[reportlab-users] pdfgen and Charts

[Robin Becker]

Peter Mott wrote:

> I'm using the basic pdfgen package for my project. I'd like - though it 

> is not vital - to create a chart and add it to my canvas.  I can add a 

> path p I have created by canvas.drawPath(p) and a textobject t by 

> canvas.drawText(t). I can create a rectangle r from the graphics package 

> - but cannot find out how to add it to the canvas. Can this be done?

> 

> Seems a silly question - but I am new to ReportLab and Googlinf all over 

> has not helped!

> 

> Thanks,

> 

> Peter

.......

The canvas already has rectangle/circle etc etc as primitives.

The relationship of the graphics classes to the standard canvas is a bit strange.

Graphics Drawings are made up of primitive shapes as defined in the shapes.py 
module. A drawing is also a flowable so it can be included fairly directly into 
a platypus story.

There are chart classes already which can be made into drawings fairly easily. 
If you find a chart that you like; add to a drawing and you have something that 
fits easily into a story. It's a bit harder to make flowables draw themselves 
onto a canvas, but usually you need to use the wrapOn and drawOn methods to do 
that using code like this...


f=Chart(....)
w,h = f.wrapOn(canv,availWidth,availHeight)
f.drawOn(canv,x,y)


If you just wish to draw a simple line chart etc etc then the canvas primitives 
should allow you to do it.
-- 
Robin Becker