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.
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
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.
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.
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.