Laravel Fast PDF

Official Laravel bridge for zentiq-labs/fast-pdf. Adds Blade view rendering, Facade access, and native Laravel HTTP response helpers. Powered by direct headless Chromium IPC. Zero Node.js. Zero Puppeteer.

Official Package: Maintained by Zentiq Labs.
For security disclosures and support, visit zentiqlabs.com.

Requirements

| Requirement | Version | |---|---| | PHP | ^8.3 | | Laravel | ^12.0 | | zentiq-labs/fast-pdf | ^1.0 | | Chromium / Google Chrome | Any headless-capable build |

Installation

composer require zentiq-labs/laravel-fast-pdf

The service provider and FastPdf facade are auto-discovered via Laravel's package discovery.

Publish the config

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=fast-pdf-config

This copies config/fast-pdf.php into your application's config directory.

Quick Start

Via Facade

use ZentiqLabs\FastPdf\Laravel\Facades\FastPdf;

// Render a Blade view and return a download response
return FastPdf::fromView('invoices.pdf', ['invoice' => $invoice])
    ->landscape()
    ->withTailwind()
    ->download('invoice-001.pdf');

// Render inline in the browser
return FastPdf::fromHtml($html)->inline('report.pdf');

Via Dependency Injection

use ZentiqLabs\FastPdf\Laravel\FastPdfManager;

class InvoiceController extends Controller
{
    public function __construct(private readonly FastPdfManager $pdf) {}

    public function download(Invoice $invoice): Response
    {
        return $this->pdf
            ->fromView('pdf.invoice', compact('invoice'))
            ->paperSize('a4')
            ->download("invoice-{$invoice->number}.pdf");
    }
}

Configuration

After publishing, edit config/fast-pdf.php. Key options:

| Key | Default | Description | |---|---|---| | binary | (auto-discovered) | Absolute path to the Chromium binary | | timeout | 30 | Max seconds per render | | paper_size | a4 | Default paper size | | orientation | portrait | portrait or landscape | | emulate_media | print | CSS media type: print or screen | | containerized | false | Set true inside Docker/Alpine | | allow_local_file_access | false | Enable only for fully trusted HTML | | chromium_flags | ['--disable-dev-shm-usage'] | Extra Chromium CLI flags |

Environment variables

| Variable | Description | |---|---| | FAST_PDF_BINARY | Absolute path to the Chromium binary | | FAST_PDF_TIMEOUT | Render timeout in seconds | | FAST_PDF_CONTAINERIZED | true when running in Docker | | FAST_PDF_ALLOW_LOCAL_FILE_ACCESS | true to enable local file reads |

Fluent Builder API

FastPdfManager returns a LaravelPdfBuilder. All methods are chainable.

| Method | Description | |---|---| | fromView(string $view, array $data = []) | Render a Blade view as the PDF source | | fromHtml(string $html) | Use a raw HTML string as the source | | fromFile(string $path, array $data = []) | Render a PHP template file as the source | | paper(string $format = 'a4', string $orientation = 'portrait') | Set paper format and orientation in one call | | paperSize(PaperSize\|string $size) | Set paper size | | landscape() | Landscape orientation | | portrait() | Portrait orientation | | margins(float $t, float $r, float $b, float $l, string $unit = 'mm') | Override margins | | withTailwind() | Inject standalone Tailwind CDN | | emulateMedia(string $media = 'print') | CSS media type | | output(): string | Return raw binary PDF bytes | | save(string $path): void | Write to a file path | | download(?string $filename = null): Response | Browser download response | | inline(?string $filename = null): Response | Inline browser response |

Page Setup

Use paper() to set format and orientation together, or chain paperSize() + landscape() separately.

// Shorthand
FastPdf::fromView('pdf.report', $data)
    ->paper('letter', 'landscape')
    ->margins(15, 15, 15, 15)
    ->download('report.pdf');

// Longhand
FastPdf::fromHtml($html)
    ->paperSize('a4')
    ->portrait()
    ->download();

Supported formats: a0 a1 a2 a3 a4 a5 a6 letter legal tabloid ledger.

