# mileszs/wicked_pdf

PDF generator (from HTML) plugin for Ruby on Rails

Repository: https://github.com/mileszs/wicked_pdf
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/wicked_pdf
Homepage: http://www.mileszs.com/wicked-pdf-plugin
Language: Ruby
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2025-07-24T14:08:42+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 38/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 33, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 6287, "days_push": 405, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 3572, forks 636 (observed 2026-08-28T04:08:10.736773+00:00)

## What it is
Wicked PDF is a Ruby on Rails plugin that generates PDF files from HTML views by wrapping the wkhtmltopdf shell utility. Developers write normal HTML/CSS views and serve them as PDFs without learning a PDF generation DSL.

## Use cases
- generate pdf invoices from rails views
- convert html to pdf in ruby on rails
- serve pdf reports to users from a web app
- render pdf from erb templates
- generate printable documents from html and css
- download pdf version of a web page in rails

## When to choose
- you're on Rails and want PDFs from existing HTML views
- you want to style PDFs with HTML and CSS instead of a PDF DSL
- you need a mature, MIT-licensed Rails PDF solution

## When to avoid
- you need pixel-perfect modern CSS (wkhtmltopdf uses an old WebKit)
- you're not using Ruby/Rails
- you need high-throughput PDF generation (it shells out to an external binary)

## Facets
- artifact type: plugin
- maturity: stable
- function: pdf, templating, web-framework
- domain: pdf, web-development, backend, files
- platform: ruby
- tags: rails, wkhtmltopdf, html-to-pdf, pdf-generation, ruby-gem, linux, macos, web-server

## Member repositories
- mileszs/wicked_pdf (main) score 38

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:10.736773+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:34:05.407928+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/mileszs/wicked_pdf (fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:10.736773+00:00, sha 969e094a87d4)
  - homepage: http://www.mileszs.com/wicked-pdf-plugin (fetched 2026-08-29T09:27:40.280136+00:00, sha 041ec52a2ddf)
  - site_page: https://mileszs.com/about (fetched 2026-08-29T09:27:40.289896+00:00, sha 50f47633ebe1)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.