PDFPipe

Next.js / tickets

Ticket PDFs in Next.js

Post your ticket HTML to a render API from a Route Handler returning a Response, then return a Response with the upstream body and a PDF content type. No browser binary in your Next.js deployment.

Why tickets become PDFs

A ticket has to work at a gate with no signal, on a phone that may be offline, or on paper. Anything requiring a live request fails at exactly the wrong moment. That is the difference between a document and a view of a database, and it is why event organisers and travel operators keep asking for this.

What a ticket has to carry

Before any of the code below matters, the template has to produce a document that is actually a ticket. These are the fields that make it one, and the ones a reader or an auditor will look for first.

  • the scannable code, which is the ticket; everything else is decoration
  • the event or journey, with date and time including timezone
  • the seat, zone or class where the entitlement is specific
  • the holder name where the ticket is non-transferable
  • the terms of entry, which are what a gate refusal is justified by

Turning your React, rendered to a string on the server template into a document

You already have the markup. RenderToStaticMarkup(<Invoice {...data} />) gives you it as a string, which is the only input the render needs. This is the framework where the incumbent approach fails hardest. A serverless function has a hard bundle size limit, and a Chromium build does not fit inside it. That is why the ecosystem grew a whole genre of stripped Chromium packages, and why an HTTP render is the path of least resistance here rather than an optimisation.

The Next.js implementation

fetch ships with the runtime, so this adds no dependency. The render happens in a Route Handler returning a Response, and you return a Response with the upstream body and a PDF content type.

typescript
// app/tickets/[id]/pdf/route.ts
import { renderToStaticMarkup } from "react-dom/server";
import { TicketDocument } from "@/documents/ticket";
import { documentStyles } from "@/documents/styles";

export async function GET(
  _request: Request,
  { params }: { params: Promise<{ id: string }> },
) {
  const { id } = await params;
  const ticket = await getTicket(id);

  // The style tag is the load-bearing part. Your app's CSS lives in a bundle the
  // renderer will never fetch, so the document needs its styles inline.
  const html = `<!doctype html><html><head><meta charset="utf-8">
<style>${documentStyles}</style></head><body>${renderToStaticMarkup(
    <TicketDocument ticket={ticket} />,
  )}</body></html>`;

  const upstream = await fetch("https://api.pdfpipe.xyz/v1/pdf", {
    method: "POST",
    headers: {
      Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.PDFPIPE_KEY}`,
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      html,
      options: { format: "A4", printBackground: true },
    }),
  });

  if (!upstream.ok) {
    return new Response("render failed", { status: 502 });
  }

  return new Response(upstream.body, {
    headers: {
      "Content-Type": "application/pdf",
      "Content-Disposition": `attachment; filename="ticket-${id}.pdf"`,
    },
  });
}

The CSS that makes a ticket page correctly

The layout problem specific to this document is that a barcode or QR code must render at a size and contrast a scanner can actually read after printing. These rules handle it.

css
/* The code has to survive printing. Keep it black on white at a
   size a scanner can resolve, and never let it break across a page. */
.barcode {
  break-inside: avoid;
  image-rendering: pixelated;
  min-width: 45mm;
  filter: none;
}

@page { size: A6 landscape; margin: 5mm; }

What goes wrong in Next.js

renderToStaticMarkup gives you markup with no stylesheet attached, because your CSS lives in a bundle the PDF renderer will never load. Inline the styles into a style tag in the string you send, or the document renders with browser defaults.

What people try first

Most Next.js projects reach for puppeteer-core paired with a size-reduced Chromium package, which works but ties your deployment to a binary that has to be rebuilt for every runtime version bump. That works until it is running on more than one machine, at which point the browser becomes the thing you operate rather than the thing you use.

Where the ticket lives afterwards

Rendering is the short part. A ticket is worthless the moment the event ends, so nothing needs to survive it except the record that it was scanned. That record lives in your database, not in the PDF.

Getting the document right

  • Check the code itself. A ticket that will not scan is worthless no matter how it looks.
  • Generation is triggered by a booking being confirmed, so size the timeout for that path rather than for a health check.
  • Volume arrives in bursts, so queue the render rather than doing it inside the request that triggered it.
  • Backgrounds are painted by default here, so a design that uses colour needs nothing set. Only an explicit print_background of false turns them off.

Frequently asked

Do I need Chromium installed to generate tickets from Next.js?

No. The render happens over HTTP, so your Next.js deployment stays the size it is now. That is the main reason to use an API rather than puppeteer-core paired with a size-reduced Chromium package, which works but ties your deployment to a binary that has to be rebuilt for every runtime version bump.

How do I stop a long ticket using all the memory?

Return a Response with the upstream body and a PDF content type. renderToStaticMarkup gives you markup with no stylesheet attached, because your CSS lives in a bundle the PDF renderer will never load. Inline the styles into a style tag in the string you send, or the document renders with browser defaults.

What has to be on a ticket?

At minimum: the scannable code, which is the ticket; everything else is decoration; the event or journey, with date and time including timezone; the seat, zone or class where the entitlement is specific. The one to get right before anything else is the code itself. A ticket that will not scan is worthless no matter how it looks.

Do I need to store the generated tickets?

Depends on the document, and this one has a clear answer: a ticket is worthless the moment the event ends, so nothing needs to survive it except the record that it was scanned. That record lives in your database, not in the PDF.

Can I keep my existing ticket template?

Yes, if it produces HTML. Whatever renders your ticket view today can render the same markup for the PDF, which is why the CSS above is the only new thing you write.

Related

Other Next.js documents, and the same ticket in other stacks.

Invoice PDFs in Next.js

an invoice is a legal record of a demand for payment

Receipt PDFs in Next.js

a receipt is proof a payment happened

Report PDFs in Next.js

a report is a snapshot of numbers at a moment in time. Its whole value is that it does not change when the underlying dashboard does.

Ticket PDFs in Node.js

Using fetch, in a route handler that returns the response body directly.

Ticket PDFs in Python

Using httpx, in an async endpoint that returns a streaming response.

Ticket PDFs in PHP

Using cURL, in a controller action that echoes the body with a PDF Content-Type.

The same thing in plain Node.js

Without the framework, using fetch directly.

When the output is wrong

Blank pages, missing backgrounds, breaks in the wrong place, by symptom.

All stacks and documents

The full grid of what this covers.

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