[Python] can't find a way to display and print pdf through python.

Use Report Lab...
Cheers,
Vishal

-----Original Message-----
From: python-list-bounces+vishal=veriwave.com at python.org
[mailto:python-list-bounces+vishal=veriwave.com at python.org] On Behalf Of
krishnakant Mane
Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2007 10:46 PM
To: python-list at python.org
Subject: can't find a way to display and print pdf through python.

hello all,
I am stuck with a strange requirement.
I need a library that can help me display a pdf file as a report and
also want a way to print the same pdf file in a platform independent
way.
if that's not possible then I at least need the code for useing some
library for connecting to acrobat reader and giving the print command
on windows and some thing similar on ubuntu linux.
the problem is that I want to display reports in my application. the
user should be able to view the formatted report on screen and at his
choice click the print button on the screen to send it to the printer.
I have reportlab installed and that is sufficient to generate pdf reports.
but I still can't fine the way to display it directly and print it directly.
Please help me.
Krishnakant.

I mentioned in my first email that I am already using reportlab.
but I can only generate pdf out of that.
I want to display it on screen and I also will be giving a print
button which should do the printing job.
by the way I use wxpython for gui.
Krishnakant.

Are you trying to do real time or post real time.
-Vishal

-----Original Message-----
From: krishnakant Mane [mailto:researchbase at gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2007 10:50 PM
To: Vishal Bhargava
Cc: python-list at python.org
Subject: Re: can't find a way to display and print pdf through python.
I mentioned in my first email that I am already using reportlab.
but I can only generate pdf out of that.
I want to display it on screen and I also will be giving a print
button which should do the printing job.
by the way I use wxpython for gui.
Krishnakant.

post real time.
I want to first display the report on screen by default and the user
at his choice will click the print button and the report will be
printed.
regards.
Krishnakant.

krishnakant Mane wrote in message
news:mailman.3852.1171176596.32031.python-list at python.org...
Under Windows you could do it by embedding Adobe's
ActiveX control in your application. Don't know
about Linux, though. Perhaps you could just convert
your PDF to a raster image for display (eg. by
using ImageMagick's convert) under Linux?

Regards,
Christian

Are you trying to:
a) Make the PDF file open in it's default application?
b) Create a PDF-reader in Python?

...because your question is somewhat unclear. Report Lab has no PDF viewer.
You would need a PDF/PostScript parser to do that and that's more of a job
than I think you're looking for.

well yes,
I need to view reports on line and also print them from within my app.
so yes I need to display the pdf in my app and print it as well.
regards.
Krishnakant

From http Sun Feb 11 18:43:53 2007
From: http (Paul Rubin)
Date: 11 Feb 2007 09:43:53 -0800
Subject: randomly generate n of each of two types
References: <KdIzh.10199$Yn4.6813@trnddc03>
Message-ID: <7x64a8vbc6.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com>

"Alan Isaac" <aisaac at american.edu> writes:
You mean you basically want to generate 2*n bools of which exactly
half are True and half are False? Hmm (untested):

from random import random
def random_types(n):
total = 2*n
trues_needed = n
for i in xrange(total):
if random() < float(trues_needed) / float(total):
trues_needed -= 1
yield True
else:
yield False
total -= 1

Just let the registered .PDF viewer do it for you.

os.start('myfile.pdf')

Launches whatever is registered as .PDF viewer and user
can then print, save, zoom, etc. on their own.

-Larry

Eh? I don't see os.start() it either 2.5 or 2.44
documentation, and it's sure not there in 2.4.3:

$ python
Python 2.4.3 (#1, Dec 10 2006, 22:09:09)
[GCC 3.4.6 (Gentoo 3.4.6-r1, ssp-3.4.5-1.0, pie-8.7.9)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more
information.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'start'

I did find os.startfile() in the docs, but it's shown as
windows-only (it's not present under Linux).
Really?

My bad. os.system()

-Larry

That doesn't work either:

$ ls -l user.pdf
-rw------- 1 grante users 35640 2005-11-21 14:33 user.pdf

$ python
Python 2.4.3 (#1, Dec 10 2006, 22:09:09)
[GCC 3.4.6 (Gentoo 3.4.6-r1, ssp-3.4.5-1.0, pie-8.7.9)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more
information.
sh: user.pdf: command not found
32512
>>>

Works fine on my system. You linux guys just have it hard.
The op said "windows". I can't answer for ubuntu linux but
maybe you can help there?

-Larry

I don't see how. Pdf files just aren't executable.

On Windows, this (where fileName is xyz.PDF, for example):
webbrowser.open(r'file://' + fileName)
starts Acrobat Reader with the document read in. I have no idea why,
because Acrobat Reader sure ain't my browser;)

Maybe someone could try this out on Linux.

Cheers,
Jussi

Works on Ubuntu -- this opens a tab in my browser and then launches
Document Viewer to view the PDF.

peter at astro:~$ python
Python 2.4.4c1 (#2, Oct 11 2006, 21:51:02)
[GCC 4.1.2 20060928 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.1-13ubuntu5)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

I'm using Suse Linux which has five program that
will open a pdf file from a shell command line.
Acrobat Reader is one of the five.

A right button click on the file should give a
list of programs that will open a PDF file.

Im using a KDE desktop
Open a shell, add the path to the directory where
the PDF file lives, and on the command line type;

xpdf myfile.pdf ## may also work on a Gnome
## Desktop
or any of these for the KDE desktop;

kpdf myfile.pdf
Kghostview myfile.pdf
konqueror myfile.pdf ## my browser + myfile.

Acrobat Reader is also listed on my system. It
open files as adobe reader using the mouse to
open a pdf file but not from the command line
with an arg, and I haven't spent the time to
figgure out why.


You will have to import os and some combination of
any of the exec.. args, or the popen, spawn, or
system modules.

os.execvep() ## or others like execl, execle ....
os.spawnv(),
os.spawnve(),
os.popen()

hope this give some direction.

jim-on-linux







On Tuesday 13 February 2007 03:44, Jussi Salmela
wrote:
wrote:
wrote:
wrote:

I can read PDFs with the browser if I open them in there.

But as I was trying to tell the line above starts the Acrobat Reader EXE
in its own window. The mechanism is probably caused by something I must
have done/installed, but I don't know what.

Anyway: it works just as I want although this may not be the general
behaviour.

(OS: Win XP SP2, Python 2.4.3)


Cheers,
Jussi

For those who care,
the file below should run on a unix/ linux style
system. And "xpdf", amoung others, will run a pdf
file.


import os
def Printpdf():
os.system( 'xpdf form.pdf' )

if __name__ == '__main__' :
Printpdf()

jim-on-linux


following in comp.lang.python:

os.start does not work.. attribute error.
regards.
Krishnakant.

It's os.system('thefile') or os.system('start thefile') but
that's windows only. It seems like there's no
platform-independent way to launch a preferred application to open
a file, but...

based on <http://cweiske.de/howto/launch/allinone.html>
I would suggest (by looking at sys.platform) to use "start" on
windows, "open" on mac, and on linux to use the xdg-open shell
script which is part of XdgUtils...
<http://portland.freedesktop.org/wiki/>

It works standalone. Even seems it would not take too much
effort to port it to python if you want.

os.startfile('pathToTheFile') should work. Under Library Reference- >
os -> Process Management

I think the best way to handle this under a unix like system is by using
the mailcap module, something like the following:

import mailcap
import os

mc = mailcap.getcaps()
cmd = mailcap.findmatch(mc, 'image/pdf' , filename='/tmp/dummy')[0]
os.system(cmd)