++++
+title = "PDF Rendering"
+description = "Using WKHTMLtoPDF to generate PDF's for better rendering"
+date = "2017-01-22"
+type = "admin-docs"
++++
+
+By default BookStack uses [Dompdf](https://github.com/dompdf/dompdf) to export pages as PDF documents. The benefit of using DomPDF is that it doesn't require any additional installation or setup but the rendering capabilities are somewhat limited.
+
+As an alternative you can use [wkhtmltopdf](http://wkhtmltopdf.org/) to generate PDF documents instead. wkhtmltopdf uses the Qt WebKit rendering engine to provide a more accurate overall result.
+
+### Using wkhtmltopdf
+
+Pre-compiled binaries for wkhtmltopdf can be found on the downloads page of [their website](http://wkhtmltopdf.org/downloads.html). BookStack will check for a file named `wkhtmltopdf` at the base folder of a BookStack install. If found it will use that to render PDF's. If that does not exist it will check for a `WKHTMLTOPDF` variable in the `.env` file. You can use this variable to set an alternate location to wkhtmltopdf:
+
+```
+# In .env file
+WKHTMLTOPDF=/home/user/bins/wkhtmltopdf
+```
+
+If neither of those exist Dompdf will be used instead.
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