https://github.com/ljpengelen/markdown-to-pdf

A script to convert Markdown to PDF
https://github.com/ljpengelen/markdown-to-pdf

css markdown pdf-generation python

Last synced: about 2 months ago
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A script to convert Markdown to PDF

• Host: GitHub
• URL: https://github.com/ljpengelen/markdown-to-pdf
• Owner: ljpengelen
• Created: 2018-12-01T18:33:51.000Z (almost 6 years ago)
• Default Branch: master
• Last Pushed: 2024-04-03T17:04:45.000Z (6 months ago)
• Last Synced: 2024-05-15T04:35:29.106Z (4 months ago)
• Topics: css, markdown, pdf-generation, python
• Language: Python
• Homepage: https://www.theguild.nl/good-looking-pdfs-with-css-for-paged-media-and-markdown/
• Size: 1.15 MB
• Stars: 65
• Watchers: 2
• Forks: 23
• Open Issues: 0
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: README.md

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README

        
# Markdown to PDF

This repository contains a simple script that converts Markdown and CSS into PDF documents.

The heavy lifting is done by [Python-Markdown](https://python-markdown.github.io/), a tool for generating HTML from Markdown, and [WeasyPrint](https://weasyprint.org), a tool for generating PDF documents from HTML and CSS.

With this script, [my CV in Markdown](https://github.com/ljpengelen/markdown-to-pdf/blob/master/examples/cv.md) is converted into [a PDF document](https://github.com/ljpengelen/markdown-to-pdf/blob/master/examples/cv.pdf).

## Getting Started

1. Install [pyenv](https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv), a tool for managing [Python](https://www.python.org/) versions.

1. The file `.python-version` in the root folder specifies the Python version required by the conversion script.

  Navigate to the root folder and execute `pyenv install` to install this Python version.

1. Install `cairo`, `pango`, and `gdk-pixbuf`.

  On macOS, these tools can be installed with `brew`.

1. Install [pipenv](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pipenv) by executing `pip install pipenv`.

  There's an [issue related to language and region settings](https://github.com/kennethreitz/pipenv/issues/538) that you might run into on Macs, but it's easy to resolve.

1. Create a new virtual environment with all dependencies by executing `pipenv install --dev --ignore-pipfile`.

  The flag `ignore-pipfile` is used to indicate that the exact versions of the dependencies as specified in `Pipfile.lock` should be installed.

  The flag `dev` is used to also install development dependencies.

## Activating the virtual environment

Before executing any of the commands below, you need to activate the virtual environment.

You can do so by executing `pipenv shell`.

Your command prompt should now indicate that you've activated the virtual environment.

It can be deactivated by executing `exit`.

## Generating PDFs

The `examples` folder contains a CV and a quotation.

* Execute `python md2pdf.py convert examples/cv.md examples/cv.css` to generate a PDF version of the CV.

* Execute `python md2pdf.py convert examples/quotation.md examples/quotation.css` to generate a PDF version of the quotation.

When writing or designing documents, you can use `python md2pdf.py watch .md .css`.

This will watch the given files and generate new output when they change.

Both an HTML document and a PDF document are generated.

The HTML document is generated because it's convenient to be able to play around with the CSS in a browser.

## CSS for print

If you want to design your own documents, take a look at [designing for print with CSS](https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/01/designing-for-print-with-css/) by Rachel Andrew.

## Docker

If you don't want to install Python and the rest of the tools directly, you can also run the conversion script from within a Docker container.

First, execute `docker build -t md2pdf .` to build an image.

Afterwards, execute `docker run -v $(pwd)/examples:/app/examples md2pdf python3 md2pdf.py convert examples/cv.md examples/cv.css` to generate a PDF version of the example CV.