How to set any font in reportlab Canvas in python?

Question

I'm using reportlab to create pdfs. When I try to set a font using the following method, I get a KeyError:

pdf = Canvas('test.pdf')
pdf.setFont('Tahoma', 16)

But if I use 'Courier' instead of 'Tahoma' there isn't a problem. How can I use Tahoma?

Answer 1

Perhabs Tahoma is a TrueType font, and you need to register it first. According to the user guide of ReportLab you need to do this:

from reportlab.pdfbase import pdfmetrics
from reportlab.pdfbase.ttfonts import TTFont

pdfmetrics.registerFont(TTFont('Vera', 'Vera.ttf'))
pdfmetrics.registerFont(TTFont('VeraBd', 'VeraBd.ttf'))
pdfmetrics.registerFont(TTFont('VeraIt', 'VeraIt.ttf'))
pdfmetrics.registerFont(TTFont('VeraBI', 'VeraBI.ttf'))

canvas.setFont('Vera', 32)
canvas.drawString(10, 150, "Some text encoded in UTF-8")
canvas.drawString(10, 100, "In the Vera TT Font!")

The canvas object has a getAvailableFonts method that should return all currently registered (and therefore usable) fonts.

Answer 2

Start at Reiner's answer.

It is perfect with one caveat.

Reportlab only searches for fonts in predefined folders:

TTFSearchPath = (
            'c:/winnt/fonts',
            'c:/windows/fonts',
            '/usr/lib/X11/fonts/TrueType/',
            '/usr/share/fonts/truetype',
            '/usr/share/fonts',             #Linux, Fedora
            '/usr/share/fonts/dejavu',      #Linux, Fedora
            '%(REPORTLAB_DIR)s/fonts',      #special
            '%(REPORTLAB_DIR)s/../fonts',   #special
            '%(REPORTLAB_DIR)s/../../fonts',#special
            '%(CWD)s/fonts',                #special
            '~/fonts',
            '~/.fonts',
            '%(XDG_DATA_HOME)s/fonts',
            '~/.local/share/fonts',
            #mac os X - from
            #http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn2024.html
            '~/Library/Fonts',
            '/Library/Fonts',
            '/Network/Library/Fonts',
            '/System/Library/Fonts',
            )

If you're trying to use a ttf font that you've downloaded off of the internet, and would like that font available on all your servers, I would suggest the following:

• Add the font to your project in any directory. e.g.: /project_root/app/lib/reportlabs/fonts/

• Make sure you have something like BASE_DIR/ROOT_DIR in your settings:

  BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
  

• add the following line to a python file that generates pdf:

  import reportlab
  from django.conf import settings
  reportlab.rl_config.TTFSearchPath.append(str(settings.BASE_DIR) + '/app/lib/reportlabs/fonts')
  pdfmetrics.registerFont(TTFont('Copperplate', 'Copperplate-Gothic-Bold.ttf'))
  

Answer 3

By adding DejaVuSans Font to application solved my problem. Here is the snippet of code

pdfmetrics.registerFont(TTFont('DejaVuSans','DejaVuSans.ttf'))

And use UTF8 for all coding.:)