PDF Export

DocAnvil can export your entire documentation site as a single, print-ready PDF using Chrome or Chromium — no external tooling, no Python, no Pandoc.

The exported PDF includes a table of contents, all your pages in navigation order, syntax-highlighted code blocks, Mermaid diagrams, and an optional cover page. Running headers and page numbers are added automatically.

Prerequisites

PDF export requires Google Chrome or Chromium to be installed. DocAnvil launches the browser in headless mode and uses the Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP) to render the page and print it to PDF.

DocAnvil searches for Chrome in these locations (in order):

If Chrome isn't found, the command exits with a clear error message.

Basic Usage

docanvil export pdf --out guide.pdf

Parent directories for the output path are created automatically.

# Export for the current project
docanvil export pdf --out guide.pdf

# Export a project in another directory
docanvil export pdf --out guide.pdf --path ../my-docs

# Suppress progress output (useful in scripts)
docanvil export pdf --out guide.pdf --quiet

Configuration

PDF export is configured in the [pdf] section of docanvil.toml:

[pdf]
author = "Your Name"
cover_page = true
paper_size = "A4"
custom_css = "theme/pdf.css"

Cover Page

When cover_page = true, a title page is added before the table of contents. It shows the project name as a large centered title with the author below it.

[pdf]
cover_page = true
author = "The DocAnvil Team"

Custom Paper Size

[pdf]
paper_size = "Letter"

Supported sizes (case-insensitive):

Unrecognised values fall back to A4 silently.

Per-Locale Export

If your project uses localisation, you can generate a separate PDF for each enabled locale in a single command:

# One PDF per locale — locale code inserted before the extension
docanvil export pdf --out guide.pdf --locale all
# → guide.en.pdf, guide.fr.pdf, guide.de.pdf …

You can also export a single specific locale:

docanvil export pdf --out guide-fr.pdf --locale fr

Each PDF uses the locale's own navigation order and page content. Pages without a translation for that locale are silently skipped.

RTL Language Support

Right-to-left locales are detected automatically. When you export in an RTL locale, Chrome lays out the entire PDF right-to-left — no configuration required.

docanvil export pdf --out guide-ar.pdf --locale ar

Supported RTL locale codes: ar (Arabic), he (Hebrew), ur (Urdu), fa (Persian/Farsi), ug (Uyghur).

Custom PDF CSS

For fine-grained control over the PDF's appearance, provide a CSS file:

[pdf]
custom_css = "theme/pdf.css"

The file is injected after the default PDF styles, so any rule you write overrides the defaults. Some useful targets:

/* Swap the typeface */
body {
  font-family: "Source Serif 4", serif;
  font-size: 10.5pt;
}

/* Tighter code blocks */
pre {
  font-size: 8.5pt;
}

/* Remove link colouring in print */
a {
  color: inherit;
  text-decoration: none;
}

/* Wider margins */
@page {
  margin: 3cm;
}

Mermaid Diagrams

:::mermaid blocks are rendered to SVG before the PDF is captured. DocAnvil waits up to 15 seconds for all diagrams to finish. If any are still pending after the timeout, the PDF is generated with whatever has rendered.

Mermaid.js is loaded from CDN, so Mermaid rendering requires an internet connection. In offline CI environments, disable charts:

[charts]
enabled = false

Running Headers and Footers

Every page gets:

• Header left — project name
• Header right — author name (if author is configured)
• Footer right — page number

These are injected by Chrome's print engine and are not affected by custom CSS.

Tips

• Run docanvil build first to confirm your content is error-free. Broken wiki-links and rendering issues will appear in the PDF just as they do in the HTML site.
• The PDF follows your nav.toml order exactly — the table of contents and chapter sequence match what readers see online.
• Use --quiet to suppress progress output in automated scripts.

Related Pages

• Localisation — setting up multi-language docs
• Configuration — full docanvil.toml reference including [pdf]
• CLI Commands — all subcommands and flags