linux python pdfkit configure path to wkhtmltopdf

#Linux python pdfkit configure path to wkhtmltopdf pdf
#Linux python pdfkit configure path to wkhtmltopdf install
#Linux python pdfkit configure path to wkhtmltopdf update
#Linux python pdfkit configure path to wkhtmltopdf archive
#Linux python pdfkit configure path to wkhtmltopdf zip

#Linux python pdfkit configure path to wkhtmltopdf update

Or, you can click here (I likely won't update this link, so probably best to go directly to the release page).

#Linux python pdfkit configure path to wkhtmltopdf zip

You'll see an entry under Amazon Linux with lambda zip as the architecture. You can download the binary on the releases page under the Stable releases.

#Linux python pdfkit configure path to wkhtmltopdf archive

'All files required for lambda layer are packed in one zip archive (Amazon Linux 2 / lambda zip)' The wkhtmltopdf site actually lists using this library with AWS Lambda as a FAQ and gives the following response to this question: Putting this binary into an AWS Lambda Layer can help solve this by having a single point of installation and management. This isn't a big deal, but managing this dependency could get tedious if your architecture has multiple servers that need installed with different Linux distributions. When I first installed wkhtmltopdf, I didn't heed the warning and just ran the following:Įnter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

#Linux python pdfkit configure path to wkhtmltopdf install

To use this options you should install static binary from wkhtmltopdf site' Warning! Version in debian/ubuntu repos have reduced functionality (because it compiled without the wkhtmltopdf QT patches), such as adding outlines, headers, footers, TOC etc. At the top of the installation instructions, you can see the following warning:

When I was first using this library, I was also using pdfkit to drive this interaction. For continued instruction, you can skip to the next section. This helps to avoid dealing with different Linux distributions or multiple installation locationsīelow is an explanation of why handling the dependencies through layers will avoid issues.Our dependencies, specifically the wkhtmltopdf binary, can be handled well through AWS Lambda layers.These calls will also be scaled automatically.This is more of a general benefit, we won't actually be calling this function from a running server.It allows us to offload processing away from the server.Lambda has a ton of use cases and is something I have personally used many times and am a big fan of.įor our goal, AWS Lambda is a powerful tool for the following reasons For more in-depth Python usage, you can check out pdfkit.ĪWS Lambda provides serverless computing functions where you don't need to manage any servers or containers, you can simply call your function synchronously or asynchronously, and it will be executed and scaled automatically. We will call the wkhtmltopdf command using the subprocess Python library.

#Linux python pdfkit configure path to wkhtmltopdf pdf

Wkhtmltopdf is an open-source command line tool that enables you to easy convert an HTML file to a PDF file. For those who have used template languages before, you can probably imagine the usefulness of a function like this in combination with Jinja or template rendering engines commonly found in Web Frameworks (like Django).Īfter doing some research on third party libraries that could simplify our goal, I decided to use wkhtmltopdf. This article will use us-east-2 for the AWS region, changing this shouldn't effect functionality, just the links within the article.Ī better way to do this is through AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM), but this is more tailored for those looking for the basic setup through the AWS Management Console.Ī common task I've found myself undertaking recently is programmatically converting an HTML file/string to an embedded and stylized PDF file.Īn example use case for this might be exporting a self-managed customer invoice or generating a daily report from an existing HTML template. The event payload will contain all valid values (S3 bucket name, file key, wkhtmltopdf options etc.).It may be best to only accept S3 file keys instead of HTML strings, but this is simply to show our functions possibilities or be used as an internal tool. It is very important that you check validity of this HTML prior to calling this function if you ever use something similar in production. The HTML string or file will be valid and will include the necessary tags (, ,, ).Most of the ones we'd want anyways are the default (i.e.Accept a small set of options for the wkhtmltopdf command.Return a file key for the generated PDF.Allow passing either an S3 file key or an HTML string.This article assumes access to an AWS account (free-tier is acceptable) and basic knowledge of AWS Lambda/S3 and Python. For more in-depth Python focused usage, also check out pdfkit.We will use Python's subprocess module to call the wkhtmltopdf command.Creating the AWS Lambda layer(s) and configuring our function.To set up an easy to call HTML to PDF converter as an AWS Lambda function.

Building an AWS lambda function that uses Python and wkhtmltopdf to convert an HTML file to a PDF file.