Blog Post

How to Generate PDF from HTML Using Python

Q: What is WeasyPrint and how does it work?

WeasyPrint is an open source Python library that converts HTML and CSS documents into PDF. It processes web content to produce high-quality, standards-compliant PDF files supporting modern CSS features.

Q: What features does PSPDFKit API offer?

PSPDFKit API provides a comprehensive set of features, including PDF generation, annotations, form filling, digital signatures, and OCR. It’s designed for advanced PDF manipulation and high-volume processing.

Q: Can I integrate WeasyPrint with existing Python projects?

Yes, WeasyPrint can be easily integrated into Python projects. It’s installed via pip and used within your Python code to convert HTML content into PDF format.

Q: Are there any costs associated with PSPDFKit API?

PSPDFKit API offers a free tier that allows for up to 100 PDF documents per month. For higher usage or additional features, you’ll need to subscribe to a paid plan.

Q: How can I customize the PDF templates in PSPDFKit API?

You can customize PSPDFKit API PDF templates by editing the HTML, CSS, and assets. Download the provided templates and modify them according to your design needs and branding requirements.

Hulya Masharipov

This article was first published in October 2021 and was updated in August 2024.

Generating PDF reports from HTML content is a common requirement for many applications, whether for generating invoices, reports, or downloadable content. This post will explore two powerful methods for converting HTML to PDF in Python: first using the open source library WeasyPrint, and then using the advanced PSPDFKit Python PDF Generator API.

Why Convert HTML to PDF?

HTML is great for rendering content on the web, but there are times when you need a static, portable document format like PDF. PDFs are ideal for printing, sharing, and archiving, as they retain their layout and design across devices and operating systems. By converting HTML to PDF, you can preserve your web content’s structure and styling in a format that’s easy to distribute and consume.

Method 1: Using WeasyPrint

WeasyPrint is an open source library for converting HTML and CSS documents to PDF. It is designed to be easy to use, making it a popular choice for generating reports, invoices, or any other printable documents from web content. Unlike some other solutions, WeasyPrint focuses on creating high-quality PDFs that are standards-compliant, supporting modern CSS features like flexbox, grid layout, and media queries.

Key Features of WeasyPrint

HTML/CSS-to-PDF conversion — WeasyPrint processes HTML and CSS directly, making it ideal for converting complex layouts into PDFs.
Support for modern CSS — It supports CSS3 features, including flexbox, grid, and paged media, allowing for advanced document designs.
Open source — WeasyPrint is free and open source, with an active community contributing to its development.
Multi-platform — Available on multiple operating systems, including Linux, Windows, and macOS.
Python integration — WeasyPrint is a Python-based tool, easily integrating with Python projects.

Installation

Before you start, ensure you’re working in a virtual environment or using pipx to avoid issues with an externally managed Python environment, as seen on macOS.

Set up a virtual environment:

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate

Install WeasyPrint:

python3 -m pip install weasyprint

For more detailed installation instructions, refer to the WeasyPrint documentation.

Generating a PDF with WeasyPrint

Here’s an example of generating a PDF from an HTML file:

from weasyprint import HTML

html_content = """
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Sample Report</title>
    <style>
        body { font-family: Arial, sans-serif; }
        h1 { color: #333; }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Monthly Sales Report</h1>
    <p>This is a sample PDF report generated from HTML using WeasyPrint.</p>
</body>
</html>
"""

HTML(string=html_content).write_pdf("report.pdf")

In this example, WeasyPrint takes the html_content string and converts it into a PDF file named report.pdf.

output

Method 2: Using PSPDFKit API

With our API, you receive 100 credits with the free plan. Different operations on a document consume different amounts of credits, so the number of PDF reports you can generate may vary. To access your API key, sign up for a free account.

This will be especially useful if you generate and distribute a high volume of standardized reports throughout the year. With our API, you can automate your report generation by dynamically injecting data and content into a standardized HTML template.

The next section will show how you can generate a report with a free PDF report template in HTML and CSS that can be customized to meet your specific requirements. You can easily style your report by updating the CSS file with your own custom images and fonts. For reports that span multiple pages, you can add a header and footer that repeats across all your pages.

