pdfcrate 0.1.1

A fast PDF generation library for Python, written in Rust

pdfcrate

Warning: This project is under active development. The API is unstable and subject to breaking changes. Do not use in production environments.

A Rust library for creating and manipulating PDF documents with a focus on ease of use and comprehensive text layout support.

Features

• Layout-based document creation - Cursor-based layout with automatic text flow, margins, and bounding boxes
• Rich text formatting - Bold, italic, colors, alignment (left/center/right/justify)
• Font support - 14 standard PDF fonts + TrueType/OpenType embedding with text shaping
• Font fallback - Automatic fallback for mixed-language text (CJK, emoji, etc.)
• Tables - Full-featured tables with borders, cell styles, column spans, and overflow handling
• Images - PNG and JPEG embedding with fit/fill modes
• SVG rendering - Embed SVG graphics directly
• Links and outlines - Hyperlinks, internal links, and document bookmarks
• Forms - Interactive form fields (text, checkbox, radio, dropdown)
• WASM support - Works in WebAssembly environments (tested with Cloudflare Workers)
• Python bindings - Use pdfcrate from Python via PyO3

Installation

Add to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
pdfcrate = "0.1"

Quick Start

use pdfcrate::prelude::*;

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    Document::generate("hello.pdf", |doc| {
        doc.title("Hello PDF").author("pdfcrate");

        doc.font("Helvetica-Bold").size(24.0);
        doc.text("Hello, World!");

        doc.move_down(20.0);

        doc.font("Helvetica").size(12.0);
        doc.text_wrap("This is a simple PDF document created with pdfcrate. \
                       Text automatically wraps within the page margins.");

        Ok(())
    })?;

    Ok(())
}

Examples

Custom Fonts

use pdfcrate::prelude::*;

Document::generate("custom_font.pdf", |doc| {
    // Embed a TrueType font
    let font = doc.embed_font_file("fonts/MyFont.ttf")?;

    doc.font(&font).size(16.0);
    doc.text("Text with custom font!");

    Ok(())
})?;

Font Fallback for CJK

use pdfcrate::prelude::*;

Document::generate("multilingual.pdf", |doc| {
    let cjk_font = doc.embed_font_file("fonts/NotoSansCJK.ttf")?;

    // Configure fallback fonts
    doc.fallback_fonts(vec![cjk_font]);

    doc.font("Helvetica").size(14.0);
    doc.text_wrap("English text mixed with 中文 and 日本語");

    Ok(())
})?;

Tables

use pdfcrate::prelude::*;

Document::generate("table.pdf", |doc| {
    let table = Table::new(&[100.0, 150.0, 100.0])
        .header(&["Name", "Description", "Price"])
        .row(&["Item 1", "First item", "$10.00"])
        .row(&["Item 2", "Second item", "$20.00"])
        .borders(BorderStyle::all(0.5, Color::BLACK));

    doc.table(&table);

    Ok(())
})?;

Images

use pdfcrate::prelude::*;

Document::generate("with_image.pdf", |doc| {
    // Embed and draw image
    doc.image_fit("photo.png", [0.0, 0.0], 200.0, 150.0)?;

    Ok(())
})?;

Python

pdfcrate provides Python bindings via PyO3 and maturin.

# Install in development mode
uv run maturin develop --features python

# Run the showcase
uv run python examples/showcase.py

from pdfcrate import Document, Margin, Color, TextFragment

doc = Document(margin=Margin(36, 36, 36, 36))
doc.title("Hello from Python")

doc.font("Helvetica", 24)
doc.text("Hello, World!")

doc.move_down(20)
doc.font("Helvetica", 12)
doc.text("Created with pdfcrate Python bindings.")

doc.save("hello.pdf")

Feature Flags

All features are pure Rust and WASM-compatible.

Feature	Default	Description
std	Yes	Standard library support (file I/O)
png	Yes	PNG image support (JPEG is always supported)
fonts	Yes	TrueType/OpenType font embedding
text-shaping	Yes	Complex text shaping via rustybuzz
svg	Yes	SVG rendering support
barcode	Yes	QR code and barcode generation
python	No	Python bindings (PyO3)

To use minimal features:

[dependencies]
pdfcrate = { version = "0.1", default-features = false }

Minimum Supported Rust Version (MSRV)

Rust 1.87 or later.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.