zipreport

Very lightweight module for creating PDF reports with Python

Motivation

This library is meant to be a drop-in replacement for report generation I was doing with Filemaker Pro and operates under about the same principles as print layout on Filemaker Pro. You, the client, have a list of ordered records, which can be any subscriptable thing but in my example are dicts, and these are fed into a Document object you create and customize which establishes how fields in each record are formatted and laid out on the page, the formatting of page headers and footers, and summary headers and footers.

Example

In the example you can see how a basic report is customized. All formatting is contained in a Document object, draws Part objects in various parts of the document based on certain conditions. The page_header and page_footer parts are drawn at the top and bottom of each page.

Each record to be printed is displayed in a content_part:

content_part = Part(
    elements=[Element(x=0.,
                      y=0.,
                      width=72.,
                      height=18.,
                      content=FormattedText("N:$name", font_family='Futura', font_size=9.)),

              Element(x=96.,
                      y=0,
                      width=72.*4.,
                      height=4.*72.,
                      can_shrink=True,
                      content=FormattedText("$comment", font_family='Futura', font_size=9.)),
              Element(x=72. * 6, y=0., width=36, height=18,
                      content=FormattedText("$rn", font_family='Futura', font_size=9.,
                                            alignment='r'))],
    minimum_height=72.
)

A Part contains a list of Element objects which define a rectangle (positioned relative to the origin, the upper-left corner of the parent Part), and each element has a corresponding Content. Content objects contain specific style and content. The FormattedText content has a format string which can substitute values from a content object. For example above, the first element reades the 'name' key from the content object and substitutes it into the format string.

Under Contruction

This project is still under contruction but functions on a basic level.