Problem with WebPDF in a conda environment

[jsdodge]

Hello,

I tried using both the command line and the Jupyter menu to export a notebook as a WebPDF and encountered errors in both cases. The web interface returned a 500 error and told me to install nbconvert[webpdf], which I did. The problems continued, but after looking into it I discovered that I needed to install playwright, also.

I am using a conda environment, originally with just the conda-forge and the defaults channels. I discovered that playwright is not available on either channel, so I added the Microsoft channel. Then, the command-line version of nbconvert returned the error message, RuntimeError: No suitable chromium executable found on the system. Please use '--allow-chromium-download' to allow downloading one,or install it using `playwright install chromium`. Finally, I added that flag, running nbconvert again downloaded chromium, and now I am able to export to WebPDF using both the command line and the Jupyter menu commands.

Is this anomalous behavior? Is a fix available?