Awesome
printpdf
printpdf
is a Rust library for creating PDF documents.
Crates.io | Documentation | Donate to this project
Features
Currently, printpdf can only write documents, not read them.
- Pages, Bookmarks, link annotations
- Layers (Illustrator like layers)
- Graphics (lines, shapes, bezier curves, SVG content)
- Images (uses the
image
crate) - Fonts with Unicode support (uses
allsorts
for font shaping) - Minifying file size (auto-subsetting fonts)
- HTML-based layout system using
azul-layout
(for easy generation of tables / page layout) - Advanced graphics - overprint control, blending modes, etc.
- Advanced typography - character / word scaling and spacing, superscript, subscript, etc.
- Embedding SVGs (uses
svg2pdf
crate internally)
Writing PDF
Basic example
use printpdf::*;
let mut doc = PdfDocument::new("My first PDF");
let page1_contents = vec![Op::Marker { id: "debugging-marker".to_string() }];
let page1 = PdfPage::new(Mm(10.0), Mm(250.0), page1_contents);
let pdf_bytes: Vec<u8> = doc
.with_pages(page1)
.save(&PdfSaveOptions::default());
Graphics
use printpdf::*;
let mut doc = PdfDocument::new("My first PDF");
let line = Line {
// Quadratic shape. The "false" determines if the next (following)
// point is a bezier handle (for curves)
// If you want holes, simply reorder the winding of the points to be
// counterclockwise instead of clockwise.
points: vec![
(Point::new(Mm(100.0), Mm(100.0)), false),
(Point::new(Mm(100.0), Mm(200.0)), false),
(Point::new(Mm(300.0), Mm(200.0)), false),
(Point::new(Mm(300.0), Mm(100.0)), false),
],
is_closed: true,
};
// Triangle shape
let polygon = Polygon {
rings: vec![vec![
(Point::new(Mm(150.0), Mm(150.0)), false),
(Point::new(Mm(150.0), Mm(250.0)), false),
(Point::new(Mm(350.0), Mm(250.0)), false),
]],
mode: PaintMode::FillStroke,
winding_order: WindingOrder::NonZero,
};
// Graphics config
let fill_color = Color::Cmyk(Cmyk::new(0.0, 0.23, 0.0, 0.0, None));
let outline_color = Color::Rgb(Rgb::new(0.75, 1.0, 0.64, None));
let mut dash_pattern = LineDashPattern::default();
dash_pattern.dash_1 = Some(20);
let extgstate = doc.add_ExtendedGraphicsStateBuilder::new()
.with_overprint_stroke(true)
.with_blend_mode(BlendMode::multiply())
.build();
let page1_contents = vec![
// add line1 (square)
Op::SetOutlineColor { col: Color::Rgb(Rgb::new(0.75, 1.0, 0.64, None)) },
Op::SetOutlineThickness { pt: Pt(10.0) },
Op::DrawLine { line: line },
// add line2 (triangle)
Op::SaveGraphicsState,
Op::LoadGraphicsState { gs: doc.add_graphics_state(extgstate) },
Op::SetLineDashPattern { dash: dash_pattern },
Op::SetLineJoinStyle { join: LineJoinStyle::Round },
Op::SetLineCapStyle { cap: LineCapStyle::Round },
Op::SetFillColor { col: fill_color_2 },
Op::SetOutlineThickness { pt: Pt(15.0) },
Op::SetOutlineColor { col: outline_color_2 },
Op::DrawPolygon { polygon: polygon },
Op::RestoreGraphicsState,
];
let page1 = PdfPage::new(Mm(10.0), Mm(250.0), page1_contents);
let pdf_bytes: Vec<u8> = doc
.with_pages(page1)
.save(&PdfSaveOptions::default());
Images
- Images only get compressed in release mode. You might get huge PDFs (6 or more MB) in debug mode.
- To make this process faster, use
BufReader
instead of directly reading from the file. - Scaling of images is implicitly done to fit one pixel = one dot at 300 dpi.
use printpdf::*;
use image::{Image, codecs::bmp::BmpDecoder};
fn main() {
let mut doc = PdfDocument::new("My first PDF");
let image_bytes = include_bytes!("assets/img/BMP_test.bmp");
let image = Image::try_from(BmpDecoder::new(&mut image_file).unwrap()).unwrap();
// In the PDF, an image is an `XObject`, in this case an `ImageXObject`.
