Pygal Python (How It Works: A Guide for Developers)

Introduction

Pygal is an ultra-powerful Python package and dynamic SVG charting library for creating interactive charts and plots, scalable SVG charts, and graphs. Pygal has a very approachable API, which is flexible enough to produce charts in many diverse formats. Some of the reasons that make Pygal very strong when it comes to data visualization and reporting—from the most basic to expert tasks, and even forecasting—include its ability to build nice charts from a few lines of code easily.

The Python package IronPDF, however, is specifically designed to handle scenarios that involve the processing of PDF documents. It exposes an interface through which developers can create, edit, and display PDFs. It allows developers to generate dynamic PDF reports, concatenate several PDF documents, extract data from PDF forms, and add text-based and graphics content dynamically. This Python library comes in handy when applications need to dynamically generate PDFs from material pulled from databases, or generated by user input.

The combination library of Pygal and IronPDF places in a developer's hands a full toolkit for extending Python apps with advanced graphing capabilities and dependable PDF document management. These libraries combined would let a developer generate sophisticated data-driven reports with line graphs and data visualization.

What is Pygal Python?

Pygal is a Python package used to create interactive graphs and charts in SVG. It has an extremely easy and powerful API that makes the work of a developer pretty easy to create interactive charts: from the most basic, such as Pie charts, and Bar charts, to the more complex ones like a simple line graph and charts. One of the more interesting features is that it can easily generate fancy charts in just a very minimum number of lines of code, hence being quite a useful package both for new and expert developers.

Probably one of the greatest strengths of the Pygal library is processing large data sets without affecting the responsiveness of web applications. It has rich end-user interaction through provisions like tooltips, legends, and clickable data points. Responsive Web Applications: All charts produced using the Pygal library are responsive by default; therefore built-in styles and, they easily adapt to screen sizes and gadgets.

Coupled with the power of the Python Data Processing and Visualization Ecosystem, Pygal empowers data-driven visualizations with dashboards and dynamic reporting. Harnessed by the power of Python, Pygal can make it simpler to make data sets and build difficult charts for science data visualization, project documentation, business analytics, or educational purposes.

Features of Pygal Python

Pygal is one of the accessories available within Python that makes a chart interactive and attention-seeking, based on many additional features it has. Some of them are as follows:

Incomparable support to chart types: There are several varieties of radar charts that Pygal supports, hence flexible data visualization. Examples of radar charts include Bar, line, pie chart, radar, dot, Pyramid, funnel charts, bar plots, etc.

SVG stands for Scalable Vector Graphics. So, in a nutshell, the idea is that drawing in SVG format, behind Pygal charts, scales and stays super qualitative at optimal resolution at any scale.

Interactive Charts: Pygal charts can be created interactive with features like tooltips, legends, and clickable data points, all of which improve user engagement while going through the graph and comparing the data.

Customization: Pygal has a lot of options to personalize pie chart displays to the user's needs. This includes much more from tooltip and labeling to coloring.

By default, all the documentation and graphs of Pygal are responsive in design. This means that they will fit on different kinds and sizes of screens and devices, hence perfecting their use in online applications.

It has a very simple design. Most users usually find that creating complex bar graphs is not a problem and requires minimum coding. All this is due to the ease of use afforded to its user-friendly API, hence easily accessible to both the novice and the seasoned developer.

Data Integration: Pygal easily integrates with famous data manipulation libraries in Python, such as NumPy and Pandas.

Export Options: Except SVG version, it offers export facilities to the chart in PNG and PDF forms to allow shareability and further usage.

Flexible: Pygal is modular, so one can easily extend and hack it; programmers can build special kinds of pie charts here.

Create and Configure Pygal

Setting up and configuring charts with Pygal is pretty easy. We shall set up the environment first and then gradually move on to the creation of charts. Here is a step-by-step process to get you started.

