Export Dashboard to PDF: URL-to-PDF Without Puppeteer

Dashboard PDF export is one of the most-requested features in analytics tools, and also one of the hardest to get right. Puppeteer works locally but breaks in production (Lambda size limits, Docker complexity, cold starts). A hosted API keeps your infrastructure clean: you pass a URL, the API renders it with a full browser, and you get PDF bytes back.

URL-to-PDF with wait_until

Pass the dashboard URL. Use wait_until: networkidle0 to ensure JS-rendered charts finish before capture:

curl -X POST https://platform.htmltopdfapi.co/api/v1/pdf/generate \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $HTMLTOPDF_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Accept: application/pdf" \
  -d '{
    "url": "https://your-app.com/reports/monthly",
    "paper_size": "a4",
    "orientation": "landscape",
    "wait_until": "networkidle0"
  }' \
  --output dashboard.pdf

wait_until Options

"load": fires when the HTML is loaded (fastest, may miss lazy-loaded charts)

"networkidle0": waits until no pending network requests for 500ms (most reliable for data-heavy dashboards)

"networkidle2": same as networkidle0 but allows up to 2 concurrent requests (for streaming endpoints)

For most dashboards, networkidle0 is the right default.

Export Button in React

async function exportDashboardPdf() {
  const res = await fetch('/api/export-pdf', {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
    body: JSON.stringify({ url: window.location.href }),
  })
  if (!res.ok) throw new Error('Export failed')

  const blob = await res.blob()
  const link = document.createElement('a')
  link.href     = URL.createObjectURL(blob)
  link.download = 'dashboard.pdf'
  link.click()
  URL.revokeObjectURL(link.href)
}

Private Dashboards

If your dashboard is behind authentication, render the HTML server-side: fetch the data, build the HTML string, and POST that to the API instead of a URL. This avoids credential exposure entirely and is more reliable than generating time-limited preview URLs. See the dashboard export use case for a complete server-side HTML rendering implementation.