// returns a random 32-bit image ID
let image_xobject_id = doc.add_image(image);
let page1_contents = vec![
Op::UseXObject { id: image_xobject_id.clone(), transform: XObjectTransform::default() }
];
let page1 = PdfPage::new(Mm(10.0), Mm(250.0), page1_contents);
let pdf_bytes: Vec<u8> = doc
.with_pages(page1)
.save(&PdfSaveOptions::default());
}
Fonts
use printpdf::*;
let mut doc = PdfDocument::new("My first PDF");
let font = ParsedFont::from_bytes(include_bytes!("assets/fonts/RobotoMedium.ttf")).unwrap();
let font_id = doc.add_font(font);
// let glyphs = font.shape(text);
let text_pos = Point { x: Mm(10.0).into(), y: Mm(100.0).into() }; // from bottom left
let page1_contents = vec![
Op::SetFontSize { font: font_id.clone(), size: Pt(33.0) },
Op::SetTextCursor { pos: text_pos },
Op::SetLineHeight { lh: Pt(33.0) },
Op::SetWordSpacing { percent: 3000.0 },
Op::SetCharacterSpacing { multiplier: 10.0 },
Op::WriteText { text: "Lorem ipsum".to_string(), font: font_id.clone() },
Op::AddLineBreak,
Op::WriteText { text: "dolor sit amet".to_string(), font: font_id.clone() },
Op::AddLineBreak,
];
let page1 = PdfPage::new(Mm(10.0), Mm(250.0), page1_contents);
let pdf_bytes: Vec<u8> = doc
.with_pages(page1)
.save(&PdfSaveOptions::default());
Tables, HTML
For creating tables, etc. printpdf uses a basic layout system using the azul-layout
crate.
// needs --features="html"
use printpdf::*;
let html = r#"
<html>
<head>
<!-- optional: configure page header -->
<header>
<template>
<h4 class="section-header">Chapter {attr:chapter} * {attr:subsection}</h4>
<p class="pagenum">{builtin:pagenum}</p>
</template>
<style>
.section-header {
min-height: 8mm;
font-family: sans-serif;
color: #2e2e2e;
border-bottom: 1px solid black;
width: 100%;
}
.pagenum {
position: absolute;
top: 5mm;
left: 5mm;
}
</style>
</header>
<!-- same for styling footers -->
<footer>
<template>
<hr/>
</template>
<footer/>
</head>
<!-- document content -->
<body margins="10mm">
<p style="color: red; font-family: sans-serif;" data-chapter="1" data-subsection="First subsection">Hello!</p>
<div style="width:200px;height:200px;background:red;" data-chapter="1" data-subsection="Second subsection">
<p>World!</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>
"#;
let options = XmlRenderOptions {
// named images to be used in the HTML, i.e. ["image1.png" => DecodedImage(image1_bytes)]
images: BTreeMap::new(),
// named fonts to be used in the HTML, i.e. ["Roboto" => DecodedImage(roboto_bytes)]
fonts: BTreeMap::new(),
// default page width, printpdf will auto-page-break
page_width: Mm(210.0),
// default page height
page_height: Mm(297.0),
};
let pdf = PdfDocument::new("My PDF")
.with_html(html, &options).unwrap()
.save(&PdfSaveOptions::default());
Goals and Roadmap
The goal of printpdf is to be a general-use PDF library, such as
libharu or similar. PDFs generated by printpdf should always adhere
to a PDF standard, except if you turn it off. Currently, only the
standard PDF/X-3:2002
is covered (i.e. valid PDF according to Adobe
Acrobat). Over time, there will be more standards supported. Checking a
PDF for errors is currently only a stub.
The following features aren't implemented yet:
- Clipping
- Open Prepress Interface
- Halftoning images, Gradients, Patterns
- Forms, annotations
- Conformance / error checking for various PDF standards
- Embedded Javascript
- Reading PDF
- Completion of printpdf wiki
The printpdf wiki is live at: https://github.com/fschutt/printpdf/wiki
Here are some resources I found while working on this library:
PDFXPlorer
, shows the DOM tree of a PDF, needs .NET 2.0- Official PDF 1.7 reference
- [GERMAN] How to embed unicode fonts in PDF
- PDF X/1-a Validator
- PDF X/3 technical notes
License / Support
Library is licensed MIT.
You can donate (one-time or recurrent) at https://github.com/sponsors/fschutt. Thanks!