Django PDF rendering

Django PDF rendering, the easy way.

Build Status Latest Version Wheel License

Developed at en.ig.ma software shop.

Development Version

Note: A new PDF rendering backend using WeasyPrint for more accurate rendering is in development under the develop branch. See https://github.com/nigma/django-easy-pdf/pull/34 for changes, testing and discussion.

If you rely on the xhtml2pdf rendering backend and templates pin the package version to django-easy-pdf>=0.1.1<0.2.0.

Overview

This app makes rendering PDF files in Django really easy. It can be used to create invoices, bills and other documents from simple HTML markup and CSS styles. You can even embed images and use custom fonts.

The library provides both Class-Based View that is almost a drop-in replacement for Django’s TemplateView as well as helper functions to render PDFs in the backend outside the request scope (i.e. using Celery workers).

Quickstart

  1. Include django-easy-pdf, xhtml2pdf in your requirements.txt file. If you are on Python 3 you need to install the latest version of Reportlab and the beta version of xhtml2pdf:

    $ pip install xhtml2pdf>=0.2b1
    
  2. Add easy_pdf to INSTALLED_APPS.

  3. Create HTML template for PDF document and add a view that will render it:

    {% extends "easy_pdf/base.html" %}
    
    {% block content %}
        <div id="content">
            <h1>Hi there!</h1>
        </div>
    {% endblock %}
    
    from easy_pdf.views import PDFTemplateView
    
    class HelloPDFView(PDFTemplateView):
        template_name = 'hello.html'
    
  4. You can also use a mixin to output PDF from Django generic views:

    class PDFUserDetailView(PDFTemplateResponseMixin, DetailView):
        model = get_user_model()
        template_name = 'user_detail.html'
    

Documentation

The full documentation is at django-easy-pdf.readthedocs.io.

A live demo is at easy-pdf.herokuapp.com. You can run it locally after installing dependencies by running python demo.py script from the cloned repository or through Docker with make demo.

Dependencies

django-easy-pdf depends on:

  • django>=1.10
  • xhtml2pdf>=0.2b1
  • reportlab

License

django-easy-pdf is released under the MIT license.

Commercial Support

This app and many other help us build better software and focus on delivering quality projects faster. We would love to help you with your next project so get in touch by dropping an email at en@ig.ma.

Content

Installation

Add django-easy-pdf=<version> and git+https://github.com/chrisglass/xhtml2pdf.git to your requirements.txt file or install it directly from the command line by invoking:

$ pip install django-easy-pdf xhtml2pdf reportlab

If you are on Python 3 you need to install the latest version of Reportlab and the beta version of xhtml2pdf:

$ pip install xhtml2pdf>=0.2b1

Usage

Prepare HTML Templates

Create a Django HTML template with embedded CSS style. You can use special style attributes to format the PDF output.

For more information on the supported HTML and CSS rules see docs at https://github.com/xhtml2pdf/xhtml2pdf/blob/master/doc/source/usage.rst

You can also use custom embeddable resources like images and fonts. Put them inside Django’s STATIC_ROOT directory and make sure they are available locally on the server even if you are serving your static files from S3 or other CDN.

For now only local resources are supported.

{% extends "easy_pdf/base.html" %}

{% block extra_style %}
    <style type="text/css">
        body {
            font-family: "Helvetica", "sans-serif";
            color: #333333;
        }
    </style>
{% endblock %}

{% block content %}
    <div id="content">
        <div class="main">
            <h1>Hi there!</h1>
        </div>
    </div>
{% endblock %}

Create PDF rendering views

This part is easy. The PDF rendering view inherits from TemplateResponseMixin so it works in the same way as Django’s TemplateView. Just point it to a HTML template and define get_context_data() method to pass any extra variables to the template:

from easy_pdf.views import PDFTemplateView

class HelloPDFView(PDFTemplateView):
    template_name = 'hello.html'

    def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):
        return super(HelloPDFView, self).get_context_data(
            pagesize='A4',
            title='Hi there!',
            **kwargs
        )

Then add the view to your url config and start serving PDF files rendered from the HTML template.

urlpatterns = [
    url(r'^hello.pdf$', HelloPDFView.as_view())
]

You can also use a mixin to output PDF from Django generic views:

.. code-block:: python
class PDFUserDetailView(PDFTemplateResponseMixin, DetailView):
model = get_user_model() template_name = ‘user_detail.html’

Rendering PDF outside of Django views

See PDF rendering functions.

API Overview

Views

PDFTemplateResponseMixin
class easy_pdf.views.PDFTemplateResponseMixin

Bases: django.views.generic.base.TemplateResponseMixin

A mixin class that implements PDF rendering and Django response construction.

pdf_filename = None

Optional name of the PDF file for download. Leave blank for display in browser.

pdf_kwargs = None

Additional params passed to render_to_pdf_response()

get_pdf_filename()

Returns pdf_filename value by default.

If left blank the browser will display the PDF inline. Otherwise it will pop up the “Save as..” dialog.

Return type:str()
get_pdf_kwargs()

Returns pdf_kwargs by default.

The kwargs are passed to render_to_pdf_response() and xhtml2pdf.pisa.pisaDocument().

Return type:dict
get_pdf_response(context, **response_kwargs)

Renders PDF document and prepares response.

Returns:Django HTTP response
Return type:django.http.HttpResponse
render_to_response(context, **response_kwargs)
PDFTemplateView
class easy_pdf.views.PDFTemplateView(**kwargs)

Bases: easy_pdf.views.PDFTemplateResponseMixin, django.views.generic.base.ContextMixin, django.views.generic.base.View

Concrete view for serving PDF files.

class HelloPDFView(PDFTemplateView):
    template_name = "hello.html"
get(request, *args, **kwargs)

Handles GET request and returns HTTP response.