Requirements

To get started, you’ll need:

To access your PSPDFKit API key, sign up for a free account. Once you’ve signed up, you can find your API key in the Dashboard > API Keys section.

Python is a programming language, and pip is a package manager for Python, which you’ll use to install the requests library. Requests is an HTTP library that makes it easy to make HTTP requests.

Install the requests library with the following command:

python -m pip install requests

Setup

Download the report template and extract the contents of the ZIP file into a folder. You’ll get an HTML file, Inter fonts, a Space Mono font, an SVG logo, images, and a README file.

Creating a CSS File

If you open the index.html file, you’ll see the styles between the opening and closing <style> tag. Copy the styles to a new file called style.css, and save it in the same folder:

@font-face {
	font-family: 'Inter';
	src: url('Inter-Regular.ttf') format('truetype');
	font-weight: 400;
	font-style: normal;
}

@font-face {
	font-family: 'Inter';
	src: url('Inter-Medium.ttf') format('truetype');
	font-weight: 500;
	font-style: normal;
}

@font-face {
	font-family: 'Inter';
	src: url('Inter-Bold.ttf') format('truetype');
	font-weight: 700;
	font-style: normal;
}

@font-face {
	font-family: 'Space Mono';
	src: url('SpaceMono-Regular.ttf') format('truetype');
	font-weight: 400;
	font-style: normal;
}

body {
	font-size: 0.75rem;
	font-family: 'Inter', sans-serif;
	font-weight: 400;
	color: #000000;
	margin: 0 auto;
	position: relative;
}

#pspdfkit-header {
	font-size: 0.625rem;
	text-transform: uppercase;
	letter-spacing: 2px;
	font-weight: 400;
	color: #717885;
	margin-top: 2.5rem;
	margin-bottom: 2.5rem;
	width: 100%;
}

.header-columns {
	display: flex;
	justify-content: space-between;
	padding-left: 2.5rem;
	padding-right: 2.5rem;
}

.logo {
	height: 1.5rem;
	width: auto;
	margin-right: 1rem;
}

.logotype {
	display: flex;
	align-items: center;
	font-weight: 700;
}

h1 {
	font-family: 'Space Mono', monospace;
	font-size: 2.25rem;
	font-weight: 400;
}

h2 {
	font-family: 'Space Mono', monospace;
	font-size: 1.5rem;
	font-weight: 400;
}

h3 {
	font-family: 'Space Mono', monospace;
	font-size: 1.25rem;
	font-weight: 400;
}

h4 {
	font-family: 'Inter', sans-serif;
	font-size: 1rem;
	font-weight: 400;
}

.page {
	margin-left: 5rem;
	margin-right: 5rem;
}

.column-layout {
	display: flex;
	justify-content: space-between;
	margin: 3rem 0 5rem 0;
	gap: 2rem;
}

.column {
	display: flex;
	flex-direction: column;
}

.width-30 {
	width: 30%;
}

.width-70 {
	width: 70%;
}

.column-title {
	font-size: 0.625rem;
	margin: 0;
}

.full-width {
	width: 100%;
}

.spacer-1 {
	height: 1rem;
}

.spacer-2 {
	height: 2rem;
}

.line-break {
	height: 1px;
	width: 100%;
	background-color: #000000;
	margin: 2.5rem 0 2.5rem 0;
}

.margin-b-0 {
	margin-bottom: 0;
}

.margin-t-0 {
	margin-top: 0;
}

.text-blue {
	color: #4537de;
}

#pspdfkit-footer {
	font-size: 0.5rem;
	text-transform: uppercase;
	letter-spacing: 1px;
	font-weight: 500;
	color: #717885;
	margin-top: 2.5rem;
	bottom: 2.5rem;
	position: absolute;
	width: 100%;
}

.footer-columns {
	display: flex;
	justify-content: space-between;
	padding-left: 2.5rem;
	padding-right: 2.5rem;
}

To access the styles from index.html, use the <link> tag. While referring to the stylesheet file, just use the name of the file, and don’t create nested paths:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
	<head>
		<meta charset="UTF-8" />
		<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge" />
		<meta
			name="viewport"
			content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"
		/>
		<title>Report</title>
		<link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" />
	</head>
</html>

Interacting with the API

Now, import requests and json to the pspdfkit.py file. Place the pspdfkit.py file in the root directory of your project:

import requests
import json

Preparing the Payload

Create a dictionary to hold the data you want to send to the API. However, later you’ll need to convert the dictionary to a JSON object using the json.dumps function.

