Converting markdown to pdf in Python

There are many solutions for the task of automatically converting text in markdown format into a printable pdf file. These solutions based on Pandoc, LaTex, wkhtmltopdf, etc.

I want to share a new (at least for me) solution to this problem in Python.

This solution has the following advantages.

• All dependencies are in requrments.txt, no external binaries.
• There are no problems with non-standard encoding, pictures and the most popular markup elements.
• Ability to use different page sizes within one pdf.
• Customizable mode for creating a table of contents (bookmarks).

This method is based on the use of the libraries markdown-it-py (conversion from markdown to html) and PyMuPDF (conversion from html to pdf). A small Python class links them together.

Install

pip install markdown-pdf

Create a pdf with TOC (bookmarks) from headings up to level 2.

from markdown_pdf import MarkdownPdf

pdf = MarkdownPdf(toc_level=2)

Add three sections of markdown to the pdf. Each section starts on a new page. Headings from the first section are not included in the TOC.

from markdown_pdf import Section

pdf.add_section(Section("# Title\n", toc=False))
pdf.add_section(Section("# Head1\n\nbody\n"))
pdf.add_section(Section("## Head2\n\n### Head3\n\n"))

Set the properties of the pdf document.

pdf.meta["title"] = "User Guide"

Save to file.

pdf.save("guide.pdf")

Done!