Reportlab

Using the Base Doc Template

import the BaseDocTemplate

from reportlab.platypus import BaseDocTemplate

all other dependencies of Reportlab nee to be imported as well

for example a few imports:

from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas
from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet
from reportlab.lib.styles import ParagraphStyle
from reportlab.lib.units import cm
from reportlab.lib.units import inch
from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import A5
from reportlab.lib.enums import TA_LEFT, TA_CENTER, TA_JUSTIFY
from reportlab.pdfbase import pdfmetrics
from reportlab.pdfbase.pdfmetrics import registerFontFamily
from  reportlab.platypus.tableofcontents import TableOfContents
from reportlab.graphics.shapes import Drawing, Rect, Line
from reportlab.pdfbase.ttfonts import TTFont

initialize the Doc Template

doc = BaseDocTemplate('layout.pdf',showBoundary=0, pagesize=A5, leftMargin=0.7*cm, bottomMargin=1.5*cm, topMargin=0.7*cm, rightMargin=0.7*cm)

layout.pdf is the outputname showBoundary can be set to 1 to show the borders (for debugging)

in this Template you can draw Frames where the Text will flow in: (this example is for making a 2 columns layout)

frame1 = Frame(doc.leftMargin+innerMargin, doc.bottomMargin, (doc.width-innerMargin)/2-6, doc.height, leftPadding=0, rightPadding=0, topPadding=0, bottomPadding=0,id='col1')
frame2 = Frame(doc.leftMargin+innerMargin+(doc.width-innerMargin)/2+6, doc.bottomMargin, (doc.width-innerMargin)/2-6, doc.height,leftPadding=0, rightPadding=0, topPadding=0, bottomPadding=0, id='col2')

you need to add this frames to the Template:

doc.addPageTemplates([PageTemplate(id='TwoCol1',frames=[frame1,frame2]), ])

In order to format your Text you need to make styles:

style = ParagraphStyle(
			name='Normal',
    		fontName='MyFont',
            fontSize=9,
            leading=12,
            leftIndent=0,
            rightIndent=0,
            firstLineIndent=0,
            alignment=TA_LEFT,
            spaceBefore=0,
            spaceAfter=0,
            bulletFontName='Times-Roman',
            bulletFontSize=10,
            bulletIndent=0,
            textColor= black,
            backColor=None,
            wordWrap=None,
            borderWidth= 0,
            borderPadding= 0,
            borderColor= None,
            borderRadius= None,
            allowWidows= 0,
            allowOrphans= 0,
            textTransform=None,  # 'uppercase' | 'lowercase' | None
            endDots=None,         
            splitLongWords=1,
)

Now you can draw to the Frame with:

Elements=[]
content = ''' This is what my content is '''
Elements.append(Paragraph(content,style))
Elements.append(PageBreak())

doc.multiBuild(Elements)

More on Frames

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More on Templates

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More on Fonts

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