Have you wanted to generate advanced reports as PDFs using Python? Maybe you want to build documents with tables, images, or fillable forms. This week on the show we have Mike Driscoll to talk about his book “ReportLab - PDF Processing with Python.”

Mike is an author of multiple books about Python, and has recently re-written his Python 101 book. He is also a member of the Real Python team and has written several articles for the site. Along with our discussion about ReportLab and PDFs, Mike talks about being a self-published author. We also talk briefly about his favorite Python GUI framework.

Course Spotlight: How to Work With a PDF in Python

In this step-by-step course, you’ll learn how to work with a PDF in Python. You’ll see how to extract metadata from preexisting PDFs. You’ll also learn how to merge, split, watermark, and rotate pages in PDFs using Python and PyPDF2.

Topics:

00:00:00 – Introduction
00:01:23 – Python 101 book revisions/rewrite
00:04:48 – Python 201 book
00:05:47 – What Python GUI framework do you prefer?
00:12:46 – MouseVsPython YouTube channel
00:14:34 – Why write a ReportLab book?
00:16:11 – Kickstarter and self-publishing books
00:21:38 – Reader feedback about the book
00:22:35 – What other PDF tools are covered in the book?
00:23:48 – Differences with ReportLab Plus
00:25:00 – Flowables and PLATYPUS
00:28:56 – Video Course Spotlight
00:29:49 – What types of projects have you used ReportLab for?
00:35:50 – Creating PDF forms with ReportLab
00:40:21 – LaTeX comparison with ReportLab
00:41:40 – PDFMiner text extraction
00:43:17 – PyFPDF Library for PDF document creation
00:45:28 – Camelot: PDF Table Extraction for Humans
00:47:17 – Working with passwords and encryption - PyPDF2
00:47:56 – What are you excited about in the world of Python?
00:48:47 – Learning OpenCV
00:49:38 – What do you want to learn next in Python?
00:50:20 – Suggestions for Python libraries to read
00:52:11 – Thanks and Goodbye

Show links:

Level up your Python skills with our expert-led courses:

Support the podcast & join our community of Pythonistas

Weekly Scrap #193 - Todd Edwards, Sizing Up Fire and Life