The instructions object references files by the name of their parts that are appended in the form data as files:

instructions = {
    'parts': [
        {
            'html': 'index.html',
            'assets': [
               "style.css",
                "Inter-Regular.ttf",
                "Inter-Medium.ttf",
                "Inter-Bold.ttf",
                "SpaceMono-Regular.ttf",
                "logo.svg",
                "photo-1.png",
                "photo-2.png",
                "photo-3.png",
                "photo-4.png",
            ],
        }
    ]
}

To access the requests library, use the request method.

Now, make a POST request to the https://api.pspdfkit.com/build endpoint with the instructions object as the payload. Then, save the resulting PDF as result.pdf in the same folder as the Python file.

Don’t forget to replace YOUR_API_KEY with your API key:

response = requests.request(
    'POST',
    'https://api.pspdfkit.com/build',
    headers={
        'Authorization': 'Bearer {YOUR_API_KEY}', # Replace with your API key.
    },
    files={
        'index.html': open('index.html', 'rb'),
        'style.css': open('style.css', 'rb'),
        'Inter-Regular.ttf': open('Inter-Regular.ttf', 'rb'),
        'Inter-Medium.ttf': open('Inter-Medium.ttf', 'rb'),
        'Inter-Bold.ttf': open('Inter-Bold.ttf', 'rb'),
        'SpaceMono-Regular.ttf': open('SpaceMono-Regular.ttf', 'rb'),
        'logo.svg': open('logo.svg', 'rb'),
		   'photo-1.png': open('photo-1.png', 'rb'),
		   'photo-2.png': open('photo-2.png', 'rb'),
	     'photo-3.png': open('photo-3.png', 'rb'),
		  'photo-4.png': open('photo-4.png', 'rb'),
	 },
    data={
        'instructions': json.dumps(instructions)
    },
    stream=True
)

if response.ok:
    with open('result.pdf', 'wb') as fd:
        for chunk in response.iter_content(chunk_size=8096):
            fd.write(chunk)
else:
    print(response.text)
    exit()

Generating the PDF

Now, run the Python application by executing the following command:

python3 pspdfkit.py

# Or for Python 2

python pspdfkit.py

You can see the full code below:

import requests
import json

instructions = {
    'parts': [
        {
            'html': 'index.html',
            'assets': [
                "style.css",
                "Inter-Regular.ttf",
                "Inter-Medium.ttf",
                "Inter-Bold.ttf",
                "SpaceMono-Regular.ttf",
                "logo.svg",
                "photo-1.png",
                "photo-2.png",
                "photo-3.png",
                "photo-4.png",
            ],
        }
    ]
}

response = requests.request(
    'POST',
    'https://api.pspdfkit.com/build',
    headers={
        'Authorization': 'Bearer {YOUR_API_KEY}' # Replace with your API key.
    },
    files={
        'index.html': open('index.html', 'rb'),
        'style.css': open('style.css', 'rb'),
        'Inter-Regular.ttf': open('Inter-Regular.ttf', 'rb'),
        'Inter-Medium.ttf': open('Inter-Medium.ttf', 'rb'),
        'Inter-Bold.ttf': open('Inter-Bold.ttf', 'rb'),
        'SpaceMono-Regular.ttf': open('SpaceMono-Regular.ttf', 'rb'),
        'logo.svg': open('logo.svg', 'rb'),
		  'photo-1.png': open('photo-1.png', 'rb'),
		  'photo-2.png': open('photo-2.png', 'rb'),
		  'photo-3.png': open('photo-3.png', 'rb'),
		  'photo-4.png': open('photo-4.png', 'rb'),
    },
    data={
        'instructions': json.dumps(instructions)
    },
    stream=True
)

if response.ok:
    with open('result.pdf', 'wb') as fd:
        for chunk in response.iter_content(chunk_size=8096):
            fd.write(chunk)
else:
    print(response.text)
    exit()

Comparison with PSPDFKit API

While WeasyPrint is excellent for simple-to-moderately complex PDF generation needs, PSPDFKit API is a more robust and feature-rich option. Read on to learn how they compare.

