNT_ID=your-account-id

That's it. Your existing PDF code will now use Cloudflare for generation:

use Spatie\LaravelPdf\Facades\Pdf;

// This will use Cloudflare — no code changes needed
Pdf::view('pdfs.invoice', ['invoice' => $invoice])
    ->format('a4')
    ->save('invoice.pdf');

##Supported options

The Cloudflare driver supports the following PDF options:

• format() — Paper format (a4, letter, etc.)
• paperSize() — Custom paper dimensions
• margins() — Page margins
• landscape() / orientation() — Page orientation
• headerView() / headerHtml() — Page headers
• footerView() / footerHtml() — Page footers

##Using Cloudflare for specific PDFs only

If you want to use Browsershot as your default driver but switch to Cloudflare for specific PDFs, you can use the driver method:

use Spatie\LaravelPdf\Facades\Pdf;

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

Make sure you have the Cloudflare credentials configured in your config/laravel-pdf.php or .env, even if Cloudflare is not the default driver.

##Limits

The free Cloudflare Workers plan is limited to 6 REST API requests per minute and 10 minutes of Browser Rendering usage per day. The paid Workers plan offers significantly higher limits. Check the Cloudflare Browser Rendering limits page for the latest details.

##Limitations

• The Cloudflare driver only supports PDF output. Saving as PNG (screenshots) is not supported.
• The withBrowsershot() and onLambda() methods have no effect when using the Cloudflare driver.
• JavaScript execution depends on Cloudflare's Browser Rendering API behavior — complex scripts may behave differently than in a local Chromium instance.