Skip to content
UniHTML
Guides

Guides

Every UniHTML program has the same three steps. Connect to the server, build a unihtml.Document from some HTML, then turn that document into PDF. The guides are grouped by those steps, because the interesting decisions are in the first and the last.

if err := unihtml.Connect("localhost:8080"); err != nil {
    return err
}

doc, err := unihtml.NewDocument("report.html")
if err != nil {
    return err
}

if err := doc.WriteToFile("report.pdf"); err != nil {
    return err
}

The middle step, page size and margins and waiting for the page to finish rendering, is where most surprises live. It is also where the four individual margin setters silently do nothing, because a document starts in relative positioning and that mode overrides all four.

New to UniHTML? The getting started guide covers getting a license key and running the server, which the client needs before any of this works.

Where to look

SectionCovers
Input sourcesThe four kinds of input: an HTML file, a directory of HTML plus its assets, and a live web URL through NewDocument, or an inline string through NewDocumentFromString.
Page setupPage size, orientation, margins, and waiting for JavaScript to finish before the page is captured.
PDF outputThe three ways to get pages out, what each one keeps, and how to mix HTML with content built by the UniPDF creator.

Pick the output path first

Settle this before you write any layout code, because the three paths do not behave the same and changing your mind later means rewriting the surrounding program.

Document.WriteToFileGetPdfPages + c.AddPagec.Draw(document)
Page size and margins you setAppliedAppliedIgnored
Clickable linksKeptKeptDropped
Other creator content in the fileNoYes, whole pagesYes, in the text flow

WriteToFile is the whole program when the PDF is nothing but the converted HTML. GetPdfPages gives you the rendered pages to add to a document you are assembling yourself, and is the path to use when the HTML contains links. c.Draw places the rendered output inline like any other creator component, which is what you want when a paragraph or a table has to follow the HTML on the same page, and which costs you annotations and page control.

PDF output has a page for each, with the measurements behind that table.

Margins and units

Setting a single margin does nothing on its own. SetMarginLeft and its three siblings leave the document in relative positioning, and in that mode all four margins are forced to 1mm. Call SetMargins or SetPageSize first, then adjust individual sides. Margins has the measured numbers.

Fractional lengths round to whole units before they reach the server, so sizes.Inch(0.5) arrives as zero inches. Use millimeters or points for anything smaller than a whole inch.

Last updated on