MiniPdf for Python

MiniPdf converts basic DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX content to PDF 1.4 without requiring Microsoft Office or LibreOffice. Conversion runs through the Rust MiniPdf engine in minipdf-rs via the PyO3 extension minipdf._native, which the package build backend compiles from native/. A pure Python renderer with reduced feature coverage remains as a fallback for source-tree runs where the extension has not been built.

The package requires Python 3.10 or later, and building it requires a Rust toolchain.

Native Rust Engine

minipdf._native is a PyO3 extension that delegates conversion to the Rust engine in minipdf-rs. When the module is importable, the Python API uses it automatically and the pure Python renderers are only used as a fallback.

Installing the package builds the extension:

pip install .

To rebuild only the extension into the package source tree, use PowerShell:

scripts/Build-Python-Native.ps1

The visual benchmark runner builds the extension automatically.

Install

pip install minipdf

Python API

import minipdf

minipdf.convert_to_pdf("report.docx", "report.pdf")
pdf_bytes = minipdf.convert_to_pdf_bytes("report.docx")

Command Line

minipdf report.docx
minipdf workbook.xlsx -o workbook.pdf
minipdf slides.pptx -o slides.pdf
minipdf convert report.docx -o report.pdf
minipdf report.docx --paper-size a4
minipdf report.docx --page-width 400 --page-height 500

Initial Scope

Version 0.1 supports document page geometry, margins, paragraphs, explicit page breaks, and basic bold, italic, and font-size run formatting. Text currently uses PDF built-in Latin fonts. Tables, images, embedded fonts, CJK/RTL shaping, headers, footers, and lists are not yet supported. XLSX rendering currently extracts common cell value types into text rows, while PPTX rendering extracts paragraph text and preserves slide page dimensions and boundaries.