A Python module that combines jinja2, xhtml2pdf, and pymupdf. Provide a an array of questions and an jinja HTML template and it will be converted into a PDF form with fillable fields.
Project description
PDF-Formulator
A Python module that combines jinja2, xhtml2pdf, and pymupdf. Provide a an array of questions and an jinja HTML template and it will be converted into a PDF form with fillable fields.
How to install
pip install pdf-formulator
Usage
The data
First, supply an array of dictionaries with the following keys:
| key | required? | description |
|---|---|---|
| type | yes | The "type" of field used. Valid options are: "text", "text_big", "checkbox", "dropdown", "listbox" |
| prompt | yes | The question being asked. String. |
| description | no | Additional explanation to clarify the prompt. String. |
| options | * | The selection options. Required only for dropdown or listbox. Array of strings. |
| id | no | A unique identifier for the field. String. By default, an ID is made up using the prompt if one is not provided, but it is good practice to manually set it. |
An example:
[
{
"type": "text",
"prompt": "What is your name?",
"description": "Provide your name, please."
},
{
"type": "big_text",
"prompt": "What do you think is neat?"
},
{
"type": "checkbox",
"prompt": "Are you having a good day?",
"description": "Check the box if your day is going well. Sometimes a description might go for a long time as well so there needs to be handling for that."
},
{
"type": "dropdown",
"prompt": "What weekday is it?",
"options": [
"Monday",
"Tuesday",
"Wednesday",
"Thursday",
"Friday"
]
},
{
"type": "listbox",
"prompt": "Pick your favorite days.",
"description": "You can hold Ctrl when clicking to select more than one.",
"options": [
"Monday",
"Tuesday",
"Wednesday",
"Thursday",
"Friday"
]
}
]
The template
An HTML string is required. It will use jinja2 to render the template, then that will be generated into a PDF using xhtml2pdf.
Note: xhtml2pdf has very limited CSS! You have to work within the limitations.
Example template:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Sample Form</title>
<style>
/* Footer and page dimensions */
@page {
size: letter;
margin: 1cm;
@frame footer_frame {
-pdf-frame-content: footer_content;
left: 50pt; width: 512pt; top: 772pt; height: 20pt;
}
}
.footer {
text-align: right;
vertical-align: bottom;
}
/* Question table and left-bar styling */
table {
margin-bottom: 10px;
background-color: #ececec;
-pdf-outline: true;
}
td.sidebar {
padding: 0px;
width: 3px;
background-color: black;
}
/* The left/right cells where question/description and input fields go (respectively) */
td.left{
margin: 4px;
padding: 8px;
vertical-align: top;
}
td.right {
margin: 4px;
padding: 3px 2px 2px 2px;
border-left: 0px;
vertical-align: top;
width: 220px;
}
/* Text formatting */
div {
padding: 4px;
margin: 0px;
line-height: normal
}
div.prompt {
font-size: 14px;
}
div.description {
font-size: 10px;
}
div.widget {
font-size: 4px;
}
.height-taller {
height: 92px;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<!-- FOOTER -->
<div id="footer_content">
<p class="footer">page <pdf:pagenumber> of <pdf:pagecount></p>
</div>
<div class="form-container">
<h1>Questions Form</h1>
{% if questions %}
{% for item in questions %}
<table class="vert-norm">
<tr>
{# LEFT SIDEBAR and height adjustment #}
<td class="sidebar{% if item.type == 'listbox' or item.type == 'text_big' %} height-taller{% endif %}">
</td>
{# LEFT CELL #}
<td class="left">
<div class="prompt">{{ item.prompt }}</div>
{% if item.description %}
<div class="description">{{ item.description }}</div>
{% endif %}
</td>
{# RIGHT CELL #}
<td class="right">
<div class="widget">[[{{ item.type }} {{ item.id}}]]</div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
{% endfor %}
{% else %}
<p style="text-align: center; color: #999;">No questions to display.</p>
{% endif %}
</div>
</body>
</html>
Generating the form
Once you have the array of dictionaries (json_data) and the html string (html_str), you can generate the PDF.
form = PDFFormulator()
form.set_html_template_str(html_str)
form.set_question_list(json_data)
form.output_form("test.pdf")
Other functions
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
| get_field_size | Provides the sizing for the given type (text, checkbox, etc) in the [x,y] format. |
| set_field_size | Sets the size of the given type. |
Important notes
- This is a very clunky workaround. A proper solution would handle the PDF generation directly and lay out space automatically in the HTML to ensure fields always fit. As it is, it takes a lot of tweaking to get things laid out acceptably.
- I intend to iterate on this design and make improvements if my schedule allows. As-is, this was a solution to a problem, but I'd like to see something like this available at no cost. I could only find paid services/libraries that do it currently.
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