Your first PDF

You’ll write hello.pdf, one A4 page that says “Hello, world!”, from a short Node script. It takes about five minutes.

Make a project

You need Node 24.2 or newer, which runs .ts files directly. Create a folder and install @laminapdf/sdk from npm:

mkdir hello-pdf && cd hello-pdf
npm init -y && npm pkg set type=module
npm install @laminapdf/sdk@alpha

Lamina PDF is in alpha, so the install names the alpha tag. @laminapdf/sdk brings its WebAssembly modules, @laminapdf/wasm, with it. Install covers other package managers and Rust.

Write the page

Save this app as hello.ts. It loads Lamina PDF, builds the page and writes it to hello.pdf:

packages/sdk/examples/quick-start/node.ts

// Builds a one-page PDF that says "Hello, world!" and writes it to hello.pdf, in Node.
import { writeFile } from "node:fs/promises";
import { Builder, type BuilderOptions, Font, init } from "@laminapdf/sdk";

/** The space between the page's edge and the text, in points (72 points = 1 inch). */
const MARGIN = 72;
/** The text's size in points; its baseline sits this far below the margin. */
const FONT_SIZE = 24;

/** Builds the page and hands its bytes to `save`, which writes hello.pdf unless you pass another `save` function. */
export async function hello(
  save: (pdf: Uint8Array) => void | Promise<void> = (pdf) => writeFile("hello.pdf", pdf),
  options: BuilderOptions = {},
): Promise<void> {
  await init({ text: true });
  using builder = new Builder(options);
  const page = builder.page("A4");
  // Points from the page's top-left corner, y down; the text's baseline sits FONT_SIZE points below the margin.
  page.surface().text("Hello, world!", {
    font: Font.standard("Helvetica"),
    size: FONT_SIZE,
    at: [MARGIN, MARGIN + FONT_SIZE],
  });
  page.finish();
  using doc = builder.finish();
  await save(doc.save());
}

// `node hello.ts` runs it (Node 24.2 or newer); imported, it only exports `hello`.
if (import.meta.main) await hello();

Run it

node hello.ts

Node runs the TypeScript file as it is. Open hello.pdf in any PDF viewer: one page, with “Hello, world!” near its top-left corner.

What happened

init({ text: true }) loaded Lamina PDF’s text module, the one that draws fonts; after it, every call is synchronous. The builder made an A4 page, drew the text on it and finished into a document, doc.save() turned that document into bytes, and save wrote them to hello.pdf. using freed the builder and the document as soon as the function ended.

Next, see how Lamina PDF thinks about a PDF and where things go on a page. To use laminapdf somewhere other than Node, pick your runtime.