What Brevier prints, and when

The page is HTML with CSS. No proprietary format, no coordinate calculations, no design software needed.

Write a document in Markdown, for example a book or an article. Brevier turns it into a PDF directly. brevier compile writes the HTML, when you want to go on in HTML.

Handlebars syntax binds JSON into the HTML: values, loops and conditions. Deliberately we do not use any other template engine, just the Handlebars preprocessor.

Amounts and dates print in German format, 1.234,50 € and 25.09.2026, whatever the language of the server.

--debug writes the exact HTML and CSS the engine received, and brevier html renders a web view of the same document.

A misspelt field fails the check before anything prints. The error names the field and the line of the template.

Compound words break at their joins: Berufsunfähigkeits-versicherung, not Beruf-sunfähigkeit. At most 3 lines in a row end in a hyphen. Your code does not have to care about that.

Each field is text, multiline, rich or raw. Stray <br/>, &nbsp; and double spaces are cleaned per field. Your objects don't have to be clean. We understand your need for paragraphs, not lines.

Declared column widths and a header row that repeats on every page. You do not have to worry about tables splitting across pages. We do it for you, needing only the JSON data.

The running total is carried to the bottom of each page and to the top of the next.

Corporate identity, logos, page nr. of total pages, in one editable block, on every page. Set and reuse.

Numbered clauses, a table of contents with page numbers, and small print that stays readable. No heading is left alone at the bottom of a page. CSS page-break rules keep headings and clauses together across pages.

The address sits in the envelope window, with fold marks and the reference line where German offices expect them.

Logo, colours and fonts are plain CSS in one company file. Templates link or import it, so one change restyles every document.

Every PDF is PDF/A-3b and passes veraPDF. Your documents embed their used fonts and colors, so they can print reliably for decades to come.

The invoice XML is bound from the same data as the page, so the two cannot disagree.

The Java, Python, TypeScript and .NET clients write a JSON Schema from your own classes. brevier template turns it into a starting template and sample data.

.jrxml files (JasperReports 6) and BIRT .rptdesign files become an HTML template, a stylesheet and a JSON Schema. The import converts text fields, formats, totals, groups, images and borders. It lists every element it cannot convert, with its line.

.docx files and their merge fields become an HTML template, a stylesheet and a JSON Schema. The import reads the fields of XDocReport, docx4j, docxtpl, docxtemplater and DocxTemplater.

For JasperReports and Word services in Java, Python, TypeScript and C#. Step 1 keeps your data code and changes the call. Step 2 passes your objects directly.

The forms iText fills today become templates, with their fields as a schema.

Finds overflowing text, squeezed columns, hyphen runs and missing glyphs, each pointing at a line of the HTML. Runs in CI.

pip, a Docker image, or a one-line script for Linux, macOS and Windows.

Re-renders in the browser every time you save.

Runs the engine as a service for your applications.