Controller Response Helpers

download() and inline() return an Illuminate\Http\Response — no exit() is called, so the response goes through Laravel's middleware stack as normal.

use ZentiqLabs\FastPdf\Laravel\Facades\FastPdf;

class InvoiceController extends Controller
{
    public function download(Invoice $invoice): Response
    {
        return FastPdf::fromView('pdf.invoice', compact('invoice'))
            ->paper('a4')
            ->withTailwind()
            ->download("invoice-{$invoice->number}.pdf");
    }

    public function preview(Invoice $invoice): Response
    {
        return FastPdf::fromView('pdf.invoice', compact('invoice'))
            ->inline("invoice-{$invoice->number}.pdf");
    }
}

Both methods default the filename to document.pdf when called without arguments.

Testing with FastPdf::fake()

Call FastPdf::fake() in your test to prevent Chromium from spawning. The facade is swapped with an in-memory fake that records every call.

use ZentiqLabs\FastPdf\Laravel\Facades\FastPdf;

it('generates and downloads an invoice PDF', function (): void {
    FastPdf::fake();

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

    $response = $this->get(route('invoices.download', $invoice));

    $response->assertOk()
             ->assertHeader('Content-Type', 'application/pdf');

    FastPdf::assertRendered('pdf.invoice');
});

Available assertions

// Assert a Blade view was rendered (optionally inspect the data passed to it)
FastPdf::assertRendered('pdf.invoice');
FastPdf::assertRendered('pdf.invoice', function (array $data): void {
    expect($data['invoice']->id)->toBe(42);
});

// Assert no renders occurred at all
FastPdf::assertNothingRendered();

// Assert save() was called with a specific path
FastPdf::assertSaved('/var/invoices/001.pdf');

Modern CSS & Asset Support (vs. mPDF / TCPDF)

Legacy PHP PDF generators rely on outdated internal parsing engines that silently omit broken images, crash on modern image formats, or require server-level file permission workarounds.

laravel-fast-pdf uses native headless Chromium IPC under the hood, giving you complete feature parity with modern web browsers:

• Zero Silent Image Failures: Renders all standard browser assets natively — including remote URLs (https://...), relative paths, and Base64 data URIs (data:image/png;base64,...).
• Modern Media Formats: Built-in support for WebP, AVIF, PNG with alpha transparency, JPEGs, and dynamic inline SVGs.
• Full CSS3 Layout Capabilities: Native support for CSS Flexbox, CSS Grid, object-fit, border-radius, custom web fonts, and dynamic background images.
• No Server Hacks Required: Works out of the box without enabling risky isRemoteEnabled flags, compiling extra GD/Imagick extensions, or setting raw file path overrides.

Blade Template Example

{{-- resources/views/pdf/invoice.blade.php --}}
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title>Invoice {{ $invoice->number }}</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Invoice #{{ $invoice->number }}</h1>
    <p>Total: ${{ number_format($invoice->total, 2) }}</p>
</body>
</html>

return FastPdf::fromView('pdf.invoice', ['invoice' => $invoice])
    ->withTailwind()
    ->download("invoice-{$invoice->number}.pdf");

Docker and Alpine Linux

FROM php:8.3-fpm-alpine
RUN apk add --no-cache chromium
ENV FAST_PDF_BINARY=/usr/bin/chromium-browser
ENV FAST_PDF_CONTAINERIZED=true

In config/fast-pdf.php or .env:

FAST_PDF_CONTAINERIZED=true

Testing

composer test

With coverage:

composer test:coverage

Static analysis (PHPStan level 9):

composer check

Code style (PSR-12):

composer cs

Contributing

Contributions, issues, and feature requests are welcome. Please ensure any pull request:

1. Targets the develop branch.
2. Ships with corresponding test coverage for all new behaviour.
3. Passes the full CI pipeline (test, check, cs) locally before opening a PR.
4. Follows Conventional Commits.

License

The MIT License (MIT). See LICENSE for details.

Developed and maintained by Usman Khan at Zentiq Labs.