PDF rendering functions

easy_pdf.rendering.render_to_pdf(template, context, using=None, request=None, encoding='utf-8', **kwargs)

Create PDF document from Django html template.

Parameters:
  • template (str) – Path to Django template
  • context (dict) – Template context
  • using – Optional Django template engine
  • request (django.http.HttpRequest) – Django HTTP request
Returns:

rendered PDF

Return type:

bytes

Raises:

PDFRenderingError, UnsupportedMediaPathException

easy_pdf.rendering.render_to_pdf_response(request, template, context, using=None, filename=None, encoding='utf-8', **kwargs)

Renders a PDF response using given request, template and context.

If filename param is specified then the response Content-Disposition header will be set to attachment making the browser display a “Save as..” dialog.

Parameters:
  • request (django.http.HttpRequest) – Django HTTP request
  • template (str) – Path to Django template
  • context (dict) – Template context
  • using – Optional Django template engine
Return type:

django.http.HttpResponse

Other lower-level helpers
easy_pdf.rendering.html_to_pdf(content, dest, encoding="utf-8", link_callback=fetch_resources, **kwargs)

Converts html content into PDF document.

Parameters:content (unicode) – html content
Returns:PDF content
Return type:bytes
Raises:PDFRenderingError
easy_pdf.rendering.fetch_resources(uri, rel)

Retrieves embeddable resource from given uri.

For now only local resources (images, fonts) are supported.

Parameters:uri (str) – path or url to image or font resource
Returns:path to local resource file.
Return type:str
Raises:UnsupportedMediaPathException
easy_pdf.rendering.make_response(content, filename=None, content_type='application/pdf')

Wraps content into HTTP response.

If filename is specified then Content-Disposition: attachment header is added to the response.

Default Content-Type is application/pdf.

Parameters:
  • content (bytes) – response content
  • filename (str) – optional filename for file download
  • content_type (str) – response content type
Return type:

django.http.HttpResponse

easy_pdf.rendering.encode_filename(filename)

Encodes filename part for Content-Disposition: attachment.

>>> print(encode_filename("abc.pdf"))
filename=abc.pdf
>>> print(encode_filename("aa bb.pdf"))
filename*=UTF-8''aa%20bb.pdf
>>> print(encode_filename(u"zażółć.pdf"))
filename*=UTF-8''za%C5%BC%C3%B3%C5%82%C4%87.pdf

Exceptions

exception easy_pdf.exceptions.EasyPDFError

Bases: Exception

Base error class

exception easy_pdf.exceptions.UnsupportedMediaPathException

Bases: easy_pdf.exceptions.EasyPDFError

Resource not found or unavailable

exception easy_pdf.exceptions.PDFRenderingError(message, content, log, *args, **kwargs)

Bases: easy_pdf.exceptions.EasyPDFError

PDF Rendering error. Check HTML template for errors.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome, and they are greatly appreciated! Every little bit helps, and credit will always be given.

You can contribute in many ways:

Types of Contributions

Report Bugs

Report bugs at https://github.com/nigma/django-easy-pdf/issues.

If you are reporting a bug, please include:

  • Your operating system name and version.
  • Any details about your local setup that might be helpful in troubleshooting.
  • Detailed steps to reproduce the bug.
Fix Bugs

Look through the GitHub issues for bugs. Anything tagged with “bug” is open to whoever wants to implement it.

Implement Features

Look through the GitHub issues for features. Anything tagged with “feature” is open to whoever wants to implement it.

Write Documentation

django-easy-pdf could always use more documentation, whether as part of the official django-easy-pdf docs, in docstrings, or even on the web in blog posts, articles, and such.

Submit Feedback

The best way to send feedback is to file an issue at https://github.com/nigma/django-easy-pdf/issues.

If you are proposing a feature:

  • Explain in detail how it would work.
  • Keep the scope as narrow as possible, to make it easier to implement.
  • Remember that this is a volunteer-driven project, and that contributions are welcome :)

Get Started!

Ready to contribute? Here’s how to set up django-easy-pdf for local development.

  1. Fork the django-easy-pdf repo on GitHub.

  2. Clone your fork locally:

    $ git clone git@github.com:your_name_here/django-easy-pdf.git
    
  3. Install your local copy into a virtualenv. Assuming you have virtualenvwrapper installed, this is how you set up your fork for local development:

    $ mkvirtualenv django-easy-pdf
    $ cd django-easy-pdf/
    $ python setup.py develop
    
  4. Create a branch for local development:

    $ git checkout -b name-of-your-bugfix-or-feature
    

Now you can make your changes locally.

  1. When you’re done making changes, check that your changes pass flake8:

    $ flake8 easy_pdf
    

To get flake8, just pip install them into your virtualenv.

  1. Commit your changes and push your branch to GitHub:

    $ git add .
    $ git commit -m "Your detailed description of your changes."
    $ git push origin name-of-your-bugfix-or-feature
    
  2. Submit a pull request through the GitHub website.

Pull Request Guidelines

Before you submit a pull request, check that it meets these guidelines:

  1. If the pull request adds functionality, the docs should be updated. Put your new functionality into a function with a docstring, and add the feature to the list in README.rst.
  2. The pull request should work for Python 2.7, and 3.4+ (if there are compatible 3rd party packages available). Check https://travis-ci.org/nigma/django-easy-pdf/pull_requests and make sure that the tests pass for all supported Python versions.

Credits

Development Lead

Contributors

  • Jon Bolt (@epicbagel)
  • @msaizar
  • @SaeX

History

0.1.1 (2017-04-19)

  • Update for Django 1.11 and Python 3

0.1.0 (2014-01-24)

  • First release

Indices and tables