Features and flexibility:

WeasyPrint — Primarily focused on converting HTML/CSS to PDF, with strong support for CSS standards. It’s limited to creating static documents based on web technologies.
PSPDFKit API — Offers a full suite of PDF-related capabilities beyond conversion, including annotation, form filling, digital signatures, OCR, and more. It’s a comprehensive solution for managing PDFs in web, mobile, and server environments.

Use cases:

WeasyPrint — Ideal for web developers looking for a straightforward way to generate PDFs from HTML/CSS, especially in a Python environment.
PSPDFKit API — Suitable for enterprises needing advanced PDF features, high-volume processing, and deep integration into existing workflows.

Performance and scalability:

WeasyPrint — Sufficient for small to medium-scale projects but might struggle with performance when handling large or complex documents.
PSPDFKit API — Built for scalability, and capable of handling extensive PDF operations in enterprise environments with high reliability and speed.

Pricing:

WeasyPrint — Free and open source, which is great for cost-conscious projects.
PSPDFKit API — A commercial product with licensing fees, but the investment pays off if you require its advanced features.

In summary, while WeasyPrint is perfect for developers needing an open source, easy-to-use library for generating PDFs from web content, PSPDFKit API is the go-to for businesses requiring a comprehensive and scalable PDF solution.

Conclusion

In this post, you explored two effective methods for generating PDFs from HTML using Python. WeasyPrint provided a straightforward, open source solution for converting HTML and CSS into high-quality PDFs, while PSPDFKit API offers a robust, feature-rich alternative, ideal for more advanced needs.

By following the provided examples, you’ll now be able to integrate these tools into your projects to automate PDF report generation. Whether you’re working on simple document conversions or require advanced PDF functionalities, both WeasyPrint and PSPDFKit API offer valuable capabilities to meet your requirements.

We created similar PDF report generation posts using sample code from other programming languages:

In addition to templates for generating reports, we created free templates for other commonly used documents, like receipts, invoices, and certificates. If you’re interested in generating other types of documents in Python, check out the following posts:

All our templates are available for you to download on our PDF Generator API page. Feel free to customize or add any CSS to the template to fit your use case or help reflect your company’s brand.

FAQ

Here are a few frequently asked questions about generating PDF reports from HTML.

What is WeasyPrint and how does it work?

WeasyPrint is an open source Python library that converts HTML and CSS documents into PDF. It processes web content to produce high-quality, standards-compliant PDF files supporting modern CSS features.

What features does PSPDFKit API offer?

PSPDFKit API provides a comprehensive set of features, including PDF generation, annotations, form filling, digital signatures, and OCR. It’s designed for advanced PDF manipulation and high-volume processing.

Can I integrate WeasyPrint with existing Python projects?

Yes, WeasyPrint can be easily integrated into Python projects. It’s installed via pip and used within your Python code to convert HTML content into PDF format.

Are there any costs associated with PSPDFKit API?

PSPDFKit API offers a free tier that allows for up to 100 PDF documents per month. For higher usage or additional features, you’ll need to subscribe to a paid plan.

How can I customize the PDF templates in PSPDFKit API?

You can customize PSPDFKit API PDF templates by editing the HTML, CSS, and assets. Download the provided templates and modify them according to your design needs and branding requirements.

Author

Hulya Masharipov Technical Writer

Hulya is a frontend web developer and technical writer at Nutrient who enjoys creating responsive, scalable, and maintainable web experiences. She’s passionate about open source, web accessibility, cybersecurity privacy, and blockchain.

Explore related topics

API Python HTML How To PDF Generation