panTeX

Generating pretty reports using pandas and matplotlib, Seaborn or Altair.

Installation

• pip install pantex to install the main application
• Install MiKTeX (on Windows) or TBD on Linux
• Install pandoc
• Install Browsersync (for browser mode): npm install -g browser-sync
• Install chromdriver.exe for Altair and make sure it's on your system path

Quickstart

To create a pantex.Manager object:

m = pantex.Manager('mytemplate.md')

To save context to mytemplate.pkl:

m.save_context({'my_header': 'Hello World!', 'my_table': df.head()})

To append to context in a Python script:

m.save_context({'my_footer': 'Goodbye!', 'an_image': mplFigure}, append=True)

To generate a pretty pdf report:

m.save_to_pdf()

To read the current context in a Python script: m.get_context()

m.get_context()

To generate a pdf report using a in-memory context dictionary:

m = pantex.Manager('mytemplate.md', {'my_header': 'Hello World!', 'my_table': df.head()})
m.save_to_pdf()

Quickstart via Command Line

To run in browser mode: python -m pantex.edit mytemplate.md
To prduce a pretty LaTeX pdf report: python -m pantex.publish mytemplate.md

How it works

Inspired by traditional website rendering, a report generation process is divided into two parts:

1. A markdown template with Python-native template variables.
2. A context dictionary, which is saved at mytemplate.pkl

For example, say you have a markdown file at ./mytemplate.md, containing:

# ${my_header}
${my_table}
Some text

In Python, you can write:

m = pantex.Manager('mytemplate.md')
m.save_context({'my_header': 'Hello World!', 'my_table': df.head()})
m.save_to_pdf()

panTeX will combine the markdown template and the Python context and produce a pretty pdf LaTeX report. Note that pandas DataFrame objects will be automatically rendered as a table. Matplotlib/Seaborn charts and LaTeX style equations are also supported. (The LaTeX equations must be contained in \begin{equation}/\end{equation} tags.)

matplotlib and Seaborn plot can also be added to the context. For example,

import seaborn as sns
sns.set_theme()
df = sns.load_dataset("tips")
sns_plot = sns.relplot(
    data=df,
    x="total_bill",
    y="tip",
    col="time",
    hue="smoker",
    style="smoker",
    size="size",
)
m = pantex.Manager('mytemplate.md')
m.save_context({'pretty_figure': sns_plot}, append=True)  # "Pretty Figure" will be the image caption

Behind the scenes, panTeX saves the image at assets/pretty_figure.eps and adds ![Pretty Figure](assets/pretty_figure.eps) to the rendered version of markdown file.

The Development Server (Edit Mode)

python -m pantex.edit mytemplate.md enables an in-browser version of the LaTeX report. It's not quite as pretty as the pdf version, but it offers a near real time rendering experience. (Rendering of pdf reports is typically too slow for editing and requires the file to re-opened after each render.) If you need the html files, they can be found at mytemplate.html and assets/.