Python HTML to PDF with full support for CSS3 and HTML5

Question

I am working on a Python/Django project, where I have to convert some of my highly styled html content to PDF. Currently I am using the wkhtmltopdf library. While the conversion works almost perfectly there are some issues regarding CSS3 and HTML5 support. Some of the styles don't convert correctly to pdf and I have to alter the CSS and HTML to make it more print friendly so I can convert to PDF correctly. Until lately I thought there is no tool that could make 100% conversion but than I found this with an online demo http://www.html-to-pdf.net/free-online-pdf-converter.aspx which has a far superior HTML5 and CSS3 support, but it is written for .NET. Is there anything with this level of conversion with Python support?

Note: I will have lots of HTML pages that will need conversion and tweaking the CSS for each one is not a good option for me. I would need something that could make a 100% conversion regarding the styling from HTML to PDF.

Bedivere

Were you able to find some solution? – Saleh

It is 2017 now , does the libs you used be 100% ? – Mcmath

Hey, It is 2019 now, did you find any python library, that supports full css3 and html5 . – Igal

@Ales Malticic do think my answer will help other with your question? – Jiminez

Its 2021, any lucky with a good lib – Villalobos

Its 2024, whats the best bet to convert an HTML file to PDF ? – Archivist

Answer 1

You should check weasyprint, It supports most of the CSS3 and HTML5, at the moment it doesn't support flex-wrap: wrap propierties as far as I know.

I used xhtml2pdf with Reportlab it supports some CSS3 (supports HTML5 CSS 2.1). I don't recommend it when you have a better and simple tool like weasyprint.

Simple Django Tutorial with weasyprint

Jiminez

Answer 2

If you or someone else is still looking for some solutions, check out this: Render HTML to PDF in Django site

also https://github.com/chrisglass/xhtml2pdf or https://github.com/JazzCore/python-pdfkit

I hope this will help most of you.

Audrit

I you read my question is that I already have a solution which works 97% for css3 properties, but I have found some other solution that works 100% for css3 (unfortunately not for python) and as far as I know there is no python lib that would accomplish that. – Bedivere

Your question was if there is something for python. And yes there is something in python which also include html5 and css3 when porting html to pdf. – Audrit

please read my question again carefully. I said that I already use a Python solution that supports html5 and css3(wkhtmltopdf) but that support is not 100%. There are tons of questions on here for simple conversion. All your solutions either use the same lib or have the same flaws, and none of them can 100% transform a css3 based html page to a pdf without noticeable differences. – Bedivere