Guides

At a glance

Use this page to find the right NextPDF guide. NextPDF is a headless PHP 8.4 Portable Document Format 2.0 (PDF 2.0) engine. Each tile opens a section hub, not a single page. Choose a starting point, then follow the links inside that hub.

Guides explain how and why. For a task-oriented, copyable recipe, use the Cookbook. For the verified Application Programming Interface (API) surface and support matrices, use the Reference.

Integration guides

NextPDF extensions connect the core engine to application frameworks, browser renderers, edge services, build tools, and legacy migration paths. Each extension section uses the same structure: overview, install, quickstart, configuration, API, developer guide, production usage, security, and troubleshooting.

Integrations Framework adapters (Laravel, Symfony, CodeIgniter), renderer bridges (Artisan, Cloudflare, Gotenberg), the TCPDF compatibility shim, and the Backport Builder. Read the extension map and selection guide first.

Migration Move an existing codebase to NextPDF. Per-source guides for dompdf and mPDF, plus the one rule every guide shares: compatible behaviour, not byte-identical output, with documented differences.

Server and SDK

Use these guides when your callers are remote, written in another language, or artificial intelligence (AI) systems that need a tool endpoint instead of a PHP library.

NextPDF Connect (server) The nextpdf/server package: a deterministic PDF tool registry served over the Model Context Protocol (MCP), Representational State Transfer (REST), and gRPC, behind a human-in-the-loop confirmation gate. Install, configure, and deploy.

Python SDK Citation-ready PDF extraction for Python applications, agents, and the command line, backed by a NextPDF Connect endpoint. Install with pip install nextpdf, then point a client at your server.

Standards and conformance

NextPDF Core targets the structures required by standards. An external validator, checker, or receiving authority decides conformance. Each conformance page traces its claims to a clause and keeps that boundary explicit.

Conformance The standard profiles NextPDF targets: PDF 2.0 (ISO 32000-2), PDF/A-4 (ISO 19005-4) archival, PDF/UA-2 (ISO 14289-2) accessibility, PDF/X print production, and ZUGFeRD / Factur-X electronic invoicing.

PAdES baseline mapping How NextPDF maps to the ETSI EN 319 142 PAdES baseline levels B-B, B-T, B-LT, and B-LTA, separating the Core signing surface from the Premium and Enterprise tiers.

Operate and extend

Use these guides to run NextPDF safely in production, diagnose failures, and build on the public extension surface.

Trust and security The engineering posture of the core engine: threat model, signature and encryption security model, data-handling behaviour, and the vulnerability-disclosure policy, with the boundary of each.

Troubleshooting Symptom-to-resolution entries for signature, PDF/A, PDF/UA, font, tagging, encryption, and permission failures, grounded in the engine's own exception taxonomy.

Extension authoring The public Service Provider Interface (SPI): what you can extend, the stability promise behind it, custom fonts, custom layout engines, action triggers, and the Key Management Service (KMS) provider contract.

Premium (Pro and Enterprise) What NextPDF Pro and Enterprise add over the open-source core: the capability matrix, standards conformance, HSM and FIPS validation, and licensing. Adopting a commercial edition needs no application code change.

Concepts

The Insider_ section explains why NextPDF behaves the way it does. It gives you a senior engineer’s view of the design and tags each claim by the kind of evidence behind it.

Concepts (Insider_) Design philosophy, the standards landscape, the HTML pipeline, signing and long-term validation, fonts, high-volume generation, and the testing approach. Start here to understand the engine's reasoning.