xhtml2pdf

0.2.17 · active · verified Fri Apr 10

xhtml2pdf is an active Python library that converts HTML and CSS into PDF documents, leveraging the ReportLab Toolkit, html5lib, and pypdf. It supports HTML5 and CSS 2.1 (with some CSS 3), offering a platform-independent solution for generating PDFs from web content. The project maintains a regular release cadence, with the current version being 0.2.17.

Warnings

breaking Python 2 support was officially dropped in version 0.2.6. As of version 0.2.12, Python 3.7 is no longer supported either. The library now requires Python 3.8 or newer.
Fix: Ensure your project runs on Python 3.8 or a later version.
deprecated The direct imports `XML2PDF` and `XHTML2PDF` (e.g., `from xhtml2pdf import XML2PDF`) were deprecated in v0.2.7 and are scheduled for removal in future versions. While `HTML2PDF` was mentioned as an alternative, the primary and recommended entry point for conversion is `pisa.CreatePDF`.
Fix: Migrate your code to use `from xhtml2pdf import pisa` and call `pisa.CreatePDF(...)` instead.
gotcha Compatibility with `ReportLab` versions is a recurring issue. Specifically, `xhtml2pdf 0.2.16` added compatibility for `reportlab >= 4.1`. Earlier versions like `0.2.12` and `0.2.11` had specific dependencies on `reportlab >= 4.0.4` and `reportlab >=3.5.53,<4` respectively. Mismatched versions can lead to unexpected errors.
Fix: Always check the `xhtml2pdf` release notes or `pyproject.toml` for the exact `ReportLab` version compatibility, or install `xhtml2pdf` without specifying `ReportLab` to let pip resolve dependencies correctly.
breaking The underlying PDF library dependency for merging and other operations has changed. `PyPDF2` was replaced with `PyPDF3` in some earlier 0.2.x releases, and then `PyPDF3` was changed to `pypdf` in version 0.2.9.
Fix: Ensure that `pypdf` is installed in your environment. If you directly import or rely on the underlying PDF library, update your imports/calls from `PyPDF2` or `PyPDF3` to `pypdf`.

Install

pip install xhtml2pdf Basic Install
pip install xhtml2pdf[pycairo] Install with PyCairo (Recommended for CJK fonts/complex rendering)

Imports

pisa
```
from xhtml2pdf import pisa
```
The `XML2PDF` and `XHTML2PDF` functions were deprecated in v0.2.7 and are slated for removal. The `pisa.CreatePDF` function is the recommended and widely used entry point for HTML to PDF conversion.

Quickstart

This quickstart demonstrates how to convert an HTML string into a PDF file using `pisa.CreatePDF`. The function takes the HTML content and a file handle (opened in binary write mode) as arguments. It then saves the generated PDF to the specified output file.

from io import BytesIO
from xhtml2pdf import pisa

html_content = '''
<html>
  <head>
    <style>
      @page { size: A4 portrait; margin: 1cm; }
      h1 { color: #333; }
      p { font-family: sans-serif; }
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>Hello from xhtml2pdf!</h1>
    <p>This is a simple HTML to PDF conversion example.</p>
    <p>Visit <a href="https://github.com/xhtml2pdf/xhtml2pdf">xhtml2pdf on GitHub</a>.</p>
  </body>
</html>
'''

def convert_html_to_pdf(source_html, output_filename):
    result_file = open(output_filename, 'w+b') # Open in binary write mode
    pisa_status = pisa.CreatePDF(
        source_html,    # the HTML to convert
        dest=result_file)  # file handle to receive result
    result_file.close()    # close output file

    if pisa_status.err:
        print(f"PDF creation failed with errors: {pisa_status.err}")
        return False
    else:
        print(f"PDF created successfully: {output_filename}")
        return True

# Example usage:
convert_html_to_pdf(html_content, "example.pdf")

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