printpdf

printpdf is a Rust library for creating, reading, writing and rendering PDF documents.

Website | Crates.io | Documentation | Donate

Note

HTML-to-PDF rendering (PdfDocument::from_html, html feature) works for basic layouts - tables, page breaks, headers/footers - but is still evolving. For pixel-exact control, position PDF elements manually with ops.

Features

• Pages, Bookmarks, link annotations (read / write)
• Layers (read / write)
• Graphics: lines, shapes, bezier curves, SVG content (read / write)
• Images encoding / decoding (read support: experimental / write supported with image)
• Embedded fonts, Unicode support (read support: experimental / write)
• Minifying file size (auto-subsetting fonts)
• Advanced graphics - overprint, blending, etc.
• Advanced typography - character / word scaling and spacing, superscript, subscript, etc.
• Embedding SVGs (uses svg2pdf crate internally)

Experimental features:

• Rendering PDF pages to SVG (one standalone SVG file per page)
  • You can use the resulting SVG to render the PDF page into an image using resvg
• Extracting text from PDF pages (auto-decodes Unicode, line breaks and text positions)
• XHTML layouting for simple page layout (using azul-layout + xmlparser)
  • Good enough for basic page layouting, book rendering, reports and forms, with automatic page-breaking

NOT supported are:

• Gradients
• Patterns
• File attachements
• Open Prepress Interface
• Halftoning images
• Conformance / error checking for various PDF standards
• Embedded Javascript

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

Writing PDF

Basic example

use printpdf::*;fnmain(){letmut doc = PdfDocument::new("My first PDF");let page1_contents = vec![Op::Marker{ id:"debugging-marker".to_string()}];let page1 = PdfPage::new(Mm(210.0),Mm(297.0), page1_contents);letmut warnings = Vec::new();let pdf_bytes:Vec<u8> = doc
.with_pages(vec![page1]).save(&PdfSaveOptions::default(),&mut warnings);}

Graphics

use printpdf::*;fnmain(){letmut doc = PdfDocument::new("My first PDF");// Square shape. `bezier: true` would make the point a bezier control// handle for a curve. If you want holes, wind one ring counterclockwise.let line = Line{points:vec![LinePoint{ p:Point::new(Mm(100.0),Mm(100.0)), bezier:false},LinePoint{ p:Point::new(Mm(100.0),Mm(200.0)), bezier:false},LinePoint{ p:Point::new(Mm(300.0),Mm(200.0)), bezier:false},LinePoint{ p:Point::new(Mm(300.0),Mm(100.0)), bezier:false},],is_closed:true,};// Triangle shapelet polygon = Polygon{rings:vec![PolygonRing{
points: vec![LinePoint{ p:Point::new(Mm(150.0),Mm(150.0)), bezier:false},LinePoint{ p:Point::new(Mm(150.0),Mm(250.0)), bezier:false},LinePoint{ p:Point::new(Mm(350.0),Mm(250.0)), bezier:false},],}],mode:PaintMode::FillStroke,winding_order:WindingOrder::NonZero,};// Graphics configlet 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 dash_pattern = LineDashPattern::new(0.0,&[20.0,10.0]);// dash, gaplet extgstate = ExtendedGraphicsState::default().with_overprint_stroke(true).with_blend_mode(BlendMode::multiply());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(210.0),Mm(297.0), page1_contents);letmut warnings = Vec::new();let pdf_bytes:Vec<u8> = doc
.with_pages(vec![page1]).save(&PdfSaveOptions::default(),&mut warnings);}

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::*;fnmain(){letmut doc = PdfDocument::new("My first PDF");let image_bytes = include_bytes!("assets/img/BMP_test.bmp");letmut warnings = Vec::new();// requires --feature bmplet image = RawImage::decode_from_bytes(image_bytes,&mut warnings).unwrap();// In the PDF, an image is an `XObject`, identified by a unique `XObjectId`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(210.0),Mm(297.0), page1_contents);let pdf_bytes:Vec<u8> = doc
.with_pages(vec![page1]).save(&PdfSaveOptions::default(),&mut warnings);}

Fonts

use printpdf::*;fnmain(){letmut doc = PdfDocument::new("My first PDF");let roboto_bytes = include_bytes!("assets/fonts/RobotoMedium.ttf");let font_index = 0;// face index inside a .ttc collection; 0 for a plain .ttf/.otfletmut font_warnings = Vec::new();let font = ParsedFont::from_bytes(roboto_bytes, font_index,&mut font_warnings).unwrap();// printpdf automatically keeps track of which fonts are used in the PDFlet font_id = doc.add_font(&font);let text_pos = Point{x:Mm(10.0).into(),y:Mm(100.0).into(),};// from bottom leftletmut warnings = Vec::new();// Text-showing ops must sit between StartTextSection and EndTextSection -// most viewers drop text outside of one (save() warns if you forget).let page1_contents = vec![Op::StartTextSection,Op::SetTextCursor{ pos: text_pos },Op::SetLineHeight{ lh:Pt(33.0)},Op::SetFont{
font:PdfFontHandle::External(font_id.clone()),
size:Pt(16.0),},Op::ShowText{
items: vec![TextItem::Text("Lorem ipsum".to_string())],},Op::AddLineBreak,Op::ShowText{
items: vec![TextItem::Text("dolor sit amet".to_string())],},Op::EndTextSection,];let save_options = PdfSaveOptions{subset_fonts:true,// auto-subset fonts on save
..Default::default()};let page1 = PdfPage::new(Mm(210.0),Mm(297.0), page1_contents);let pdf_bytes:Vec<u8> = doc
.with_pages(vec![page1]).save(&save_options,&mut warnings);}

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::*;fnmain(){// 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> "#;// named images to be used in the HTML, i.e. "image1.png" => Base64OrRaw::Raw(bytes)let images = BTreeMap::new();// named fonts to be used in the HTML, i.e. "Roboto" => Base64OrRaw::Raw(roboto_bytes)let fonts = BTreeMap::new();// page size, margins, etc. - all optional; printpdf auto-page-breakslet options = GeneratePdfOptions{page_width:Some(210.0),// mmpage_height:Some(297.0),// mm
..Default::default()};letmut warnings = Vec::new();let pdf_bytes = PdfDocument::from_html(html,&images,&fonts,&options,&mut warnings).unwrap().save(&PdfSaveOptions::default(),&mut warnings);}

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.

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!