pdfcraft/packaging/web

Hosting PdfCraft for the web

pdfcraft-web-<version>.zip (from the GitHub release, or packaging/web/package.sh) holds a static site in pdfcraft-web-<version>/:

File	What it is
index.html	The page. It loads everything through relative URLs.
pdfcraft-web-<hash>.js	wasm-bindgen glue (generated, ES module)
pdfcraft-web-<hash>_bg.wasm	The app, about 13 MB, or 5 MB with compression
_headers, .htaccess	Sample header rules for Netlify/Cloudflare Pages and Apache

There is no server-side code. Upload the folder's contents anywhere that serves static files.

Any path works

All URLs in index.html are relative (public_url = "./" in apps/pdfcraft-web/Trunk.toml), so the site works at a domain root (https://example.com/), under a prefix (https://example.com/tools/pdfcraft/) and from a CDN bucket. The asset names carry a content hash, so they can be cached forever. Only index.html needs revalidation.

Add ?file=<URL-encoded document URL> to open a PDF on startup. The document must be served from the same origin or allow the app's origin through CORS. If the user starts working before the download finishes, the downloaded file opens in a background tab; the current document, workspace and Save target stay selected. Click the downloaded file's tab to switch to it.

Required server settings

• MIME type: serve .wasm as application/wasm. Browsers refuse to stream-compile it under any other type, and the app then loads slowly or not at all. Serve .js as text/javascript. Most hosts already do both. For nginx, check that mime.types has application/wasm wasm;.
• Compression: turn on gzip or Brotli for .wasm, .js and .html. That takes the download from about 13 MB to about 5 MB. You can also precompress (brotli -k *.wasm) and let the server send Content-Encoding: br.
• Caching: Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000, immutable on the hashed .wasm and .js files, and no-cache on index.html.
• HTTPS: WebGPU (and the clipboard) only work in a secure context, which means https:// or http://localhost. Over plain HTTP elsewhere, the app falls back to WebGL2.
• No special isolation headers: PdfCraft doesn't use SharedArrayBuffer, so it doesn't need Cross-Origin-Opener-Policy or Cross-Origin-Embedder-Policy. If your site already sends COEP require-corp, also send Cross-Origin-Resource-Policy: same-origin (or cross-origin when the files live on a CDN) on the app's files.

nginx example:

location /pdfcraft/ {
    types { application/wasm wasm; text/javascript js; text/html html; }
    gzip on;
    gzip_types application/wasm text/javascript text/html;
    location ~* \.(wasm|js)$ { add_header Cache-Control "public, max-age=31536000, immutable"; }
    location ~* index\.html$ { add_header Cache-Control "no-cache"; }
}

Local test: python3 -m http.server 8765 inside the folder, then open http://localhost:8765/.

Embedding in a page (iframe)

<iframe
  src="https://example.com/pdfcraft/"
  title="PdfCraft PDF workbench"
  style="width: 100%; height: 720px; border: 0;"
  allow="fullscreen; clipboard-read; clipboard-write"
  allowfullscreen>
</iframe>

• The app fills the iframe and follows its size, so size the iframe and not the app.
• Keyboard shortcuts go to the iframe after the user clicks into it, as with any embedded app.
• Cross-origin embeds work. Preferences are kept in the iframe's localStorage. Browsers that partition or block third-party storage may forget them between visits, and the app then starts with defaults.
• Sandboxed iframes need at least sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-downloads allow-popups". Without allow-same-origin there's no storage. Without allow-downloads, Save and Export (browser downloads) are blocked.
• Don't send X-Frame-Options: DENY or a frame-ancestors CSP that excludes the embedding page.

Same-document host mode (no iframe)

A host application can also run PdfCraft from its own document: it loads the wasm-bindgen module itself and gives PdfCraft one of its own canvases, so there is no iframe and no ?host=parent. It opts in with data-host="page" on that canvas — the exact value page — and the canvas keeps the id the app looks up (id="pdfcraft").

