How to Create PDF File in Python

PDF (Portable Document Format) is the most popular digital file format for sending and receiving data online. It is mainly used to preserve the data formatting and secure the data with an encrypted password. The .pdf extension is independent of software application, hardware or operating system.

In this article, we are going to create a PDF file in the Python programming language. There are a bunch of online options available but here we will use a Python library for creating PDF files. Following are the two famous libraries to generate PDF documents with single or multiple pages in Python:

1. Reportlab
2. PDFKit

From the above-mentioned PDF python libraries, we can use anyone to generate PDFs.

How to Create a PDF File in Python?

Let's have a look at both the libraries one by one.

Creating PDF Files using Reportlab library

Reportlab library is a free open source PDF toolkit which can be used to easily create PDF files. It provides a bunch of drawing tools for adding images and text at a certain position in multiple pages. You can also create encrypted PDF files using encryptCanvas method.

Installation

To install Reportlab, the pip package manager is required. It automatically downloads and installs the request package using the pip command. Simply type the following command in windows cmd or PowerShell:

pip3 install reportlab

Note: While installing Python, it must be added to the path environment variable in order to execute the above command from anywhere in cmd or PowerShell. Pip3 is recommended to be used for python 3+, as it is the updated version.

Open a New Python File

To use the Reportlab library, we need to write the code in a python file and execute it to create PDF files.

1. Search and Open Python default IDLE shell from windows search bar and press Ctrl + N or select "New File" from File tab. This will open the text editor for writing the code.
2. Next, save the file with the appropriate name. I'm naming it "createpdf.py". The file looks like this:

Python Code for Reading and Extracting Text

The following code will draw document elements and generate PDF within seconds:

# importing modules
from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas
from reportlab.pdfbase.ttfonts import TTFont
from reportlab.pdfbase import pdfmetrics
from reportlab.lib import colors

# initializing variables with values
fileName = 'sample.pdf'
documentTitle = 'sample'
title = 'Create PDF'
subTitle = 'Using ReportLab !!'

# creating a pdf object
pdf = canvas.Canvas(fileName)

# setting the title of the document
pdf.setTitle(documentTitle)

# creating the title by setting it's font
# and putting it on the canvas
pdf.setFont('abc', 36)
pdf.drawCentredString(300, 770, title)

# creating the subtitle by setting it's font,
# colour and putting it on the canvas
pdf.setFillColorRGB(0, 0, 255)
pdf.setFont("Courier-Bold", 24)
pdf.drawCentredString(290, 720, subTitle)

# saving the pdf
pdf.save()

# importing modules
from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas
from reportlab.pdfbase.ttfonts import TTFont
from reportlab.pdfbase import pdfmetrics
from reportlab.lib import colors

# initializing variables with values
fileName = 'sample.pdf'
documentTitle = 'sample'
title = 'Create PDF'
subTitle = 'Using ReportLab !!'

# creating a pdf object
pdf = canvas.Canvas(fileName)

# setting the title of the document
pdf.setTitle(documentTitle)

# creating the title by setting it's font
# and putting it on the canvas
pdf.setFont('abc', 36)
pdf.drawCentredString(300, 770, title)

# creating the subtitle by setting it's font,
# colour and putting it on the canvas
pdf.setFillColorRGB(0, 0, 255)
pdf.setFont("Courier-Bold", 24)
pdf.drawCentredString(290, 720, subTitle)

# saving the pdf
pdf.save()

The generated PDF output is as follows:

CODE EXPLANATION

After importing all the modules and packages, we first initialized all the content which will be written to a PDF file.

fileName = 'sample.pdf'
documentTitle = 'sample'
title = 'Create PDF'
subTitle = 'Using ReportLab !!'

fileName = 'sample.pdf'
documentTitle = 'sample'
title = 'Create PDF'
subTitle = 'Using ReportLab !!'

Now, we set the canvas name, document title, a centered title and subtitle with appropriate fonts and size.

# creating a pdf object
pdf = canvas.Canvas(fileName)

# setting the title of the document
pdf.setTitle(documentTitle)

# creating the title by setting it's font
# and putting it on the canvas
pdf.setFont('abc', 36)
pdf.drawCentredString(300, 770, title)

# creating the subtitle by setting it's font,
# colour and putting it on the canvas
pdf.setFillColorRGB(0, 0, 255)
pdf.setFont("Courier-Bold", 24)
pdf.drawCentredString(290, 720, subTitle)

# creating a pdf object
pdf = canvas.Canvas(fileName)

# setting the title of the document
pdf.setTitle(documentTitle)

# creating the title by setting it's font
# and putting it on the canvas
pdf.setFont('abc', 36)
pdf.drawCentredString(300, 770, title)

# creating the subtitle by setting it's font,
# colour and putting it on the canvas
pdf.setFillColorRGB(0, 0, 255)
pdf.setFont("Courier-Bold", 24)
pdf.drawCentredString(290, 720, subTitle)

Finally, we save the PDF file when everything is drawn on the canvas.

