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https://github.com/prawnpdf/prawn

Fast, Nimble PDF Writer for Ruby
https://github.com/prawnpdf/prawn

pdf pdf-generator prawn ruby

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Fast, Nimble PDF Writer for Ruby

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# Prawn: Fast, Nimble PDF Generation For Ruby



[![Gem Version](https://badge.fury.io/rb/prawn.svg)](http://badge.fury.io/rb/prawn)

[![Build Status](https://github.com/prawnpdf/prawn/workflows/CI/badge.svg)](https://github.com/prawnpdf/prawn/actions?query=branch%3Amaster)

[![Code Climate](https://codeclimate.com/github/prawnpdf/prawn/badges/gpa.svg)](https://codeclimate.com/github/prawnpdf/prawn)

![Maintained: yes](https://img.shields.io/badge/maintained-yes-brightgreen.svg)



Prawn is a pure Ruby PDF generation library that provides a lot of great

functionality while trying to remain simple and reasonably performant. Here are

some of the important features we provide:



* Vector drawing support, including lines, polygons, curves, ellipses, etc.

* Extensive text rendering support, including flowing text and limited inline

  formatting options.

* Support for both PDF builtin fonts as well as embedded TrueType fonts

* A variety of low level tools for basic layout needs, including a simple grid

  system

* PNG and JPG image embedding, with flexible scaling options

* Security features including encryption and password protection

* Tools for rendering repeatable content (i.e headers, footers, and page

  numbers)

* Comprehensive internationalization features, including full support for UTF-8

  based fonts, right-to-left text rendering, fallback font support, and extension

  points for customizable text wrapping.

* Support for PDF outlines for document navigation

* Low level PDF features, allowing users to create custom extensions by dropping

  down all the way to the PDF object tree layer. (Mostly useful to those with

  knowledge of the PDF specification)

* Lots of other stuff!



## Should You Use Prawn?



If you are looking for a highly flexible PDF document generation system, Prawn

might be the tool for you. It is not a reporting tool or a publishing toolchain,

though it could be fairly easily used to build those things.



One thing Prawn is not, and will never be, is an HTML to PDF generator. For

those needs, consider looking into FlyingSaucer via JRuby, or one of the WebKit

based tools, like Wicked or PDFKit. We do have basic support for inline styling

but it is limited to a very small subset of functionality and is not suitable

for rendering rich HTML documents.



## Supported Ruby Versions and Implementations



Because Prawn is pure Ruby and all of its runtime dependencies are maintained by

us, it should work pretty much anywhere. We officially support all Ruby versions

suported by Ruby Core Team and JRuby versions of matching Ruby version. However

we will accept patches to fix problems on other Ruby platforms if they aren't

too invasive.



## Installing Prawn



Prawn is distributed via RubyGems, and can be installed the usual way that you

install gems: by simply typing `gem install prawn` on the command line.



You can also install from git if you'd like, the _master_ branch contains the

latest developments. We're trying to keep `master` branch in working order but

you may encounter some rough edges and fresh bugs along with bugfixes. We

encourage you to try `master` branch with your application.



## Hello World!



If the following code runs and produces a working PDF file, you've successfully

installed Prawn.



```ruby

require "prawn"



Prawn::Document.generate("hello.pdf") do

  text "Hello World!"

end

```



Of course, you'll probably want to do more interesting things than that...



## Manual



The manual is a series of examples that demonstrate use of the wide range of

features Prawn provides. You can get a generated version of the latest released

Prawn version on the [Prawn website](https://prawnpdf.org/). The examples

themselves can be found in the `manual` directory in this repository.



Please note that while the manual is a great introduction and guide to Prawn

it's not exhaustive. Please refer to API docs for more complete information on

what Prawn provides and how to use it.



To build the manual, here's what you need to do:



1. Clone the repository

3. Run `gem install -g`

4. Run `rake manual`, which will generate _manual.pdf_ in the project root



## Release Policies



We're trying to not break things unnecessarily but we don't formally follow

Semantic Versioning. The reason is that we release a number of experimental

APIs. We don't make any promises on their stability. You can assume the stable

portion of the API follows Semantic Versioning.



