Building PDFs in Python with ReportLab

The Real Python Podcast

Have you wanted to generate advanced reports as PDFs using Python? Maybe you want to build documents with tables, images, or fillable forms. This week on the show we have Mike Driscoll to talk about his book “ReportLab - PDF Processing with Python.”

Mike is an author of multiple books about Python, and has recently re-written his Python 101 book. He is also a member of the Real Python team and has written several articles for the site. Along with our discussion about ReportLab and PDFs, Mike talks about being a self-published author. We also talk briefly about his favorite Python GUI framework.

Course Spotlight: How to Work With a PDF in Python

In this step-by-step course, you’ll learn how to work with a PDF in Python. You’ll see how to extract metadata from preexisting PDFs. You’ll also learn how to merge, split, watermark, and rotate pages in PDFs using Python and PyPDF2.

Topics:

• 00:00:00 – Introduction
• 00:01:23 – Python 101 book revisions/rewrite
• 00:04:48 – Python 201 book
• 00:05:47 – What Python GUI framework do you prefer?
• 00:12:46 – MouseVsPython YouTube channel
• 00:14:34 – Why write a ReportLab book?
• 00:16:11 – Kickstarter and self-publishing books
• 00:21:38 – Reader feedback about the book
• 00:22:35 – What other PDF tools are covered in the book?
• 00:23:48 – Differences with ReportLab Plus
• 00:25:00 – Flowables and PLATYPUS
• 00:28:56 – Video Course Spotlight
• 00:29:49 – What types of projects have you used ReportLab for?
• 00:35:50 – Creating PDF forms with ReportLab
• 00:40:21 – LaTeX comparison with ReportLab
• 00:41:40 – PDFMiner text extraction
• 00:43:17 – PyFPDF Library for PDF document creation
• 00:45:28 – Camelot: PDF Table Extraction for Humans
• 00:47:17 – Working with passwords and encryption - PyPDF2
• 00:47:56 – What are you excited about in the world of Python?
• 00:48:47 – Learning OpenCV
• 00:49:38 – What do you want to learn next in Python?
• 00:50:20 – Suggestions for Python libraries to read
• 00:52:11 – Thanks and Goodbye

Show links:

• MouseVsPython Blog
• Python 101: 2nd Edition – Leanpub
• Python 201: Intermediate Python – Leanpub
• How to Build a Python GUI Application With wxPython – Real Python article
• wxPython Recipes: A Problem - Solution Approach – Apress
• wxPython: The GUI Toolkit for Python
• PySimpleGUI: The Simple Way to Create a GUI With Python – Real Python article
• PySimpleGUI: Python GUI For Humans
• Mouse Vs Python: YouTube channel
• ReportLab - PDF Processing with Python – Leanpub
• ReportLab: Developer pages - Open Source
• LaTeX – Document preparation system
• PDFMiner: Text extraction tool for PDF documents
• PyFPDF: Library for PDF document generation under Python
• Camelot: PDF Table Extraction for Humans
• PyPDF2: Pure-Python library built as a PDF toolkit
• How to Work With a PDF in Python – Real Python article
• PyViz: List of libraries for visualizing data in Python
• Adrian Rosebrock: author page – pyimagesearch.com
• OpenCV Tutorials, Resources, and Guides - pyimagesearch.com
• Image Segmentation Using Color Spaces in OpenCV + Python – Real Python article
• Pillow: The friendly PIL (Python Imaging Library) fork
• Three Ways of Storing and Accessing Lots of Images in Python – Real Python article

Level up your Python skills with our expert-led courses:

• Interactive Data Visualization With Bokeh and Python
• How to Work With a PDF in Python
• Histogram Plotting in Python: NumPy, Matplotlib, Pandas & Seaborn

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