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How to install pp.server
- Download and install ActivePython
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pypm install pp.server
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pp.server is a Pyramid based server implementation and implements the server side functionality of the Produce & Publish platform. It is known as the Produce & Publish Server.
The Produce & Publish Server provided web service APIs for converting HTML/XML + assets to PDF using one of the following external PDF converters:
- PrinceXML (www.princexml.com, commercial)
- PDFreactor (www.realobjects.com, commercial)
- PhantomJS (free, unsupported)
In addition the Produce & Publish server provides a simple conversion API for converting format A to B (as supported through LibreOffice or OpenOffice). The conversion is build on top of unoconv.
The web service provides both synchronous and asynchronous operations.
Requirements
- 2.7 (no Python 3 support, no support for older Python versions)
- the external binaries prince, pdfreactor and/or unoconv must be in the $PATH. Please refer to the installation documentation of the individual products.
Installation
create an virtualenv environment (Python 2.7) - either within your current (empty) directory or by letting virtualenv create one for you. (easy_install virtualenv if virtualenv is not available on your system):
virtualenv --no-site-packages .
or:
virtualenv --no-site-packages pp.server
install the Produce & Publish server:
bin/easy_install pp.server
create a server.ini configuration file (and change it according to your needs):
[DEFAULT] debug = true [app:main] use = egg:pp.server reload_templates = true debug_authorization = false debug_notfound = false [server:main] use = egg:waitress+main host = 127.0.0.1 port = 6543
start the server (in foreground):
bin/pserve server.ini
or start it in background:
bin/pserve server.ini --daemon
API documentation
All API methods are available through a REST api following API URL endpoint:
http://host:port/api/1/<command>
With the default server configuration this translates to:
http://localhost:6543/api/1/pdf or http://localhost:6543/api/1/unoconv
PDF conversion API
Remember that all converters use HTML or XML as input for the conversion. All input data (HTML/XML, images, stylesheets, fonts etc.) must be stored in ZIP archive. The filename of the content must be named index.html.
You have to POST the data to the
http://host:port/api/1/pdf
with the following parameters:
- file - the ZIP archive (multi/part encoding)
- converter - a string that determines the the PDF converter to be used (either princexml or pdfreactor or phantomjs)
- async - asynchronous ("1") or synchronous conversion ("0", default)
Returns:
The API returns its result as JSON structure with the following key-value pairs:
- status - either OK or ERROR
- data- the generated PDF file encoded as base64 encoded byte string
- output - the conversion transcript (output of the converter run)
Unoconv conversion API
The unoconv web service wraps the OpenOffice/LibreOffice server mode in order to perform document conversion (mainly used in the Produce & Publish world for convertering DOC(X) documents to HTML/XML).
Remember that all converters use HTML or XML as input for the conversion. All input data (HTML/XML, images, stylesheets, fonts etc.) must be stored in ZIP archive. The filename of the content must be named index.html.
You have to POST the data to the
http://host:port/api/1/unoconv
with the following parameters:
- file - the source files (multi/part encoding)
- async - asynchronous ("1") or synchronous conversion ("0", default)
Returns:
The API returns its result as JSON structure with the following key-value pairs:
- status - either OK or ERROR
- data - the converted output files as ZIP archive (e.g. a DOCX file containing images will be converted to a HTML file plus the list of extract image files)
- output - the conversion transcript (output of the converter run)
Asynchronous operations
If you set async to '1' in the API calls above then both calls will return a JSON datastructure like
{'job_id': <some id>}
The job_id can be used to poll the Produce & Publish Server in order to retrieve the conversion result asynchronously.
The poll API is provided through the URL
http://host:port/api/1/poll/<job_id>
If the conversion is still pending the API will return a JSON document
{'done': False}
If the conversion has finished then a PDF/Unoconv specific return JSON document will be return (same format as for the synchronous API calls). In addition the key-value pair {'done': True} will be included with the JSOn reply.
Advanced installation issues
Installation of PDFreactor using zc.buildout
Installation of PrinceXML using zc.buildout
Production setup
pserve and celeryd can be started automatically and controlled using Circus. Look into the following buildout configuration
Source code
Bug tracker
Support
Support for Produce & Publish Server is currently only available on a project basis.
License
pp.server is published under the GNU Public License V2 (GPL 2).
Contact
0.3.0 (14.07.2013)
- unoconv conversion now returns a ZIP archive (e.g. a HTML file + extracted images)
0.2.7 (06.07.2013)
- added support for Phantom.js converter
0.2.5 (05.07.2013)
- better detecting of prince and pdfreactor binaries
0.2.2 (05.07.2013)
- updated the documentation
- minor cleanup
0.2.1 (04.07.2013)
- re-added poll API
0.2.0 (03.07.2013)
- converted XML-RPC api to REST api
0.1.9 (01.07.2013)
- monkeypatch pyramid_xmlrpc.parse_xmlrpc_request in order to by-pass its stupid DOS request body check
0.1.7 (29.06.2013)
- more tests
- fixes
- updated documentation
0.1.5 (27.06.2013)
- test for synchronous operations
- fixes
0.1.0 (24.06.2013)
- initial release
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