Pdf Builder

Markdown to PDF with a small editor webapp and an MCP server, sharing a single docs folder. Pandoc + WeasyPrint pipeline.

What you get

• CLI — build.sh some.md renders a PDF using the active theme.
• Server (Express, port 3001) — REST API to list, read, write, version and render docs from DOCS_ROOT.
• Webapp (Angular + Ionic, port 4200) — sidebar tree, markdown editor, save, generate, PDF preview.
• MCP server — stdio JSON-RPC tools so an LLM can do the same things the webapp does.

All four operate on the same on-disk folder: edits via the webapp show up in the MCP and vice versa.

Requirements

• Node.js 20+
• pandoc
• weasyprint

Quick start

./start.sh

Then open http://localhost:4200. The default DOCS_ROOT is ./docs/ (auto-created on first write).

CLI alternative:

./build.sh path/to/file.md

PDF lands in out/.

Configuration

Env var	Default	Effect
DOCS_ROOT	<repo>/docs	Folder that holds the markdown sources, history snapshots, and rendered PDFs.
PDF_THEME	default	Theme directory under themes/.

Themes

A theme is a folder under themes/ with two required files and one optional:

themes/<name>/
  style.css        # required — page layout, typography, colors
  template.html    # required — pandoc HTML wrapper
  logo.png         # optional — auto-used if present and no --logo flag

Two themes ship in the repo: default (plain) and example (branded layout — running logo, footer with company/address, accent color, page breaks). Use example as the starting point for your own brand.

To brand it for your org:

1. cp -r themes/example themes/myorg
2. Edit style.css (accent color, fonts, footer text in @bottom-center).
3. Drop your logo.png into the folder.
4. PDF_THEME=myorg ./build.sh some.md

The .gitignore excludes themes/*/ except themes/default/ and themes/example/, so a private branded theme stays out of the public repo automatically.

MCP server

Build and register:

cd mcp && npm install && npm run build
claude mcp add pdf-builder --scope user -- node "$PWD/dist/index.js"

Tools exposed: list_docs, read_doc, write_doc, list_history, read_history, generate_pdf, explain. See mcp/explain.md.

Path traversal is blocked: tool args must be relative to DOCS_ROOT.

Repo layout

build.sh             # CLI entry
start.sh             # boots server + webapp
themes/default/      # ships in the public repo — plain
themes/example/      # ships in the public repo — branded starting point
themes/<other>/      # gitignored — your private brand
docs/                # gitignored — your content
out/                 # gitignored — CLI build artefacts
server/              # Express REST API
app/                 # Angular + Ionic editor
mcp/                 # stdio MCP server

Versioning

Every overwrite via write_doc or PUT /api/doc snapshots the previous file content into <DOCS_ROOT>/.history/<path>/<ISO-timestamp>.md before overwriting. Append-only, no deletes. Restore by reading a snapshot and writing it back.

License

TBD.