# saving the pdf
pdf.save()

# saving the pdf
pdf.save()

We can also use drawString and drawText methods to create a simple PDF file using Reportlab in python.

Create PDF files using PDFKit Library

PDFKit library is one of the best approaches when it comes to creating PDF files in python. It can create PDF files using HTML code. You can render simple and complex HTML files or HTML from URLs to pixel perfect printable PDF page. However, PDFKit integrates wkhtmltopdf features to convert HTML to PDF. To install wkhtmltopdf for Windows, Linux and mac, visit this link.

Note: In Windows OS, wkhtmltopdf will be installed in program files.

Installation

Use the following command to install PDFKit:

pip3 install pdfkit

Creating PDF Files From URL

Creating PDF files using PDFKit is very simple and a one line process.

import pdfkit

pdfkit.from_url('http://google.com', 'out.pdf')

import pdfkit

pdfkit.from_url('http://google.com', 'out.pdf')

Creating PDF Files From HTML Files

import pdfkit

pdfkit.from_file('index.html', 'out.pdf')

import pdfkit

pdfkit.from_file('index.html', 'out.pdf')

Creating PDF Files From HTML Templates

You can pass HTML templates as string to convert it to PDF as an output file.

html_string = """
    <html>
        <head>
        <meta name="pdfkit-page-size" content="Legal"/>
        <meta name="pdfkit-orientation" content="Landscape"/>
        </head>
        Hello World!
        </html>
    """

pdfkit.from_string(html_string, 'out.pdf')

html_string = """
    <html>
        <head>
        <meta name="pdfkit-page-size" content="Legal"/>
        <meta name="pdfkit-orientation" content="Landscape"/>
        </head>
        Hello World!
        </html>
    """

pdfkit.from_string(html_string, 'out.pdf')

PDFKit allows you to easily create PDFs in python using HTML templates.

The IronPDF Library

IronPDF is a useful tool to create PDF files in .NET projects. A common use of this library is “HTML to PDF” rendering, where HTML is used as the design language for rendering a PDF document.

IronPDF uses a .NET Chromium engine to render HTML pages to PDF files. With HTML to PDF conversion, there is no need to use complex APIs to position or design PDFs. IronPDF also supports all standard web page technologies: HTML, ASPX, JS, CSS, and images.

It also enables you to create a .NET PDF library using HTML 5, CSS, JavaScript, and images. You can edit, stamp, and add headers and footers to a PDF effortlessly. Furthermore, it makes it very easy to read PDF text and extract images.

To get started with IronPDF, you need to install the NuGet package:

 pip install ironpdf

The following example helps you create PDF directly from a URL:

from ironpdf import *

# Instantiate Renderer
renderer = ChromePdfRenderer()

# Create a PDF from a URL or local file path
pdf = renderer.RenderUrlAsPdf("https://ironpdf.com/")

# Export to a file or Stream
pdf.SaveAs("url.pdf")

from ironpdf import *

# Instantiate Renderer
renderer = ChromePdfRenderer()

# Create a PDF from a URL or local file path
pdf = renderer.RenderUrlAsPdf("https://ironpdf.com/")

# Export to a file or Stream
pdf.SaveAs("url.pdf")

The following code will help you create PDF file from HTML code along with any CSS or JavaScript:

from ironpdf import *

# Instantiate Renderer
renderer = ChromePdfRenderer()

# Create a PDF from a HTML string using Python
pdf = renderer.RenderHtmlAsPdf("<h1>Hello World</h1>")

# Export to a file or Stream
pdf.SaveAs("output.pdf")

# Advanced Example with HTML Assets
# Load external html assets: Images, CSS and JavaScript.
# An optional BasePath 'C:\site\assets\' is set as the file location to load assets from
myAdvancedPdf = renderer.RenderHtmlAsPdf("<img src='icons/iron.png'>", r"C:\site\assets")
myAdvancedPdf.SaveAs("html-with-assets.pdf")

from ironpdf import *

# Instantiate Renderer
renderer = ChromePdfRenderer()

# Create a PDF from a HTML string using Python
pdf = renderer.RenderHtmlAsPdf("<h1>Hello World</h1>")

# Export to a file or Stream
pdf.SaveAs("output.pdf")

# Advanced Example with HTML Assets
# Load external html assets: Images, CSS and JavaScript.
# An optional BasePath 'C:\site\assets\' is set as the file location to load assets from
myAdvancedPdf = renderer.RenderHtmlAsPdf("<img src='icons/iron.png'>", r"C:\site\assets")
myAdvancedPdf.SaveAs("html-with-assets.pdf")

You can see from the above code that it's quite simple and clean. Very few lines of code are needed to create a PDF file from HTML code. It's a fast, reliable, and time-saving solution with accurate results.

Download IronPDF and try it for free. After the trial period, licensing starts at $749.