afpp

afpp — A modern, dependency-light PDF parser for Node.js.

Built for performance, reliability, and developer sanity.

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Overview

afpp (Another PDF Parser, Properly) is a Node.js library for extracting text and images from PDF files without heavyweight native dependencies, event-loop blocking, or fragile runtime assumptions.

The project was created to address recurring problems encountered with existing PDF tooling in the Node.js ecosystem:

• Excessive bundle sizes and transitive dependencies
• Native build steps (canvas, ImageMagick, Ghostscript)
• Browser-specific assumptions (window, DOM, canvas)
• Poor TypeScript support
• Unreliable handling of encrypted PDFs
• Performance and memory inefficiencies

afpp focuses on predictable behavior, explicit APIs, and production-ready defaults.

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Key Features

• Zero native build dependencies
• Fully asynchronous, non-blocking architecture
• First-class TypeScript support
• Supports local files, buffers, and remote URLs
• Handles encrypted PDFs
• Configurable concurrency and rendering scale
• Minimal and auditable dependency graph

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Requirements

• Node.js >= 22.14.0

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Installation

Install using your preferred package manager:

npm install afpp
# or
yarn add afpp
# or
pnpm add afpp

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Quick Start

All parsing functions accept the same input types:

• string (file path)
• Buffer
• URL

Extract Text from a PDF

import { readFile } from 'fs/promises';
import path from 'path';
import { pdf2string } from 'afpp';

(async () => {
  const filePath = path.join('..', 'test', 'example.pdf');
  const buffer = await readFile(filePath);

  const pages = await pdf2string(buffer);
  console.log(pages); // ['Page 1 text', 'Page 2 text', ...]
})();

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Render PDF Pages as Images

import { pdf2image } from 'afpp';

(async () => {
  const url = new URL('https://pdfobject.com/pdf/sample.pdf');
  const images = await pdf2image(url);

  console.log(images); // [Buffer, Buffer, ...]
})();

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Low-Level Parsing API

For advanced use cases, parsePdf exposes page-level control and transformation.

import { parsePdf } from 'afpp';

(async () => {
  const response = await fetch('https://pdfobject.com/pdf/sample.pdf');
  const buffer = Buffer.from(await response.arrayBuffer());

  const result = await parsePdf(buffer, {}, (pageContent) => pageContent);
  console.log(result);
})();

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Configuration

All public APIs accept a shared options object.

const result = await parsePdf(buffer, {
  concurrency: 5,
  imageEncoding: 'jpeg',
  password: 'STRONG_PASS',
  scale: 4,
});

AfppParseOptions

Option	Type	Default	Description
concurrency	number	1	Number of pages processed in parallel
imageEncoding	'png' | 'jpeg' | 'webp' | 'avif'	'png'	Output format for rendered images
password	string	—	Password for encrypted PDFs
scale	number	2.0	Rendering scale for non-text pages

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Design Principles

• Node-first: No browser globals or DOM assumptions
• Explicit over implicit: No magic configuration
• Fail fast: Clear errors instead of silent corruption
• Production-oriented: Optimized for long-running processes

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License

MIT © Richard Solár