stuaxo / pycairo

Python bindings for cairo

Pycairo is a Python module providing bindings for the cairo graphics library. It depends on cairo >= 1.13.1 and works with Python 3.5+. Pycairo, including this documentation, is licensed under the LGPL-2.1-only OR MPL-1.1.

The Pycairo bindings are designed to match the cairo C API as closely as possible, and to deviate only in cases which are clearly better implemented in a more ‘Pythonic’ way.

pip install pycairo

Installing Pycairo requires cairo including its headers. For more info see "Getting Started".

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import cairo

with cairo.SVGSurface("example.svg", 200, 200) as surface:
    context = cairo.Context(surface)
    x, y, x1, y1 = 0.1, 0.5, 0.4, 0.9
    x2, y2, x3, y3 = 0.6, 0.1, 0.9, 0.5
    context.scale(200, 200)
    context.set_line_width(0.04)
    context.move_to(x, y)
    context.curve_to(x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3)
    context.stroke()
    context.set_source_rgba(1, 0.2, 0.2, 0.6)
    context.set_line_width(0.02)
    context.move_to(x, y)
    context.line_to(x1, y1)
    context.move_to(x2, y2)
    context.line_to(x3, y3)
    context.stroke()

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Features of the Pycairo bindings:

• Provides an object oriented interface to cairo.
• Queries the error status of objects and translates them to exceptions.
• Provides a C API that can be used by other Python extensions.

If Pycairo is not what you need, have a look at cairocffi, which is an API compatible package using cffi or Qahirah, which is using ctypes and provides a more "pythonic" API with less focus on matching the cairo C API.

For more information visit https://pycairo.readthedocs.io