Canvas

The canvas is the space where everything happens, since its a space it has dimension and to be able to place the items it has coordinates.

And since its the main component its where you define the PDF name that will be generated.

from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas


def hello(c):
    c.drawString(100, 100, "Hello World")


c = canvas.Canvas("hello.pdf")
hello(c)
c.showPage()
c.save()
                            

canvas has a lot of different settings that are in cascade applied to the items that are placed in it

setTitle Title of the pdf document.

setFont Sets the font style and font size.

setLineWidth Line width of the lines or draws.

setStrokeColor Color of the lines and texts.

setFillColor If the drawins are closed defines their fill color.

setDash Sets the line dash style.

Its coordinates can be modified and rotated.

translate Translates the coordinate system.

rotate Rotates the coordinate system.

saveState Saves the state of the canvas (position, rotation, colores, strokes, everything), before further changes.

restoreState Restores previously saved state.

Template and Frame

The template defines where and how the different flowable can be rendered.

To be able to locate flowables inside a template you have to define on what regions those flowables can be rendered, those regions are named frames

Flowable

Anything that will be rendered is a flowable, there are many different flowables:

paragraphs

images

tables

graphics

charts

But why that name?

The