Chromium engine
webPDF uses the Chromium engine (the base of the Chrome browser) to convert HTML content (e.g., in e-mail documents). The engine is integrated and managed with the Chromium Bridge. More specifically, webPDF starts the Chromium engine as a Chrome browser instance in a separate process when the server starts. The Chromium engine therefore appears as a Chrome process in the operating system (below the webPDF process). The webPDF server communicates with the Chrome browser instance via a socket connection.
The Chrome browser installation being used will be found in the chromium/ webPDF subdirectory. It is part of the installation and does not need to be deployed manually.
webPDF uses its own version of the Chrome browser and does not use any version that may already be installed on the operating system.
Web service usage
The Chromium Bridge is used by the "Converter" and "URLConverter" web services.
The "Converter" web service uses the Chromium Bridge to directly convert HTML content, as well as to convert file formats that use HTML content internally. Examples include EML and MSG documents, as well as formatting for text content that requires more visual processing, such as text and source code documents.
The "URLConverter" web service converts the passed URL to a PDF document using the Chromium Bridge.
Browser starting port
Using the admin page of the web services in the portal, the port of the browser can be adjusted under "Converter". If the value is 0, the browser will look for an available port itself when starting. If you want to set a specific port instead, you can use the "Port" setting to do so.
If you disable the Chromium Bridge, it will not be possible to process any HTML content, meaning that certain file formats will no longer be converted and/or processed and that the web services will no longer work fully.