z3c.pdftemplate 0.2.0 (beta)

PDF Template

Using z3c.rml and ReportLab to generate PDF Views

See DEPENDENCIES.cfg, this lib depends on some 3rd party libraries.

Purpose: PDF-Generration with the help of z3c.rml (an open source implementation of RML) and Reportlab. The z3c.rml is really a dialect of the official RML and supports many more features, such as charting while still remaining compatible with the commercial version of RML as much as possible.

This package provides the functionality of creating browser views that generate PDFs instead of HTML using reportlab's PDF writer technology.

But first we have to load the directives' meta configuration:

>>> from zope.configuration import xmlconfig
>>> context = xmlconfig.file('meta.zcml', package=z3c.pdftemplate)

RML, an XML-dialect developed by Reportlab.org, is much like HTML in that it lets you define the structure of a PDF document. The RML is dynamically generated using page templates and then used to generate a PDF file.

Let's say we want to create a PDF that shows the contents of a folder. The first step is to create a rml-document that contains the structure of the PDF. The following folder contents document template is available in rml_contents.pt

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" standalone="no" ?>
<!DOCTYPE document SYSTEM "rml_1_0.dtd">
<document
    xmlns:tal="http://xml.zope.org/namespaces/tal"
    xmlns:metal="http://xml.zope.org/namespaces/metal"
    filename="contents.pdf">
<content>

<para style="FolderName">
  Folder Name:
  <tal:block
     condition="context/__name__"
     replace="context/__name__|default" />
  <tal:block condition="not:context/__name__">&lt;no name&gt;</tal:block>
</para>

<spacer height="30" />

<table splitbyrow="1" repeatrows="0" repeatcols="0" style="ContentTable">
  <tr>
    <td>Name</td>
    <td>Title</td>
    <td>Size</td>
    <td>Created</td>
    <td>Modified</td>
  </tr>
  <tr tal:repeat="item view/listContentInfo">
    <td tal:content="item/id">me.png</td>
    <td tal:content="item/title|default">&lt;no title&gt;</td>
    <td tal:content="item/size/sizeForDisplay|nothing">34.5 kB</td>
    <td tal:content="item/created|default"></td>
    <td tal:content="item/modified|default"></td>
  </tr>
</table>

<action name="frameEnd" />

</content>
</document>

Pretty easy isn't it? Fortunately, we can simply reuse the Contents view class for the HTML contents view.

Now that we have the template and the document, we can simply register the view:

>>> context = xmlconfig.string("""
...     <configure xmlns:browser="http://namespaces.zope.org/browser">
...       <browser:rml2pdf
...           name="rmlsample.pdf"
...           for="zope.app.folder.interfaces.IFolder"
...           template="sample/rml_contents.pt"
...           class="zope.app.container.browser.contents.Contents"
...           permission="zope.Public"
...           />
...     </configure>
...     """, context)

Once we have created a folder instance:

>>> from zope.app.folder.folder import Folder
>>> folder = Folder()
>>> folder.__name__ = 'my folder'
>>> folder['subFolder'] = Folder()

we can can look up the view

>>> class Principal:
...   id = 'bob'

>>> request = TestRequest()
>>> request.setPrincipal(Principal())

>>> contents = zope.component.getMultiAdapter((folder, request),
...                                           name="rmlsample.pdf")

and create the PDF:

>>> contents() #doctest: +ELLIPSIS
'%PDF-1.4...'

0.2.0 (2010-12-12)

• Added missing install dependencies and test dependencies.
• Fixed tests to run with current package versions.
• Adapted tests to reportlab 2.4+ which produces PDF 1.4, so requiring at least this reportlab version.
• Using python's doctest module instead of the deprecated zope.testing.doctest.
• Removed ZCML slugs and ZPKG ones.
• Fixed REST of long_description.

0.1.0 (2008-02-15)

• Initial Release