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Stokry
Stokry

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Edit PDF files with Python

I like to test Python in different situations, it just makes my life easier in many situations. Python allows me to automate things that are normally repeated and boring, so I can focus on important aspects of my job. Today I will show you how can you edit PDF files with python.

In this example I will be using ReportLab.
The ReportLab Toolkit. An Open Source Python library for generating PDFs and graphics.

This is our original pdf:
enter image description here

Let's jump to the code!

First we need to import dependencies



from PyPDF2 import PdfFileWriter, PdfFileReader
import io
from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas
from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter


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First we will create a new PDF with Reportlab, in this part we will also define our font color and the font size:



packet = io.BytesIO()
can = canvas.Canvas(packet, pagesize=letter)
can.setFillColorRGB(1, 0, 0)
can.setFont("Times-Roman", 14)
can.drawString(72, 655, "Hello from Python")
can.save()


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Then we move to the beginning of the StringIO buffer:



packet.seek(0)
new_pdf = PdfFileReader(packet)


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read your existing PDF



existing_pdf = PdfFileReader(open("original.pdf", "rb"))
output = PdfFileWriter()


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The we 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)


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And finally, write "output" to a real file:



outputStream = open("destination.pdf", "wb")
output.write(outputStream)
outputStream.close()


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This is our result:

enter image description here

Thank you all.

Top comments (3)

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tombutlersings profile image
tombutlersings • Edited

Just adding on here, if you'd like to add all of your pages from your old PDF to your new PDF, then use the following in conjunction with the code above:

pdf_pages = existing_pdf.numPages
i = 0
while i < pdf_pages:
page = existing_pdf.getPage(i)
output.addPage(page)
i += 1

outputStream = open("destination.pdf", "wb")
output.write(outputStream)
outputStream.close()

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expoashish profile image
Ashish Yadav

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "main.py", line 5, in
can = canvas.Canvas(packet, pagesize=letter)
NameError: name 'packet' is not defined

what is packet here?????????????????

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stokry profile image
Stokry

Ohh thank you, I made one typo, I updated my code: this part was missing:

packet = io.BytesIO()
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