Why generate an invoice PDF in the browser
Freelancers still lose hours to Word templates that jump margins, Excel sheets that round VAT wrong, and “free” invoice SaaS that locks the PDF behind an account. Nota is the opposite shape: one A4 page, filled here, downloaded here. The numbers are qty × price in integer cents so $10.10 × 3 does not become 30.299999. If you have ever had a payable clerk reject a file because the total was a pixel off, that is the bug this math is for.
Cloud generators want the client list, the logo and often the bank details on their disk. That is a poor fit when you invoice a hospital, a law firm or a buyer who signed an NDA. Nota never posts the form. pdf-lib draws an A4 layout with Noto Sans embedded, so “ТОО Акация” and “Studio Atabek” both print instead of throwing a WinAnsi error. Selectable text means someone can copy the IBAN from Notes instead of retyping it from a screenshot.
The file is a normal PDF. Open it in Preview, Adobe Reader or a phone Files app. The header says INVOICE plus your number. From is left, Bill to is right. Line items sit under a Description / Qty / Price / Amount row. Totals sit on the right: subtotal, optional flat discount, optional tax percent, then total. Notes at the bottom are for IBAN, Kaspi, PayPal or “net 14”. Extra lines that would fall off the page are omitted with a short notice rather than a second blank sheet.
What this tool is not
It is not accounting software. It does not email the client, chase late invoices, store a customer book or talk to a tax office. It does not watermark the amount. It does not cap downloads. If you need recurring invoices with a CRM, use that CRM; export a PDF here when you just need one clean page today.
Currencies on the form: US dollar, euro, pound sterling and Kazakh tenge. Tenge prints as the letters KZT plus the amount so a missing glyph cannot blank the total. Tax is applied after discount. Discount is money, not a percent — if you need 10% off, type the amount yourself.
Optional logo: PNG or JPEG under 2 MB. We read magic bytes, not just the file extension, and skip anything else. GIF banners and SVG marks are not embedded. A bad logo never blocks the rest of the invoice.
Drafts live in this browser’s local storage with a short debounce. Another phone does not see them. Tap Start over to wipe the draft. Hosting still records ordinary page hits (IP, user-agent) the way every public site does; that log is not your invoice.
Longer walkthroughs: how to create an invoice PDF without uploading, which fields belong on the page, tax and discount math, who this is for, and using Nota in Safari on iPhone. Questions sit on the FAQ. Mail: contact.