I'm developing a project called SecurePages, a privacy-first printing platform. Users can select documents from their devices, and the system needs to detect the number of pages to charge them before printing. Since we're operating in Ghana, we use Mobile Money instead of traditional credit cards, so it's crucial that the page count is accurate for billing. My main hurdle is reliably determining the number of pages in .docx files. Most tools I've tried have either miscounted pages or struggled with complex formatting, often not matching Microsoft Word's pagination. I'm using HTML, CSS, JavaScript for the frontend and Node.js for the backend. If anyone has recommendations for dependable libraries or methods for accurately counting pages in .docx files, whether through direct parsing, server-side rendering, or converting to PDF first, I would greatly appreciate your help!
4 Answers
You might want to consider using a headless browser like Puppeteer. It can render the document and give you a reliable page count. Here's a link to a StackOverflow thread discussing it: [How to get number of pages using Puppeteer](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53294512/how-to-get-number-of-pages-using-puppeteer).
I feel for your struggle! The .docx format can be overly complex since page counts can depend on many factors like printer settings and paper size. If your service can manage it, using a PDF solution might help with consistency in results.
It's important to remember that .docx isn't exactly designed for printing like PDF files are, which is part of the challenge. I recommend finding a good .docx to PDF converter to estimate the print size, and maybe allow for some variance when you quote your customers.
Have you thought about only allowing PDF uploads? PDFs are generally easier to handle when it comes to counting pages accurately, as they’re specifically designed for printing. It would simplify things significantly, even though I know it might not be ideal for your users right now.
I get that, but many customers might not want to convert their documents just for printing. It adds extra steps, and some aren’t comfortable with that.