Setup Pygal

You first need to set up Pygal. You can set it up using pip.

pip install pygal

pip install pygal

'INSTANT VB TODO TASK: The following line uses invalid syntax:
'pip install pygal

Create a Simple Chart

Let's start with a very basic bar chart that confirms the basis of Pygal.

import pygal
# Create a bar chart
bar_chart = pygal.Bar()
# Add data to the chart
bar_chart.add('Apples', [5, 10, 15, 20])
bar_chart.add('Oranges', [10, 15, 20, 25])
# Set chart title
bar_chart.title = 'Fruit Sales'
# Render chart to a file
bar_chart.render_to_file('bar_chart.svg')

import pygal
# Create a bar chart
bar_chart = pygal.Bar()
# Add data to the chart
bar_chart.add('Apples', [5, 10, 15, 20])
bar_chart.add('Oranges', [10, 15, 20, 25])
# Set chart title
bar_chart.title = 'Fruit Sales'
# Render chart to a file
bar_chart.render_to_file('bar_chart.svg')

#Create a bar chart
#Add data to the chart
#Set chart title
#Render chart to a file
'INSTANT VB TODO TASK: The following line uses invalid syntax:
'import pygal bar_chart = pygal.Bar() bar_chart.add('Apples', [5, 10, 15, 20]) bar_chart.add('Oranges', [10, 15, 20, 25]) bar_chart.title = 'Fruit Sales' bar_chart.render_to_file('bar_chart.svg')

Customizing the Chart

High customization options in Pygal allow making your charts look the way you want. Here is an example of how you can set up a few features of a chart:

import pygal
# Create a bar chart
bar_chart = pygal.Bar()
# Add data with labels
bar_chart.add('Apples', [5, 10, 15, 20])
bar_chart.add('Oranges', [10, 15, 20, 25])
# Set chart title
bar_chart.title = 'Fruit Sales'
# Set x and y axis titles
bar_chart.x_title = 'Time Period'
bar_chart.y_title = 'Quantity Sold'
# Set x labels
bar_chart.x_labels = ['Q1', 'Q2', 'Q3', 'Q4']
# Customize colors
bar_chart.style = pygal.style.Style(
    background='white',
    plot_background='lightgrey',
    foreground='black',
    foreground_strong='darkblue',
    foreground_subtle='grey',
    opacity='.6',
    opacity_hover='.9',
    transition='400ms ease-in',
    colors=('#E80080', '#404040', '#9BC850', '#FAB243', '#F3C300')
)
# Render chart to a file
bar_chart.render_to_file('custom_bar_chart.svg')

import pygal
# Create a bar chart
bar_chart = pygal.Bar()
# Add data with labels
bar_chart.add('Apples', [5, 10, 15, 20])
bar_chart.add('Oranges', [10, 15, 20, 25])
# Set chart title
bar_chart.title = 'Fruit Sales'
# Set x and y axis titles
bar_chart.x_title = 'Time Period'
bar_chart.y_title = 'Quantity Sold'
# Set x labels
bar_chart.x_labels = ['Q1', 'Q2', 'Q3', 'Q4']
# Customize colors
bar_chart.style = pygal.style.Style(
    background='white',
    plot_background='lightgrey',
    foreground='black',
    foreground_strong='darkblue',
    foreground_subtle='grey',
    opacity='.6',
    opacity_hover='.9',
    transition='400ms ease-in',
    colors=('#E80080', '#404040', '#9BC850', '#FAB243', '#F3C300')
)
# Render chart to a file
bar_chart.render_to_file('custom_bar_chart.svg')

#Create a bar chart
#Add data with labels
#Set chart title
#Set x and y axis titles
#Set x labels
#Customize colors
#Render chart to a file
'INSTANT VB TODO TASK: The following line uses invalid syntax:
'import pygal bar_chart = pygal.Bar() bar_chart.add('Apples', [5, 10, 15, 20]) bar_chart.add('Oranges', [10, 15, 20, 25]) bar_chart.title = 'Fruit Sales' bar_chart.x_title = 'Time Period' bar_chart.y_title = 'Quantity Sold' bar_chart.x_labels = ['Q1', 'Q2', 'Q3', 'Q4'] bar_chart.style = pygal.style.Style(background='white', plot_background='lightgrey', foreground='black', foreground_strong='darkblue', foreground_subtle='grey', opacity='.6', opacity_hover='.9', transition='400ms ease-in', colors=('#E80080', '#404040', '#9BC850', '#FAB243', '#F3C300')) bar_chart.render_to_file('custom_bar_chart.svg')

Getting Started

First, set up the libraries, then develop a workflow that will let you create charts with Pygal and include them in PDF documents using IronPDF. Following is the step-by-step process:

What is IronPDF?

