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Anvil Community Forum

Creating and manipulating pdf files
via PyPDF2 and FPDF
Anvil Q&A
neriksen85 February 2, 2018, 6:54pm #1

Normally I don’t have any trouble using PyPDF2 and FPDF when
generating/creating combined pdfs. However, in Anvil I simply cannot figure out
how the “file type” when working with pdf files in memory in FPDF and PyPDF2
when importing/exporting to/from google drive. I have tried several
combinations and now I am feeling pretty daft, so I am reaching out to the
community. The code is in a server module and called from the client.
import io
import PyPDF2
from fpdf import FPDF

# trying PyPDF2
@anvil.server.callable
def test_pdf_read():
file = app_files.test_app.get("document.pdf")
pdfFileObj = open(file.get_bytes(), 'rb')

# the issue is getting the file object to be accepted by the PdfFileReader()

pdfReader = PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(pdfFileObj)
print(pdfReader.numPages)

# trying FPDF
@anvil.server.callable
def make_pdf():
pdf = FPDF()
pdf.add_page()
pdf.set_font('Arial', 'B', 16)

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pdf.cell(40, 10, 'Hello World!')

# byte_string = pdf.output(dest='S').encode('latin-1')
byte_string = pdf.output(dest='S')
new_pdf = app_files.test_app.create_file("new_file.pdf", byte_string)

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

EDIT 1: After rereading the FPDF docs I have changed the above code that
should making a pdf via FPDF. In order to output the pdf correctly it should be
encoded with:
.encode(‘latin-1’)
https://pyfpdf.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reference/output/index.html
but when I include the encoding in the commented line, the server throws the
following error:

anvil.server.ExecutionTerminatedError: Server code exited unexpectedly:

e82d9d6fd5

Extracting PDF Tables using Tabula-Py

daviesian February 19, 2018, 4:54pm #2

Hi Niels,

The following examples work for me in Python 3:

# trying PyPDF2
@anvil.server.callable
def test_pdf_read():
pdf_bytes = app_files.foo.get_bytes()

# Create a BytesIO object that can be used directly as a file

file = io.BytesIO(pdf_bytes)
pdfReader = PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(file)
print(pdfReader.numPages)

# trying FPDF
@anvil.server.callable
def make_pdf():
pdf = FPDF()
pdf.add_page()
pdf.set_font('Arial', 'B', 16)
pdf.cell(40, 10, 'Hello World!')
byte_string = pdf.output(dest='S').encode('latin-1')

# Create an Anvil Media object from the encoded bytes.

pdf_media = BlobMedia("application/pdf", byte_string, name="new_file.pdf")
# Create a Google Drive file from the Media object
app_files.folder.create_file("HelloWorld.pdf", pdf_media)

I do get an encoding error if I try the .encode('latin-1') function call in Python 2,

but I didn’t investigate that further. If you have a requirement for Python 2, let

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me know.

Does that solve your problem? Let me know if anything remains unclear.

- Thanks, Ian.

Pass values from a form to a data table, and make PDF report
neriksen85 February 19, 2018, 9:28pm #3

Thank’s for the description, Ian. However, in order to fully close the circle, could
you also give a very short example of how to implement the
PyPDF2.PdfFileWriter(), which is needed in order to overlay one pdf file onto
another? I have entered some code below that doesn’t work for me.
:exploding_head:
pdf1Reader = PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(io_file)
pdf2Reader = PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(io_file2)
pdfWriter = PyPDF2.PdfFileWriter()

for pageNum in range(pdf1Reader.numPages):

pageObj = pdf1Reader.getPage(pageNum)
pdfWriter.addPage(pageObj)
for pageNum in range(pdf2Reader.numPages):
pageObj = pdf2Reader.getPage(pageNum)
pdfWriter.addPage(pageObj)

pdfOutputFile = io.BytesIO()
pdfWriter.write(pdfOutputFile)

pdfOutputFile.close()
io_file.close()
io_file2.close()

I have gone through the documentation for the io module a couple of times
without being able to get the full grasp of it. If anyone reading this knows of
some litterature/articles that better helps me understand io.BytesIO I would
greatly appreciate a link.

Thanks

navigate February 20, 2018, 3:38am #5

This is a bit of a hasty response, but

1. Ensure you aren’t getting tripped up by an encrypted file

2. PdfFileReader may need an ‘rb’

To slightly modify Daviesian’s code:

def test_pdf_read():

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pdf_bytes = app_files.foo.get_bytes()
#Create a BytesIO object that can be used directly as a file

memoryFile = io.BytesIO(pdf_bytes)
pdfFileObj = PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(memoryFile,‘rb’)
if not pdfFileObj.isEncrypted:
print(pdfReader.numPages)
else:
print(‘error!’)

1 Like
daviesian February 20, 2018, 10:24am #6

Hi Niels,

Your code very nearly works as-is, the only thing you need to tweak is the use of
BytesIO for writing. In particular, you need to call seek(0) on it before you can
read its contents. Here is an example which joins two PDF app files:
@anvil.server.callable
def join_pdf():
file1 = io.BytesIO(app_files.foo1.get_bytes())
file2 = io.BytesIO(app_files.foo2.get_bytes())

pdf1Reader = PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(file1)
pdf2Reader = PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(file2)
pdfWriter = PyPDF2.PdfFileWriter()

for pageNum in range(pdf1Reader.numPages):

pageObj = pdf1Reader.getPage(pageNum)
pdfWriter.addPage(pageObj)
for pageNum in range(pdf2Reader.numPages):
pageObj = pdf2Reader.getPage(pageNum)
pdfWriter.addPage(pageObj)

out_file = io.BytesIO()
pdfWriter.write(out_file)
out_file.seek(0)
out_file_media = BlobMedia("application/pdf", out_file.read(), name="out.pdf")

app_files.folder.create_file("out.pdf", out_file_media)

I hope that helps - I think we’ve now covered all the angles. Just let me know if
there’s anything else you need.

1 Like
neriksen85 February 20, 2018, 3:37pm #7

It now works for me when combining FPDF, PyPDF2 (PdfFileReader and

PdfFileWriter). @navigate thank’s for the heads up on checking for encryption.
Regarding the ‘rb’ (read binary) parameter in the PyPDF2.PdfFileReader of your
comment:

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pdfFileObj = PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(memoryFile,‘rb’)

I encountered some minor issues with font etc. in the output file. However these
issues went away and resulted in a perfect output pdf, when I removed the
parameter, ‘rb’:

pdfFileObj = PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(memoryFile)

1 Like
nameispalmer June 7, 2018, 9:21am #8

I had no experience with PyPDF nor FPDF before have started sorting out with
Anvil. Then I needed to optimize a simple website in order to make it possible
for users to open up specific PDF forms, fill and sign them. I connected FPDF
but didn’t figure out what the error actually I saw. I sorted that out in a dead
simple fashion, adding links to this editor instead https://pump-it-up-job-
form.pdffiller.com/ and tracking its metrics. But nevertheless to process this
thing on the website only would be a better option, so thanks to all for these
explanations

1 Like
shaun February 24, 2020, 5:57pm #9

Update - we’ve made it much simpler than using PyPDF2 or FPDF.

You can now create PDFs from any Form by running:

media_object = anvil.pdf.render_form('MyForm')

The return value is a media object, meaning you can download it:
anvil.media.download(media_object)

as well as attaching it to an email, storing it in a Data Table, displaying it in an

Image…

Here’s a step-by-step build of a PDF invoice generator. To find details of how to

use the PDF feature, here’s the PDF section of the reference docs.

1 Like

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