Awesome

printpdf

printpdf is a Rust library for creating PDF documents.

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[!IMPORTANT]
HTML-to-PDF rendering is still experimental and WIP. In doubt, position PDF elements manually instead.

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)

See the WASM32 demo live at: https://fschutt.github.io/printpdf

Writing PDF

Basic example

use printpdf::*;

fn main() {
    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(vec![page1])
        .save(&PdfSaveOptions::default());
}

Graphics

use printpdf::*;

fn main() {
    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 = 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 },
        Op::SetOutlineThickness { pt: Pt(15.0) },
        Op::SetOutlineColor { col: outline_color },
        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(vec![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::*;

fn main() {
    let mut doc = PdfDocument::new("My first PDF");
    let image_bytes = include_bytes!("assets/img/BMP_test.bmp");
    let image = RawImage::decode_from_bytes(image_bytes).unwrap(); // requires --feature bmp
    
    // In the PDF, an image is an `XObject`, identified by a unique `ImageId`
    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(vec![page1])
        .save(&PdfSaveOptions::default());
}

Fonts

use printpdf::*;

fn main() {

    let mut doc = PdfDocument::new("My first PDF");

    let roboto_bytes = include_bytes!("assets/fonts/RobotoMedium.ttf");
    let font = ParsedFont::from_bytes(roboto_bytes).unwrap();

    // If you need custom text shaping (uses the `allsorts` font shaper internally)
    // let glyphs = font.shape(text);

    // printpdf automatically keeps track of which fonts are used in the PDF
    let font_id = doc.add_font(font);

    let text_pos = Point { 
        x: Mm(10.0).into(), 
        y: Mm(100.0).into() 
    }; // from bottom left

    let page1_contents = vec![
        Op::SetLineHeight { lh: Pt(33.0) },
        Op::SetWordSpacing { percent: 3000.0 },
        Op::SetCharacterSpacing { multiplier: 10.0 },
        Op::SetTextCursor { pos: text_pos },

        // Op::WriteCodepoints { ... }
        // Op::WriteCodepointsWithKerning { ... }
        Op::WriteText { 
            text: "Lorem ipsum".to_string(), 
            font: font_id.clone(), 
            size: Pt(33.0) 
        },
        Op::AddLineBreak,
        Op::WriteText { 
            text: "dolor sit amet".to_string(), 
            font: font_id.clone(), 
            size: Pt(33.0) 
        },
        Op::AddLineBreak,
    ];

    let save_options = PdfSaveOptions {
        subset_fonts: true, // auto-subset fonts on save
        .. Default::default()
    };

    let page1 = PdfPage::new(Mm(10.0), Mm(250.0), page1_contents);
    let pdf_bytes: Vec<u8> = doc
        .with_pages(vec![page1])
        .save(&save_options);
}

Tables, HTML

For creating tables, etc. printpdf uses a basic layout system, similar to wkhtmltopdf (although more limited in terms of features). It's good enough for basic page layouting, book rendering and reports / forms / etc. Includes automatic page-breaking.

Since printpdf supports WASM, there is an interactive demo at https://fschutt.github.io/printpdf - try playing with the XML.

See SYNTAX.md for the XML syntax description.

// needs --features="html"
use printpdf::*;

fn main() {

    // See https://fschutt.github.io/printpdf for an interactive WASM demo!

    let html = r#"
    <html>

        <!-- printpdf automatically breaks content into pages -->
        <body style="padding: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>

        <!-- configure header and footer for each page -->
        <head>
            <header>
                <h4 style="color: #2e2e2e;min-height: 8mm;">Chapter {attr:chapter} * {attr:subsection}</h4>
                <p style="position: absolute;top:5mm;left:5mm;">{builtin:pagenum}</p>
            </header>

            <footer>
                <hr/>
            <footer/>
        </head>
    </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_bytes = 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:

License / Support

Library is licensed MIT.

You can donate (one-time or recurrent) at https://github.com/sponsors/fschutt. Thanks!