The IronPDF Python module is an elaborate package for creating, editing, and reading PDFs. With so many functions at one's disposal, those writing code can use PDFs to execute an expansive array of programmable actions, which also include converting HTML files to PDF files to work with PDFs that have previously been created. This will enhance flexibility and smoothen the process of drafting nice reports in PDFs. This is useful for applications that create and handle PDFs on the fly.

HTML to PDF Conversion

With all the documentation features of IronPDF, any HTML data dated at any point in time can be converted fast to a PDF document. Apart from that, it provides a platform for creating extremely creative and attention-grabbing PDF publications directly from web content using most of the latest features from HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript.

Generate and Edit PDFs

You could programmatically generate brand-new PDF documents that include text, images, tables, and more using some computer language. You can open pre-prepared documents up front and then further customize them by editing with IronPDF. You could always add to, modify, or delete the contents of any version of a PDF document.

Complex design and styling

It has an intrinsic style of content for PDFs; different fonts, colors, and other design features can be used to treat complex layouts. Besides, JavaScript also cannot be used in managing dynamic content in PDFs, so more easy rendering of HTML information is possible.

Install IronPDF

IronPDF may be installed using pip. The install command will look something like this:

pip install ironpdf

pip install ironpdf

'INSTANT VB TODO TASK: The following line uses invalid syntax:
'pip install ironpdf

Print Pygal Chart with IronPDF

Create a simple Pygal chart and write out the SVG file. In this example, it will create a bar chart.

import pygal
from ironpdf import *     import warnings
warnings.filterwarnings('ignore')
License.LicenseKey = "";
# Create a bar chart
bar_chart = pygal.Bar()
# Add data with labels
bar_chart.add('Apples', [5, 10, 15, 20])
bar_chart.add('Oranges', [10, 15, 20, 25])
# Set chart title
bar_chart.title = 'Fruit Sales'
# Set x and y axis titles
bar_chart.x_title = 'Time Period'
bar_chart.y_title = 'Quantity Sold'
# Set x labels
bar_chart.x_labels = ['Q1', 'Q2', 'Q3', 'Q4']
# Customize colors
bar_chart.style = pygal.style.Style(
    background='white',
    plot_background='lightgrey',
    foreground='black',
    foreground_strong='darkblue',
    foreground_subtle='grey',
    opacity='.6',
    opacity_hover='.9',
    transition='400ms ease-in',
    colors=('#E80080', '#404040', '#9BC850', '#FAB243', '#F3C300')
)
# Render chart to a file
bar_chart.render_to_file('custom_bar_chart.svg')
# Converts the images to a PDF and save it.
directory_list = List[str]()
directory_list.Add('custom_bar_chart.svg')
ImageToPdfConverter.ImageToPdf(directory_list).SaveAs("composite.pdf")

import pygal
from ironpdf import *     import warnings
warnings.filterwarnings('ignore')
License.LicenseKey = "";
# Create a bar chart
bar_chart = pygal.Bar()
# Add data with labels
bar_chart.add('Apples', [5, 10, 15, 20])
bar_chart.add('Oranges', [10, 15, 20, 25])
# Set chart title
bar_chart.title = 'Fruit Sales'
# Set x and y axis titles
bar_chart.x_title = 'Time Period'
bar_chart.y_title = 'Quantity Sold'
# Set x labels
bar_chart.x_labels = ['Q1', 'Q2', 'Q3', 'Q4']
# Customize colors
bar_chart.style = pygal.style.Style(
    background='white',
    plot_background='lightgrey',
    foreground='black',
    foreground_strong='darkblue',
    foreground_subtle='grey',
    opacity='.6',
    opacity_hover='.9',
    transition='400ms ease-in',
    colors=('#E80080', '#404040', '#9BC850', '#FAB243', '#F3C300')
)
# Render chart to a file
bar_chart.render_to_file('custom_bar_chart.svg')
# Converts the images to a PDF and save it.
directory_list = List[str]()
directory_list.Add('custom_bar_chart.svg')
ImageToPdfConverter.ImageToPdf(directory_list).SaveAs("composite.pdf")

