PDF with ReportLab

"""

Simple web2py controller to generate PDF documents with ReportLab.

Author: H.C. v. Stockhausen <hc at vst.io>

Date: 2012-10-14

Also see http://www.reportlab.com

"""

import cStringIO

from reportlab.platypus.doctemplate import SimpleDocTemplate

from reportlab.platypus import Paragraph, Spacer

from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet

from reportlab.lib.units import inch

def generate():

"""

To display the generated PDF in your browser go to:

http://.../<app>/<controller>/generate

To download it as hello.pdf, for example, instead, use:

http://.../<app>/<controller>/generate/hello.pdf

"""

styles = getSampleStyleSheet()

story = [

Paragraph("Hello World", styles['Heading1']),

Paragraph("The quick brown fox", styles['Normal']),

Spacer(1, 0.25*inch),

Paragraph("jumps over the lazy dog.", styles['Normal'])]

buffer = cStringIO.StringIO()

doc = SimpleDocTemplate(buffer)

doc.build(story)

pdf = buffer.getvalue()

buffer.close()

filename = request.args(0)

if filename:

header = {'Content-Disposition': 'attachment; filename=' + filename}

else:

header = {'Content-Type': 'application/pdf'}

response.headers.update(header)

return pdf