pythonfilepyfpdf

Writing and formatting the content of a text file to a PDF file


I want to create PDF file and write text that I read from file. The text in the file looks like:

Hello World. This is test text.
ASDFASDFAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Hello World. This is test text.
ASDFASDFAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Hello World. This is test text.
ASDFASDFAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I created PDF with FPDF library. The code:

pdf = FPDF()

pdf.add_page()
pdf.set_font('Arial', 'B', 14)
pdf.text(0, 0 , text)

pdf.output(fileNameBase + ".pdf", "F")

The issue is the text is rendered in one line. So the text is not fully shown. I want to write text with the same format in text file. How can I create PDF file with the same format in the text file?


Solution

  • Use multi_cell() method instead of text() method.
    multi_cell or cell are directly recommended by the text() method documentation:

    From text() method documentation:
    text() method prints a character string. The origin is on the left of the first character, on the baseline. This method allows placing a string precisely on the page, but it is usually easier to use cell, multi_cell or write, which are the standard methods to print text.

    To test your program I have created a text file called file.txt which contains your example text:

    Hello World. This is test text.
    ASDFASDFAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
    Hello World. This is test text.
    ASDFASDFAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
    Hello World. This is test text.
    ASDFASDFAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
    

    Changing your code to use multi_cell() and read the text message to write to the PDF file, from the text file file.txt, your program becomes:

    from fpdf import FPDF
    import webbrowser
    
    fileNameBase = "question_so"
    
    '''+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
    Reads and returns the text contained into the file.txt 
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++'''
    def get_file_content():
        text = ""
        with open('file.txt') as f:
            for line in f:
                text += line
        return text
    
    def main():
    
        pdf = FPDF()
    
        pdf.add_page()
        pdf.set_font('Arial', 'B', 14)
        # I have commented your call to text() method
        #pdf.text(0, 0 , text)
        # read the content of the file
        text = get_file_content()
        pdf.multi_cell(w=210, h=6, txt=text, border=0, align='L', fill=False)
    
        pdf.output(fileNameBase + ".pdf", "F")
        webbrowser.open_new('question_so.pdf')
    
    main()
    

    By the execution of the function main() I get a PDF file called question_so.pdf with the content showed by the following image:

    the PDF content