Basic Usage

Short

• There are actually two modules: autoplot and autorpt
• The principle usage is shown in the tests and the example

Reportlab-Suite

To work with the reportlab-toolbox you should import the following:

from autobasedoc import autorpt as ar

A usual working example for creating just a simple (empty) pdf file with a title-page and a table of contents would be:

import os
outname = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "MinimalExample.pdf")
doc = ar.AutoDocTemplate(outname,onFirstPage=ar.onFirstPage,onLaterPages=ar.onLaterPages,onLaterSPages=ar.onLaterPages,
                        leftMargin=0.5*ar.cm, rightMargin=0.5*ar.cm, topMargin=0.5*ar.cm, bottomMargin=0.5*ar.cm)

#  you always work with your styles object
styles = ar.Styles()
styles.registerStyles()

#  the container for the contents, also commonly called the story (contains reportlab flowables)
content = []
#add title
para = ar.Paragraph(u"Minimal Example Title", styles.title)
content.append(para)
content.append(ar.PageBreak())

#  create table of contents. Override the level styles (optional)
toc = ar.doTabelOfContents()
content.append(ar.Paragraph(u"Table Of Contents", styles.h1))
content.append(toc)

#  always call multi build at the end
doc.multiBuild(content)

ttf-Fonts

To work with ttf-fonts and have the same font inside your matplotlib images and reportlab.platypus you have to use the following code block:

import os  #  if you haven't, yet.
# we assume you have a fonts path
# (if you haven't you can use the calibri font we added to the module) ar.__font_dir__
# the ap (autoplot) module provides helpful stuff for combining reportlab with matplotlib
from autobasedoc import ap

#  here should be your path to the fonts (you can also use system fonts)

ar.setTtfFonts(
    'Calibri',
    os.path.realpath(ar.__font_dir__),
    normal=('Calibri', 'calibri.ttf'),
    bold=('CalibriBd', 'calibrib.ttf'),
    italic=('CalibriIt', 'calibrii.ttf'),
    bold_italic=('CalibriBdIt', 'calibriz.ttf'))

But you also want to have your fonts in sync with matplotlib, that’s why you additionally have to:

fpath = os.path.join(ar.__font_dir__, 'calibri.ttf')
font = ap.ft2font.FT2Font(fpath)
ap.fontprop = ap.ttfFontProperty(font)

fontprop = ap.fm.FontProperties(
    family='sans-serif',
    fname=ap.fontprop.fname,
    size=None,
    stretch=ap.fontprop.stretch,
    style=ap.fontprop.style,
    variant=ap.fontprop.variant,
    weight=ap.fontprop.weight)

fontsize = 10
ap.matplotlib.rcParams.update({
    'font.size': fontsize,
    'font.family': 'sans-serif'
    })

You might then additionally wan’t to use the same colors, that reportlab uses:

from cycler import cycler

plotColorDict = dict(
    royalblue='#4169E1',
    tomato='#FF6347',
    gold='#FFD700',
    mediumturquoise='#48D1CC',
    mediumorchid='#BA55D3',
    yellowgreen='#9ACD32',
    burlywood='#DEB887',
    darkslategray='#2F4F4F',
    orange='#FFA500',
    silver='#C0C0C0')

plotColorNames = list(plotColorDict.keys())
plotColors = list(plotColorDict.values())

ap.plt.rc('axes', prop_cycle=(cycler('color', plotColors)))