Also note that bug fixes can change behaviour. We don't consider that to be

a breaking change for the purposes of versioning. Please test your applications

after updating Prawn.



Be sure to read the release notes in

[CHANGELOG.md](https://github.com/prawnpdf/prawn/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md) each

time we cut a new release, and lock your gems accordingly.



## Support



The easiest way to get help with Prawn is to post a message to our

[Discussions](https://github.com/orgs/prawnpdf/discussions).



Feel free to post any Prawn related question there, our community is very

responsive and will be happy to help you figure out how to use Prawn, or help

you determine whether it's the right tool for the task you are working on.



Please make your posts as specific as possible, including code samples and

output where relevant. Do not post any information that should not be shared

publicly, and be sure to reduce your example code as much as possible so that

those who are responding to your question can more easily see what the issue

might be.



## Code of Conduct



Prawn adheres to the [Contributor Covenant](CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md). Unacceptable

behavior can be reported to [email protected] which is monitored by the core

team.



## Contributing



If you've found a bug or want to submit a patch, please enter a ticket into our

[GitHub tracker](http://github.com/prawnpdf/prawn/issues).



We strongly encourage bug reports to come with failing tests or at least a

reduced example that demonstrates the problem. Similarly, patches should include

tests, API documentation, and an update to the manual where relevant. Feel free

to send a pull request early though, if you just want some feedback or a code

review before preparing your code to be merged.



If you are unsure about whether or not you've found a bug, or want to check to

see whether we'd be interested in the feature you want to add before you start

working on it, feel free to post to our mailing list.



You can run our test suite in a few different ways:



1. Running `rake` will run the entire test suite excluding any unresolved issues

2. Running `rspec` will run the entire test suite including unresolved issues

3. Running `rspec -t unresolved` will run *only* unresolved issues

4. Running `rspec -t issue:NUMBER` will run the tests for a specific issue



These filters make it possible for us to add failing test cases for bugs that

are currently being researched or worked on, without breaking the typical full

suite run.



## Maintenance team



Prawn has always been heavily dependent on community contributions, with dozens

of people contributing code over the years. In that sense, the lines have

blurred to the point where we no longer have a strong distinction between core

developers and contributors.



That said, there are a few folks who have been responsible for cutting releases,

merging important pull requests, and making major decisions about the overall

direction of the project.



### Current maintainers



These are the folks to contact if you have a maintenance-related issue with

Prawn:



* Alexander Mankuta ([PointlessOne](https://github.com/PointlessOne))



### Inactive maintainers



These folks have helped out in a maintenance role in the past, but are no longer

actively involved in the project:



* Gregory Brown ([practicingruby](https://github.com/practicingruby))

* Brad Ediger ([bradediger](https://github.com/bradediger))

* James Healy ([yob](https://github.com/yob))

* Daniel Nelson ([Bluejade](https://github.com/Bluejade))

* Jonathan Greenberg ([jonsgreen](https://github.com/jonsgreen))

* Jamis Buck ([jamis](https://github.com/jamis))

* Evan Sharp ([PacketMonkey](https://github.com/PacketMonkey))



## License



Prawn is released under a slightly modified form of the License of Ruby,

allowing you to choose between Matz's terms, the GPLv2, or GPLv3. For details,

please see the LICENSE, GPLv2, and GPLv3 files.



If you contribute to Prawn, you will retain your own copyright but must agree to

license your code under the same terms as the project itself.



## History



Prawn was originally developed by [Gregory

Brown](https://practicingdeveloper.com/), under the auspices of the Ruby

Mendicant Project, a grassroots initiative in which the Ruby community

collectively provided funding so that Gregory could take several months off from

work to focus on this project.



Over the last several years, we've received code contributions from dozens of

people, which is amazing considering the low-level nature of this project. You

can find the full list of folks who have at least one patch accepted to Prawn on

GitHub [Contributors](https://github.com/prawnpdf/prawn/contributors) page.



After a long period of inactivity, Prawn reached its 1.0 milestone in 2014

thanks to some modest funding provided to Gregory by Madriska, Inc. (Brad

Ediger's company).