import pygal From ironpdf import * import warnings warnings.filterwarnings( 'ignore') License.LicenseKey = "";
#Create a bar chart
#Add data with labels
#Set chart title
#Set x and y axis titles
#Set x labels
#Customize colors
#Render chart to a file
#Converts the images to a PDF and save it.
'INSTANT VB TODO TASK: The following line uses invalid syntax:
'bar_chart = pygal.Bar() bar_chart.add('Apples', [5, 10, 15, 20]) bar_chart.add('Oranges', [10, 15, 20, 25]) bar_chart.title = 'Fruit Sales' bar_chart.x_title = 'Time Period' bar_chart.y_title = 'Quantity Sold' bar_chart.x_labels = ['Q1', 'Q2', 'Q3', 'Q4'] bar_chart.style = pygal.style.Style(background='white', plot_background='lightgrey', foreground='black', foreground_strong='darkblue', foreground_subtle='grey', opacity='.6', opacity_hover='.9', transition='400ms ease-in', colors=('#E80080', '#404040', '#9BC850', '#FAB243', '#F3C300')) bar_chart.render_to_file('custom_bar_chart.svg') directory_list = List[str]() directory_list.Add('custom_bar_chart.svg') ImageToPdfConverter.ImageToPdf(directory_list).SaveAs("composite.pdf")

The first thing should be to import everything in the libraries that will need to be used: to use pygal, for charting and IronPDF for generating PDFs. Then, suppress some warnings so the output is clean, after which the assignment of the license key for IronPDF; an empty string alone should, however, be left there.

A bar chart is constructed as follows: use Pygal's class Bar. The data addition-"Apples" and "Oranges" is made with corresponding values for four quarters. The title of the chart is "Fruit Sales", with labels for the x and y axes of the line charts: "Time Period" and "Quantity Sold", respectively. Finally, define the labels for the x-axis explicitly to be ['Q1', 'Q2', 'Q3', 'Q4'].

It makes use of the Pygal style classes in modifying the look and feel of the chart. There are settings for background color, plot background, colors of text, and chart colors, amongst others. Other styling goes as far as parameters such as opacity to transition effects. The chart is rendered with a specific filename 'custom_bar_chart.svg'.

This example uses the 'IronPDF' library for converting the SVG file into a PDF. First, a list to hold the directory path of the SVG file is created. Then, through the ImageToPdfConverter Class, it converts the SVG into a PDF using the method ImageToPdf and saves it as 'composite.pdf'.

This solution is expected to combine the easiness of Pygal when creating charts with the power of IronPDF while generating PDF documents, allowing for a workflow that will easily integrate visual data representations and insights into professional reports.

Conclusion

Pygal's simplicity and customizability allow for the rapid development of charts of many types with few lines of code. By integrating Pygal with IronPDF, the development of dynamic data-driven visualizations is easy, allowing them to be placed inside top-class PDF publications. IronPDF then makes the task of converting these charts into professional-grade PDF reports much easier. Reporting of visual documents, presentations, and data analysis is thus made quite effortless and can be well elaborated upon through data storytelling. Users are good at bringing out hard information in an improved manner that captivates an interested reader. Such an endeavor by using Pygal and IronPDF makes a smooth workflow concerning the best alternatives in coming up with graceful educative visuals in the documents for readers in business, school, or personal projects.

This will be useful in the integration of IronPDF with other Iron Software products, giving better value and software solutions to the clients by giving users sophisticated solutions. To your benefit, this will make it easier to make improvements in the general operations of project and procedure operations.

Besides these core features, IronPDF is a software for developers meticulously documented, active, and regularly updated. Based on these facts described above, a developer can assure himself that Iron Software will be a reliable partner for modern software development projects. Developers can try IronPDF's free trial and enable all this in action. You'll ensure you get your money's worth of the $749 licensing fee and even the implied warranty in the following days.