[ale] building pdf from python with reportlab

[Bob Toxen]

I've had consistently excellent luck with using groff with -mm (using whatever
fonts are needed, including constant-width fonts if you want ASCII-art)
and then ps2pdf.  The ONLY thing not handled well is ligatures.  Turn
them off at the start of the doc with:

  .lg 0


No dobut someone has a better solution.

Bob Toxen
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On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 10:37:22AM -0400, jkinney wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> I'm trying to generate a 1-page pdf that has some text and a single
> image (a qrcode) and I'm hitting issues. The docs for reportlab are a
> better than many but still missing key details. The following will
> generate the page, the text starts at the correct location, BUT the
> text runs vertical down the page. I have found nothing that indicates
> how to do that or fix it. By vertical down the page I mean:
> l
> i
> k
> e
> 
> t
> h
> i
> s
> 
> grr! That _really_ messes up ascii art!
> 
> # generate the pdf file from the template, ascii art and the qrcode.png
> files
> # requires python-reportlab
> def gen_pdf(text, asciiblock):
> 
>         from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas
>         from reportlab.lib.units import inch
>         def makeqrpage(canvas):
> 
>                 textobject = canvas.beginText()
>                 textobject.setTextOrigin(inch, 9.5*inch)
>                 textobject.setFont("Helvetica-Bold", 14)
>                 for line in text:
>                         textobject.textLine(line)
>                 canvas.drawText(textobject)
>                 textobject.setTextOrigin(1.5*inch, 6.5*inch)
>                 textobject.setFillGray(0.4)
>                 for line in asciiblock:
>                         textobject.textLine(line)
>                 canvas.drawText(textobject)
>                 canvas.drawImage('qrcode.png', 2.5*inch, 1.5*inch,
> 4.5*inch, 3.5*inch)
>         canvas = canvas.Canvas('qrcode.pdf')
>         makeqrpage(canvas)
>         canvas.showPage()
>         canvas.save()
> 
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1
> 
> iQIcBAEBAgAGBQJT/JuiAAoJEIm+DWlR6PEq+QgQAJbVHnWuU6SMIZqa4GW57ChB
> +sJGxAkf0dX7AcB14+G/ipoZCfwkQrriMEAHqO9deHyZQvPnwXeN1rYGRMC0uKMn
> JiTALxhdCZaj7mX+lOEy8iSsz/kpJ143AMUhY7LkEHbu4q1+kZCzdPuMgrTVUOdP
> 3VaT64OYVmAZ9jxSyelaMy+f8tx0QHroEnKowe4KhMhl7JbIMrgR9/6jBSPnF+0L
> UoX7pWkqvI9lCFKdkoYAKXpDhoJFnj3AlcT14UTUTw2Kyp7ejrPG+t3b5pXvd6Wt
> N4c/6NitssrYogqPHp393Xw0FJF7UiooFFaQLacy+zZzqoV4i9blHoyhqwQDsrHj
> DwlskUcyaj5fP161GbDRwHp+ekLDHyyk2qH8jz1naj1qWEpLuC2l3fN56t1KCRAT
> 87CiA1M4XvE6dFl1MpaZKxlUWMrrImd83UKgjXPrd57wUkS6DSPj522PWc91DrBX
> iBqx0iGGV+gV9jg1rWNgbfRmEJKjjheGDC0v7/J8Xv2YhfLyrTLWBvQAexT2VC39
> hqyT4Cpw5tjDhrCEmIuVK29S/MHTkvEGOLniJaur48Gag1I2i6TyFooM+sjtxq4x
> 5/s24l+ienSxvwIxVgHOjIWcsLf9WCRQblpQHIs913xNY+Eqf0jIpb9rvGON2jNn
> HPcjnzlwRPq9yWFdEeRY
> =4oOE
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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