Laravel PDF

Create PDF files in Laravel apps

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Introduction

Browsershot (default): Uses Chromium via Browsershot to generate PDFs from HTML. Requires Node.js and a Chrome/Chromium binary.
Gotenberg: Uses Gotenberg, an open-source Docker-based API with headless Chromium. Great for containerized and microservice environments.
Cloudflare: Uses Cloudflare's Browser Run API to generate PDFs with a simple HTTP call. No Node.js or Chrome binary needed. This driver was inspired by a suggestion from Dries Vints.
WeasyPrint: Uses WeasyPrint via pontedilana/php-weasyprint for Python-based PDF generation with excellent CSS Paged Media support. Requires the WeasyPrint binary.
DOMPDF: Uses dompdf/dompdf for pure PHP PDF generation. No external binaries, no Node.js, no Docker — works everywhere PHP runs.
Chrome: Uses chrome-php/chrome to talk directly to a local Chrome or Chromium binary from PHP. Requires a Chrome/Chromium 65+ executable.

The Browsershot, Gotenberg, Cloudflare, and Chrome drivers support modern CSS features like grid and flexbox, or even a framework like Tailwind, to create beautiful PDFs. The WeasyPrint driver supports CSS Paged Media, making it a strong choice for documents with repeating headers/footers and page counters. The DOMPDF driver supports CSS 2.1 and some CSS 3 properties, making it ideal for simpler PDFs that don't need advanced layout features.

Here's a quick example:

use Spatie\LaravelPdf\Facades\Pdf;

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

This will render the Blade view pdfs.invoice with the given data and save it as a PDF file.

You can also return the PDF as a response from your controller:

use Spatie\LaravelPdf\Facades\Pdf;

class DownloadInvoiceController
{
    public function __invoke(Invoice $invoice)
    {
        return Pdf::view('pdfs.invoice', ['invoice' => $invoice])
            ->format('a4')
            ->name('your-invoice.pdf');
    }
}

You can also queue PDF generation for background processing:

use Spatie\LaravelPdf\Facades\Pdf;

Pdf::view('pdfs.invoice', ['invoice' => $invoice])
    ->format('a4')
    ->saveQueued('invoice.pdf')
    ->then(fn (string $path, ?string $diskName) => Mail::to($user)->send(new InvoiceMail($path)));

You can also test your PDFs:

use Spatie\LaravelPdf\Facades\Pdf;

it('can render an invoice', function () {
    Pdf::fake();

    $invoice = Invoice::factory()->create();

    $this->get(route('download-invoice', $invoice))
        ->assertOk();

    Pdf::assertRespondedWithPdf(function (PdfBuilder $pdf) {
        return $pdf->contains('test');
    });
});