Add text to Existing PDF using Python
PythonPdfPython Problem Overview
I need to add some extra text to an existing PDF using Python, what is the best way to go about this and what extra modules will I need to install.
Note: Ideally I would like to be able to run this on both Windows and Linux, but at a push Linux only will do.
Edit: pyPDF and ReportLab look good but neither one will allow me to edit an existing PDF, are there any other options?
Python Solutions
Solution 1 - Python
from pyPdf import PdfFileWriter, PdfFileReader
import StringIO
from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas
from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter
packet = StringIO.StringIO()
can = canvas.Canvas(packet, pagesize=letter)
can.drawString(10, 100, "Hello world")
can.save()
#move to the beginning of the StringIO buffer
packet.seek(0)
# create a new PDF with Reportlab
new_pdf = PdfFileReader(packet)
# read your existing PDF
existing_pdf = PdfFileReader(file("original.pdf", "rb"))
output = PdfFileWriter()
# add the "watermark" (which is the new pdf) on the existing page
page = existing_pdf.getPage(0)
page.mergePage(new_pdf.getPage(0))
output.addPage(page)
# finally, write "output" to a real file
outputStream = file("destination.pdf", "wb")
output.write(outputStream)
outputStream.close()
Example for Python 3.x:
from PyPDF2 import PdfFileWriter, PdfFileReader
import io
from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas
from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter
packet = io.BytesIO()
can = canvas.Canvas(packet, pagesize=letter)
can.drawString(10, 100, "Hello world")
can.save()
#move to the beginning of the StringIO buffer
packet.seek(0)
# create a new PDF with Reportlab
new_pdf = PdfFileReader(packet)
# read your existing PDF
existing_pdf = PdfFileReader(open("original.pdf", "rb"))
output = PdfFileWriter()
# add the "watermark" (which is the new pdf) on the existing page
page = existing_pdf.getPage(0)
page.mergePage(new_pdf.getPage(0))
output.addPage(page)
# finally, write "output" to a real file
outputStream = open("destination.pdf", "wb")
output.write(outputStream)
outputStream.close()
Solution 2 - Python
I know this is an older post, but I spent a long time trying to find a solution. I came across a decent one using only ReportLab and PyPDF so I thought I'd share:
- read your PDF using
PdfFileReader()
, we'll call this input - create a new pdf containing your text to add using ReportLab, save this as a string object
- read the string object using
PdfFileReader()
, we'll call this text - create a new PDF object using
PdfFileWriter()
, we'll call this output - iterate through input and apply
.mergePage(*text*.getPage(0))
for each page you want the text added to, then useoutput.addPage()
to add the modified pages to a new document
This works well for simple text additions. See PyPDF's sample for watermarking a document.
Here is some code to answer the question below:
packet = StringIO.StringIO()
can = canvas.Canvas(packet, pagesize=letter)
<do something with canvas>
can.save()
packet.seek(0)
input = PdfFileReader(packet)
From here you can merge the pages of the input file with another document.
Solution 3 - Python
pdfrw will let you read in pages from an existing PDF and draw them to a reportlab canvas (similar to drawing an image). There are examples for this in the pdfrw examples/rl1 subdirectory on github. Disclaimer: I am the pdfrw author.
Solution 4 - Python
cpdf will do the job from the command-line. It isn't python, though (afaik):
cpdf -add-text "Line of text" input.pdf -o output .pdf
Solution 5 - Python
Leveraging David Dehghan's [answer][2] above, the following works in Python 2.7.13:
from PyPDF2 import PdfFileWriter, PdfFileReader, PdfFileMerger
import StringIO
from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas
from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter
packet = StringIO.StringIO()
# create a new PDF with Reportlab
can = canvas.Canvas(packet, pagesize=letter)
can.drawString(290, 720, "Hello world")
can.save()
#move to the beginning of the StringIO buffer
packet.seek(0)
new_pdf = PdfFileReader(packet)
# read your existing PDF
existing_pdf = PdfFileReader("original.pdf")
output = PdfFileWriter()
# add the "watermark" (which is the new pdf) on the existing page
page = existing_pdf.getPage(0)
page.mergePage(new_pdf.getPage(0))
output.addPage(page)
# finally, write "output" to a real file
outputStream = open("destination.pdf", "wb")
output.write(outputStream)
outputStream.close()
[2]: https://stackoverflow.com/a/17538003/1432614 "answer"
Solution 6 - Python
Don't use mergePage, It may not work for some pdfs You should use mergeRotatedTranslatedPage
from PyPDF2 import PdfFileWriter, PdfFileReader
import io
from reportlab.pdfgen.canvas import Canvas
page_to_merge = 0 #Refers to the First page of PDF
xcoor = 250 #To be changed according to your pdf
ycoor = 650 #To be changed according to your pdf
input_pdf = PdfFileReader(open("Source.pdf", "rb"))
page_count = input_pdf.getNumPages()
inputpdf_page_to_be_merged = input_pdf.getPage(page_to_merge)
packet = io.BytesIO()
c = Canvas(packet,pagesize=(inputpdf_page_to_be_merged.mediaBox.getWidth(),inputpdf_page_to_be_merged.mediaBox.getHeight()))
c.drawString(xcoor,ycoor,"Hello World")
c.save()
packet.seek(0)
overlay_pdf = PdfFileReader(packet)
overlay = overlay_pdf.getPage(0)
output = PdfFileWriter()
for PAGE in range(page_count):
if PAGE == page_to_merge:
inputpdf_page_to_be_merged.mergeRotatedTranslatedPage(overlay,
inputpdf_page_to_be_merged.get('/Rotate') or 0,
overlay.mediaBox.getWidth()/2, overlay.mediaBox.getWidth()/2)
output.addPage(inputpdf_page_to_be_merged)
else:
Page_in_pdf = input_pdf.getPage(PAGE)
output.addPage(Page_in_pdf)
outputStream = open("destination.pdf", "wb")
output.write(outputStream)
outputStream.close()
Solution 7 - Python
If you're on Windows, this might work:
There's also a whitepaper of a PDF creation and editing framework in Python. It's a little dated, but maybe can give you some useful info:
Solution 8 - Python
You may have better luck breaking the problem down into converting PDF into an editable format, writing your changes, then converting it back into PDF. I don't know of a library that lets you directly edit PDF but there are plenty of converters between DOC and PDF for example.