adewes/pdf-printer

A Python + PyQt script that generates PDFs from HTML templates

Making HTML-based PDFs with Python + Qt

This repository contains code for generating PDFs from Jinja2 templates using PyQT5's web rendering engine. It is very handy e.g. for generating PDF invoices or other documents using templated HTML. It comes with a Docker image that makes running it easy on servers without an X windows system.

Installation

To run the code, you need to install the following requirements:

• Python 3
• Jinja2
• Qt5 + PyQt5
• A minimal X Windows system, or XVFB with required X libraries

All instructions below assume you run a Debian/Ubuntu based system (there's a dockerized version of the system that you can use as well, please look below).

To install the required X window libraries:

sudo apt-get install \
    libxcomposite1 \
    libxcursor1 \
    libxi6 \
    libfontconfig \
    libxrandr2 \
    libasound2 \
    libegl1 \
    xvfb \
    libnss3 \
    libxtst6

To install the Python dependencies:

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Usage

To generate a demo PDF using the printer.py script, simply run

make python-example

You can also run the printer using XVFB:

make python-example-xvfb

This will generate a PDF using the content in the example directory, storing the output to example/output/index.pdf.

Docker Image

This repository includes a Dockerfile that allows you to build a Docker image that can run the PDF printer (for better isolation / security). To build the image locally, run

make docker-image

You can then run the PDF creator on the example data using the following command:

make docker-example

Have a look at the Makefile to see how to run the container. Basically, it expects templates to be mounted under /templates, media under /media, the context given as a JSON file located at /context.json and a writeable output directory mounted at /output. It will then look for an index.html file in the template directory and write PDF output to /output/index.pdf. The UID/GID of the output file will be set to the values specified using the TARGET_UID environment variable.

License

The code in this repository is in the public domain, you can use it without any kind of attribution, in any way you please and at your own risk.