Text Drawing

This guide covers everything you need to know about drawing text on a PDF page with modern-pdf-lib.

Basic Text Drawing

Use page.drawText() to place a string at a specific position. Coordinates are in PDF points (1 point = 1/72 inch), with the origin at the bottom-left corner of the page.

import { createPdf, PageSizes, rgb } from 'modern-pdf-lib';

const pdf = createPdf();
const page = pdf.addPage(PageSizes.A4);

page.drawText('Hello, world!', {
  x: 50,
  y: 700,
  size: 16,
  color: rgb(0, 0, 0),
});

const bytes = await pdf.save();

Font Sizes and Colors

Control the appearance of text with the size and color options:

// Large red heading
page.drawText('Important Notice', {
  x: 50,
  y: 750,
  size: 36,
  color: rgb(0.8, 0.1, 0.1),
});

// Small gray body text
page.drawText('Please read the following terms carefully.', {
  x: 50,
  y: 710,
  size: 11,
  color: rgb(0.4, 0.4, 0.4),
});

Colors can be specified in RGB, CMYK, or grayscale:

import { rgb, cmyk, grayscale } from 'modern-pdf-lib';

// RGB (values 0–1)
const red = rgb(1, 0, 0);

// CMYK (values 0–1)
const richBlack = cmyk(0.75, 0.68, 0.67, 0.90);

// Grayscale (value 0–1, where 0 = black)
const darkGray = grayscale(0.3);

Multi-line Text

Pass a string containing newline characters (\n) to draw multi-line text. The lineHeight option controls the spacing between lines:

page.drawText('Line one\nLine two\nLine three', {
  x: 50,
  y: 700,
  size: 14,
  color: rgb(0, 0, 0),
  lineHeight: 20,
});

TIP

When lineHeight is omitted, a default of size * 1.2 is used — this works well for most body text.

Text Measurement

Use font.widthOfTextAtSize() to measure the width of a string before drawing it. This is useful for right-aligning text or centering it on the page:

const font = await pdf.embedFont(fontBytes);

const text = 'Centered Title';
const fontSize = 24;
const textWidth = font.widthOfTextAtSize(text, fontSize);
const pageWidth = PageSizes.A4[0]; // 595.28 points

page.drawText(text, {
  x: (pageWidth - textWidth) / 2,
  y: 700,
  font,
  size: fontSize,
  color: rgb(0, 0, 0),
});

You can also retrieve font height for precise vertical alignment:

const textHeight = font.heightAtSize(fontSize);

Text Rotation

Rotate text around its anchor point using the rotate option:

import { degrees } from 'modern-pdf-lib';

// Draw text at a 45-degree angle
page.drawText('Rotated!', {
  x: 200,
  y: 400,
  size: 20,
  color: rgb(0, 0, 0.7),
  rotate: degrees(45),
});

// Vertical text (90 degrees)
page.drawText('Vertical', {
  x: 30,
  y: 300,
  size: 14,
  color: rgb(0, 0, 0),
  rotate: degrees(90),
});

The rotation is counter-clockwise, following the standard PDF coordinate system.

Standard Fonts vs Custom Fonts

Standard Fonts

Every PDF viewer includes 14 built-in standard fonts. You can use them without embedding any font data:

import { StandardFonts } from 'modern-pdf-lib';

page.drawText('Standard font text', {
  x: 50,
  y: 700,
  size: 14,
  color: rgb(0, 0, 0),
  font: StandardFonts.Helvetica,
});

Available standard fonts:

Font Name	Identifier
Helvetica	StandardFonts.Helvetica
Helvetica Bold	StandardFonts.HelveticaBold
Helvetica Oblique	StandardFonts.HelveticaOblique
Helvetica Bold Oblique	StandardFonts.HelveticaBoldOblique
Times Roman	StandardFonts.TimesRoman
Times Bold	StandardFonts.TimesBold
Times Italic	StandardFonts.TimesItalic
Times Bold Italic	StandardFonts.TimesBoldItalic
Courier	StandardFonts.Courier
Courier Bold	StandardFonts.CourierBold
Courier Oblique	StandardFonts.CourierOblique
Courier Bold Oblique	StandardFonts.CourierBoldOblique
Symbol	StandardFonts.Symbol
ZapfDingbats	StandardFonts.ZapfDingbats

Custom Fonts

For full Unicode support and precise typography, embed a TrueType or OpenType font:

const fontBytes = await fetch('/fonts/Inter-Regular.ttf')
  .then((res) => res.arrayBuffer())
  .then((buf) => new Uint8Array(buf));

const font = await pdf.embedFont(fontBytes);

page.drawText('Custom font text with Unicode: cafe\u0301', {
  x: 50,
  y: 700,
  font,
  size: 16,
  color: rgb(0, 0, 0),
});

See the Fonts guide for details on subsetting, complex script shaping, and font metrics.

Options Reference

Full drawText() Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
x	number	Required	Horizontal position in points
y	number	Required	Vertical position in points (from bottom)
size	number	12	Font size in points
font	FontRef	Standard Helvetica	Font to use
color	Color	rgb(0, 0, 0)	Text color
rotate	Angle	degrees(0)	Rotation angle
lineHeight	number	size * 1.2	Vertical spacing for multi-line text
opacity	number	1	Text opacity (0 to 1)