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What is a good method for converting an HTML string file to PDF? I am trying to create a simple tool that creates a PDF report using some user inputs and an HTML template. I want to distribute this tool so that other coworkers can use it.

Right now I am trying to use pdfkit and wkhtmltopdf. The issue is that I can only get this code to work when I specify the path to the wkhtmltopdf.exe file. When I package the code using PyInstaller, other users will not be able to use the program because they do not have the HTML template file or a path to wkhtmltopdf. Any ideas on how to resolve this or are there any alternative python packages/methods that I should use?

Andrew Gentile
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If you want to package the HTML template in your module and you are using setuptools you can include any other files with a couple of changes:

  1. Create a file called MANIFEST.in in your base directory of the module
  2. Add all of the files you want to include like this: include <path/to/file/in/module>
  3. In setup.py add include_package_data=True to setup()

Making those changes should allow your module to include your template and allow the other modules to convert it to a PDF.

If you are having pathing problems within the module, make sure that you are using absolute paths to reference other files. I would suggest using the builtin os module to build a path which works for any user. For example: os.path.abspath("path/to/my/file")

john_mwood
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  • Thanks, it looks like this is the correct way forward. Follow up question, do you know how to add system environment variables when packaging a Python module? Would os.environ be able to accomplish this? – Andrew Gentile Nov 01 '18 at 20:15