I'm using express.js with pdfkit to generate a pdf and force a download to user. To this end I used the res.download function, that belongs to express.js. I could also pipe the pdf to res, but then the download wouldn't start.
Ok, so what's my question: is it possible to somehow create the pdf on server and store it "in memory" or something like that? Currently I have to define a specific location where the pdf is created and then read from that location and serve it to the user. Basically, I'd like to "skip" that save-to-disk and read-from-disk, yet still force the download for the user.
Perhaps I'm not understanding some concepts here, so any kind of explanation is greatly appreciated!
Here's the code:
router.get('/pdf/:id', function(req, res) { Order._getById(req.params.id). then(function(order) { if (order !== null) { var doc = new PDFDocument(); var result = order.toJSON(); var products = result.products; var user = result.user; var comments = result.comments; doc.registerFont('arial', path.join(__dirname, '../fonts', 'arial' , 'arial.ttf')); for (var i in products) { var product = products[i]; doc.font('arial').text(product.name); doc.image(path.join(__dirname,'../uploads','thumb', product.picture), {scale: 1.0}); doc.font('arial').text(product.price + ' €'); } var r = doc.pipe(fs.createWriteStream(path.join(__dirname, '../uploads', 'out.pdf'))); doc.end(); r.on('finish', function(){ //the response is a "forced" download of a file I had to save on the disk res.download(path.join(__dirname, '../uploads', 'out.pdf')); }); } else { res.json(false); } }); }); Again, if I don't save the file and just do this: doc.pipe(res); the pdf is opened in a new tab, and not forced to download.
