Generate PDF from Swagger API documentation

Solution 1:

Handy way: Using Browser Printing/Preview

Hide editor pane
Print Preview (I used firefox, others also fine)
Change its page setup and print to pdf

enter image description here

Solution 2:

I figured out a way using https://github.com/springfox/springfox and https://github.com/RobWin/swagger2markup

Used Swagger 2 to implement documentation.

Solution 3:

I created a web site https://www.swdoc.org/ that specifically addresses the problem. So it automates swagger.json -> Asciidoc, Asciidoc -> pdf transformation as suggested in the answers. Benefit of this is that you dont need to go through the installation procedures. It accepts a spec document in form of url or just a raw json. Project is written in C# and its page is https://github.com/Irdis/SwDoc

EDIT

It might be a good idea to validate your json specs here: http://editor.swagger.io/ if you are having any problems with SwDoc, like the pdf being generated incomplete.

Solution 4:

You can modify your REST project, so as to produce the needed static documents (html, pdf etc) upon building the project.

If you have a Java Maven project you can use the pom snippet below. It uses a series of plugins to generate a pdf and an html documentation (of the project's REST resources).

rest-api -> swagger.json : swagger-maven-plugin
swagger.json -> Asciidoc : swagger2markup-maven-plugin
Asciidoc -> PDF : asciidoctor-maven-plugin

Please be aware that the order of execution matters, since the output of one plugin, becomes the input to the next:

<plugin>
    <groupId>com.github.kongchen</groupId>
    <artifactId>swagger-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>3.1.3</version>
    <configuration>
        <apiSources>
            <apiSource>
                <springmvc>false</springmvc>
                <locations>some.package</locations>
                <basePath>/api</basePath>
                <info>
                    <title>Put your REST service's name here</title>
                    <description>Add some description</description>
                    <version>v1</version>
                </info>
                <swaggerDirectory>${project.build.directory}/api</swaggerDirectory>
                <attachSwaggerArtifact>true</attachSwaggerArtifact>
            </apiSource>
        </apiSources>
    </configuration>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <phase>${phase.generate-documentation}</phase>
            <!-- fx process-classes phase -->
            <goals>
                <goal>generate</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>
<plugin>
    <groupId>io.github.robwin</groupId>
    <artifactId>swagger2markup-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>0.9.3</version>
    <configuration>
        <inputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/api</inputDirectory>
        <outputDirectory>${generated.asciidoc.directory}</outputDirectory>
        <!-- specify location to place asciidoc files -->
        <markupLanguage>asciidoc</markupLanguage>
    </configuration>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <phase>${phase.generate-documentation}</phase>
            <goals>
                <goal>process-swagger</goal>
            </goals>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>
<plugin>
    <groupId>org.asciidoctor</groupId>
    <artifactId>asciidoctor-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>1.5.3</version>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.asciidoctor</groupId>
            <artifactId>asciidoctorj-pdf</artifactId>
            <version>1.5.0-alpha.11</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.jruby</groupId>
            <artifactId>jruby-complete</artifactId>
            <version>1.7.21</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
    <configuration>
        <sourceDirectory>${asciidoctor.input.directory}</sourceDirectory>
        <!-- You will need to create an .adoc file. This is the input to this plugin -->
        <sourceDocumentName>swagger.adoc</sourceDocumentName>
        <attributes>
            <doctype>book</doctype>
            <toc>left</toc>
            <toclevels>2</toclevels>
            <generated>${generated.asciidoc.directory}</generated>
            <!-- this path is referenced in swagger.adoc file. The given file will simply 
                point to the previously create adoc files/assemble them. -->
        </attributes>
    </configuration>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <id>asciidoc-to-html</id>
            <phase>${phase.generate-documentation}</phase>
            <goals>
                <goal>process-asciidoc</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
                <backend>html5</backend>
                <outputDirectory>${generated.html.directory}</outputDirectory>
                <!-- specify location to place html file -->
            </configuration>
        </execution>
        <execution>
            <id>asciidoc-to-pdf</id>
            <phase>${phase.generate-documentation}</phase>
            <goals>
                <goal>process-asciidoc</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
                <backend>pdf</backend>
                <outputDirectory>${generated.pdf.directory}</outputDirectory>
                <!-- specify location to place pdf file -->
            </configuration>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

The asciidoctor plugin assumes the existence of an .adoc file to work on. You can create one that simply collects the ones that were created by the swagger2markup plugin:

include::{generated}/overview.adoc[]
include::{generated}/paths.adoc[]
include::{generated}/definitions.adoc[]

If you want your generated html document to become part of your war file you have to make sure that it is present on the top level - static files in the WEB-INF folder will not be served. You can do this in the maven-war-plugin:

<plugin>
    <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
    <configuration>
        <warSourceDirectory>WebContent</warSourceDirectory>
        <failOnMissingWebXml>false</failOnMissingWebXml>
        <webResources>
            <resource>
                <directory>${generated.html.directory}</directory>
            <!-- Add swagger.pdf to WAR file, so as to make it available as static content. -->
            </resource>
            <resource>
                <directory>${generated.pdf.directory}</directory>
            <!-- Add swagger.html to WAR file, so as to make it available as static content. -->
            </resource>
        </webResources>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

The war plugin works on the generated documentation - as such, you must make sure that those plugins have been executed in an earlier phase.

Solution 5:

Checkout https://mrin9.github.io/RapiPdf a custom element with plenty of customization and localization feature.

Disclaimer: I am the author of this package