The page and the app then talk with DOM CustomEvents on the canvas instead of postMessage. The app dispatches the same messages it would post to a parent — pdfcraft:ready, pdfcraft:save, pdfcraft:dirty, pdfcraft:failed — with the message fields (without the type) as the event's detail, and it opens a file when the page dispatches a pdfcraft:open event with detail: { name, bytes }. Events do not bubble, so listen on the canvas itself.

Add the listeners before init: the app announces itself with pdfcraft:ready while init is still running, and a file sent in reply would otherwise be missed.

import init from "./pdfcraft-web-<hash>.js"; // the wasm-bindgen glue shipped with the app

const canvas = document.getElementById("pdfcraft");
canvas.dataset.host = "page";             // or <canvas id="pdfcraft" data-host="page">

canvas.addEventListener("pdfcraft:ready", () => {
  // The app is listening; hand it a document now, if you have one.
  canvas.dispatchEvent(new CustomEvent("pdfcraft:open", {
    detail: { name: "handout.pdf", bytes: pdfBytes },   // ArrayBuffer or Uint8Array
  }));
});
canvas.addEventListener("pdfcraft:save", (event) => {
  const { name, saveAs, bytes } = event.detail;         // bytes is an ArrayBuffer
  // Store the file under `name`; `saveAs` is true for Save As. Report your own errors.
});
canvas.addEventListener("pdfcraft:dirty", (event) => {
  unsaved = event.detail.dirty;                         // warn before leaving, as you like
});
canvas.addEventListener("pdfcraft:failed", (event) => {
  showError(event.detail.error);                        // the app couldn't start
});

await init({ module_or_path: "./pdfcraft-web-<hash>_bg.wasm" });

• Saves are not downloads in this mode: the bytes in pdfcraft:save hold the saved PDF, and the host decides where the file goes.
• ?author=<name> still signs the user's comments, as with ?host=parent.
• An unframed page that uses ?host=parent keeps the normal app with downloads. data-host="page" turns this mode on only when ?host=parent is absent: if ?host=parent is present it takes precedence, so a same-origin framed page uses the parent bridge, while an unframed or cross-origin page gets no bridge and keeps normal downloads.

The messages and both transports are the shared contract of craft-web-host (storytold/craft-libs#420), the same for every Craft app: its README lists every message, including saved, with the compatibility notes. In pdfcraft:ready, version is the contract's ("1") and appVersion is this app's release. PdfCraft reads bytes, so a host sends bytes, not a File.

Trust and limits

• Who is trusted. In page host mode the page and PdfCraft share one document, so any script on the page can drive the app: open files in it and receive what it saves. Use this mode only for a page you control. The iframe mode (?host=parent) answers only the parent window, on the page's own origin.
• Files from the host are untrusted input. An opened file goes through the same reading as one picked with File ▸ Open or dropped on the window, with the same format limits; before it is copied into the app's memory, its size is checked against the host open limit (512 MiB) and a larger file is refused, and a name is cut to 255 characters.
• The event and message names are the interface. pdfcraft:ready, pdfcraft:open, pdfcraft:save, pdfcraft:dirty and pdfcraft:failed, and the fields they carry (the same as the ?host=parent messages), stay stable; changing one is a breaking change.

Renderer selection and fallback flags

PdfCraft renders with wgpu. It uses WebGPU when the browser has it and falls back to WebGL2 on its own. URL query flags override this, and they work on the iframe src too:

Flag	Effect
(none)	WebGPU if available, otherwise WebGL2
?webgl	Force the WebGL2 backend (useful when a WebGPU driver misbehaves)
?cpu	Force the CPU canvas path (slowest, most compatible)

For example: <iframe src="https://example.com/pdfcraft/?webgl" ...>.

A browser with neither WebGPU nor WebGL2 gets a message in place of the app.