markdown-pdf

Module markdown-pdf

The free, open source Python module markdown-pdf will create a PDF file from your content in markdown format.

When creating a PDF file you can:

• Use UTF-8 encoded text in markdown in any language
• Embed images used in markdown
• Break text into pages in the desired order
• Create a TableOfContents (bookmarks) from markdown headings
• Tune the necessary elements using your CSS code
• Use different page sizes within single pdf
• Create tables in markdown

The module utilizes the functions of two great libraries.

• markdown-it-py to convert markdown to html.
• PyMuPDF to convert html to pdf.

Installation

pip install markdown-pdf

Usage

Create a pdf with TOC (bookmarks) from headings up to level 2.

from markdown_pdf import MarkdownPdf

pdf = MarkdownPdf(toc_level=2)

Add the first section to the pdf. The title is not included in the table of contents.

from markdown_pdf import Section

pdf.add_section(Section("# Title\n", toc=False))

Add a second section. In the pdf file it starts on a new page. The title is centered using CSS, included in the table of contents of the pdf file, and an image from the file img/python.png is embedded on the page.

pdf.add_section(
  Section("# Head1\n\n![python](img/python.png)\n\nbody\n"),
  user_css="h1 {text-align:center;}"
)

Add a third section. Two headings of different levels from this section are included in the TOC of the pdf file. The section has landscape orientation of A4 pages.

pdf.add_section(Section("## Head2\n\n### Head3\n\n", paper_size="A4-L"))

Add a fourth section with a table.

text = """# Section with Table

|TableHeader1|TableHeader2|
|--|--|
|Text1|Text2|
|ListCell|<ul><li>FirstBullet</li><li>SecondBullet</li></ul>|
"""

css = "table, th, td {border: 1px solid black;}"

pdf.add_section(Section(text), user_css=css)

Set the properties of the pdf document.

pdf.meta["title"] = "User Guide"
pdf.meta["author"] = "Vitaly Bogomolov"

Save to file.

pdf.save("guide.pdf")

Settings and options

The Section class defines a portion of markdown data, which is processed according to the same rules. The next Section data starts on a new page.

The Section class can set the following attributes.

• toc: whether to include the headers <h1> - <h6> of this section in the TOC. Default is True.
• root: the name of the root directory from which the image file paths starts in markdown. Default ".".
• paper_size: name of paper size, as described here. Default "A4".
• borders: size of borders. Default (36, 36, -36, -36).

The following document properties are available for assignment (dictionary MarkdownPdf.meta) with the default values indicated.

• creationDate: current date
• modDate: current date
• creator: "PyMuPDF library: https://pypi.org/project/PyMuPDF"
• producer: ""
• title: ""
• author: ""
• subject: ""
• keywords: ""

Example

As an example, you can download the pdf file created from this md file. This Python script was used to create the PDF file.