[reportlab-users] Combining reportlab's PDF and pypdf to partially create, partially copy?

Ken Corey ken at kencorey.com
Fri Apr 17 10:34:50 EDT 2009


Andy Robinson wrote:

> I don't know pypdf, but I am pretty sure you can't mix it in this way.

> You would have to generate the new one from reportlab, save it to

> disk, and then let pypdf combine that file with the pre-existing ones.

> PDF has lots of binary cross-references within the file so it is

> more complex than just spitting out pages in order.

>

> The 'save()' basically says ReportLab is finished and writes out the

> PDF document to the output device. So you probably sent out two

> separate PDF "files" in the same request, and Acrobat Reader (or

> whatever opens it) is only looking at the latter one. If you can

> capture what you generated into a file and open it with an editor,

> you'll probably see two distinct files. They begin with "%%PDF-1.3"

> or some version number and end with "EOF".

>

Wow! Quick response. Well done!

You're right about the doubled document. After sending that email, I
editted the PDF file using vim and sure enough, the first document was
in the first part with 9 sections, and the second document had 16.

I was afraid people would say "It's not possible". Rats. I was trying
to get lazy, build up the table of contents programmatically, and then
just include each further section without any further ado. I guess I'll
have to build the whole document programmatically and give up on pypdf.

I'd better brew up a fresh pot of tea!

Thanks.

-Ken


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