PDF Creation and Design Manual

Overview

This skill helps you create and manipulate PDF documents using Python and command-line tools. Use it to generate reports, fill forms, or customize layouts.

Creating PDFs with ReportLab

Basic Example

from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import A4 from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas

c = canvas.Canvas("hello.pdf", pagesize=A4) width, height = A4

Draw text

c.setFont("Helvetica-Bold", 16) c.drawString(50, height - 50, "Hello, PDF!")

Draw rectangle

c.rect(50, height - 100, 200, 50, stroke=1, fill=0)

Save

c.save()

Multipage Report

from reportlab.platypus import SimpleDocTemplate, Paragraph, Spacer, PageBreak from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet

doc = SimpleDocTemplate("report.pdf") styles = getSampleStyleSheet() story = []

story.append(Paragraph("Report Title", styles['Title'])) story.append(Spacer(1, 12)) story.append(Paragraph("This is the report body.", styles['Normal'])) story.append(PageBreak()) story.append(Paragraph("Page 2", styles['Heading1'])) doc.build(story)

Filling PDF Forms with PyPDF

from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter

reader = PdfReader("form.pdf") writer = PdfWriter()

for page in reader.pages: writer.add_page(page)

Update form fields

writer.update_page_form_field_values(writer.pages[0], { "name_field": "John Doe", "date_field": "2025-10-18" })

with open("filled_form.pdf", "wb") as f_out: writer.write(f_out)

Merging and Splitting PDFs

from pypdf import PdfMerger, PdfReader, PdfWriter

Merge

merger = PdfMerger() for pdf_file in ["file1.pdf", "file2.pdf"]: merger.append(pdf_file) merger.write("merged.pdf") merger.close()

Split first 5 pages

reader = PdfReader("big.pdf") for i, page in enumerate(reader.pages[:5]): writer = PdfWriter() writer.add_page(page) with open(f"page{i+1}.pdf", "wb") as out: writer.write(out)

Design Tips

• Use consistent margins and spacing.

• Choose a readable font (e.g., Helvetica or Times New Roman).

• Use headers and footers for pagination and context.

• Incorporate your brand colors and logo.

• For long documents, include a table of contents with hyperlinks.

Command-Line Tools

• pdftotext – Extract text: pdftotext -layout input.pdf output.txt .

• qpdf – Merge/split: qpdf input.pdf --pages . 1-5 -- output.pdf .

• pdfinfo – View metadata.

Additional Resources

• ReportLab User Guide.

• PyPDF documentation.

• Poppler utils man pages.