Creating PDFs from HTML/Javascript in Python with no OS dependencies

Question

Is there any way to use Python to create PDF documents from HTML/CSS/Javascript, without introducing any OS-level dependencies?

It seems every existing solution requires special supplemental software, but upon reviewing PDF formatting specifications and HTML/CSS/Javascript rendering, there doesn't appear to be a reason why a Python solution can't exist without them. Some solutions come close, such as pyppeteer, but it still leans on a headless Chrome installation locally. These dependencies mean that microservices can't be leveraged, even though PDF generation would otherwise seem to be a viable use case for them.

While similar questions have come up many times over on SO, there doesn't appear to have been a viable technique shown without having to install specialized dependencies on the OS.

Some similar questions which routinely recommend wkhtmltopdf or are otherwise out of date (e.g., moving PDF printing support outside of Chrome is dead now):

• How to convert webpage into PDF by using Python
• How to convert a local HTML file to PDF using Python in Windows
• HTML to PDF conversion using Chrome pdfium
• How does Chrome render PDFs from HTML so well?
• Convert a HTML/CSS/Javascript file to PDF using Python?

If I've somehow missed a viable approach, please feel free to mark this as a duplicate with my thanks!

Edit February 2021: It appears that the cefpython project may meet these demands - PDF printing support seems like it could be implemented in the near future.

Answer 1

Try this library: xhtml2pdf

It worked for me. Here is the documentation: doc

Some sample code:

from xhtml2pdf import pisa             

def convert_html_to_pdf(source_html, output_filename):
    # open output file for writing (truncated binary)
    result_file = open(output_filename, "w+b")

    # convert HTML to PDF
    pisa_status = pisa.CreatePDF(
            source_html,                # the HTML to convert
            dest=result_file)           # file handle to recieve result

    # close output file
    result_file.close()                 # close output file

    # return False on success and True on errors
    return pisa_status.err

# Define your data
source_html = open('2020-06.html')
output_filename = "test.pdf"
convert_html_to_pdf(source_html, output_filename)