Introduction

press is the Press.js CLI — the bridge between your web application and PDF output.

It orchestrates the full render pipeline: building your app, routing artifacts into a headless Chromium browser, running the Press.js pagination engine, and exporting the result as a PDF. With --remote, the same command delegates rendering to Press.js Cloud.

The pipeline

press.toml ──► build ──► artifact routing ──► Playwright ──► pagination ──► PDF

1. Configure — a press.toml file declares one or more document entries, each pointing to a built web app
2. Build (optional) — the CLI runs your app’s build command
3. Route — the CLI fulfills internal browser requests from the built artifacts
4. Capture — Playwright launches Chromium, navigates to your app, and waits for the ready signal
5. Paginate — the Press.js runtime measures and paginates the DOM into pages
6. Export — the paginated result is rendered to PDF

For cloud rendering, press render --remote keeps steps 1 and 2 local, then hands the resolved artifact path and render options to press-cloud-cli.

Relationship with Press.js packages

• @press-js/cli — this tool (the press command)
• @press-js/react or @press-js/vue — framework components for marking up your document (see Special Elements)
• @press-js/playwright — the Chromium renderer (the CLI uses this internally)

You don’t need to install @press-js/playwright separately — it’s bundled with the CLI.

Quick example

# Install the CLI
npm install --global @press-js/cli

# Render a PDF (requires press.toml and a built app)
press render

See the Press.js Quickstart for a complete walkthrough.