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Getting Started

The package is published to a private registry. Point the @barrierbreak scope at it once, in your project's .npmrc (public npm stays untouched for every other package):

@barrierbreak:registry=https://npm.barrierbreak.net

Then install in a TypeScript project:

npm i @barrierbreak/a11ydocs-pdf

Create a document, add a page, write content, and serialize the result:

import { createDocument, rgb } from "@barrierbreak/a11ydocs-pdf";

const doc = createDocument({
  title: "Hello PDF",
  info: {
    author: "a11ydocs"
  }
});

const page = doc.addPage({ size: "A4" });

page.text("Hello from TypeScript", {
  x: 56,
  y: 780,
  fontSize: 18,
  color: rgb(0.13, 0.2, 0.34)
});

page.textBlock("Wrapped copy with predictable line breaks.", {
  x: 56,
  y: 740,
  width: 240,
  fontSize: 12,
  lineHeight: 16,
  align: "center"
});

const bytes = doc.toUint8Array();

The library returns standard binary data, so you can write the bytes in Node.js, upload them, or create a Blob in the browser.

Convenience helpers​

A few options keep call sites short:

import { createDocument, mm, rgb } from "@barrierbreak/a11ydocs-pdf";

// Document-wide text defaults: fill in font/size/color so calls stay terse.
const doc = createDocument({
  defaults: { font: "Helvetica", fontSize: 12, color: rgb(0.1, 0.1, 0.1) }
});

// Author in physical units (mm/cm/inch) instead of raw points.
// Page builder methods are chainable.
doc.addPage({ size: "A4" })
  .text("Title", { x: mm(20), y: mm(270), fontSize: 18, bold: true })
  .text("Body copy uses the document defaults.", { x: mm(20), y: mm(258) });

// Node.js shortcut for writing to disk (alias of writeToFile).
await doc.save("out.pdf");
  • Units — mm(), cm(), inch(), and pt() convert to PDF points.
  • bold / italic — resolve to the right font face. See Text and Fonts.
  • defaults — document-wide font, fontSize, color, kerning, direction, overridden per call.
  • Chaining — page builder methods return the page, so calls compose.
  • doc.save(path) — Node-only; in the browser use toUint8Array() or toBlob().
  • Top-left origin — see Coordinate system below.

Coordinate system​

All positions and sizes are in points (1 pt = 1/72 inch). By default the origin is the bottom-left corner and y grows upward — the native PDF convention. So on an A4 page (842 pt tall) y: 800 is near the top and y: 40 is near the bottom.

If you prefer the screen/CSS convention where y grows downward from the top, pass origin: "top-left" when creating the page:

const page = doc.addPage({ size: "A4", origin: "top-left" });
page.text("Near the top", { x: 56, y: 56 });   // 56 pt down from the top edge
page.rect(56, 100, 200, 80, { stroke: "navy" }); // y is the box's top edge

With origin: "top-left":

  • For text, y is the baseline distance from the top.
  • For boxes and images (rect, image, path rectangles), y is the top edge.
  • Lines, circles, and ellipses flip their y/cy coordinates accordingly.

This applies to the page drawing methods (text, textBlock, richText, rect, line, circle, ellipse, image, path) and the annotation and form-field methods (link, highlight, note, freeText, textField, checkBox, choiceField, radioGroup, pushButton, signatureField). The flow/template layout APIs always use bottom-left coordinates. Use the unit helpers (mm/cm/inch) with either origin.

Common imports​

import {
  appendPages,
  createDocument,
  editDocument,
  extractPages,
  mergeDocuments,
  parseDocument,
  rgb,
  splitDocument
} from "@barrierbreak/a11ydocs-pdf";

API reference​