Table from PrettyTable to pdf - python-3.x

Question

I created a table using PrettyTable. I would like to save the output as a .pdf file but the only thing I can do is save it as .txt.
How to save it as .pdf file?
I installed the FPDF library but I am stucked with this.
# my table is saved as 'data' variable name
# I saved the table ('data') as .txt file
data = x.get_string()
with open('nameoffile.txt', 'w') as f:
f.write(data)
print(data)

Answer 1

PrettyTable is not used to export data to pdf file. It's used to display ASCII table.
The following code is a homemade method that answers your problem.
Lets assume you have this prettytable you want to export:
from prettytable import PrettyTable
x = PrettyTable()
x.field_names = ["City name", "Area", "Population", "Annual Rainfall"]
x.add_row(["Adelaide", 1295, 1158259, 600.5])
x.add_row(["Brisbane", 5905, 1857594, 1146.4])
x.add_row(["Darwin", 112, 120900, 1714.7])
x.add_row(["Hobart", 1357, 205556, 619.5])
x.add_row(["Sydney", 2058, 4336374, 1214.8])
x.add_row(["Melbourne", 1566, 3806092, 646.9])
x.add_row(["Perth", 5386, 1554769, 869.4])
First, you need to get the content of your table. The module isn't supposed to work in this way : it assumes that you have a table content that you want to display. Let's do the opposite :
def get_data_from_prettytable(data):
"""
Get a list of list from pretty_data table
Arguments:
:param data: data table to process
:type data: PrettyTable
"""
def remove_space(liste):
"""
Remove space for each word in a list
Arguments:
:param liste: list of strings
"""
list_without_space = []
for mot in liste: # For each word in list
word_without_space = mot.replace(' ', '') # word without space
list_without_space.append(word_without_space) # list of word without space
return list_without_space
# Get each row of the table
string_x = str(x).split('\n') # Get a list of row
header = string_x[1].split('|')[1: -1] # Columns names
rows = string_x[3:len(string_x) - 1] # List of rows
list_word_per_row = []
for row in rows: # For each word in a row
row_resize = row.split('|')[1:-1] # Remove first and last arguments
list_word_per_row.append(remove_space(row_resize)) # Remove spaces
return header, list_word_per_row
Then you can export it to a pdf file. Here is one solution :
from fpdf import FPDF
def export_to_pdf(header, data):
"""
Create a a table in PDF file from a list of row
:param header: columns name
:param data: List of row (a row = a list of cells)
:param spacing=1:
"""
pdf = FPDF() # New pdf object
pdf.set_font("Arial", size=12) # Font style
epw = pdf.w - 2*pdf.l_margin # Witdh of document
col_width = pdf.w / 4.5 # Column width in table
row_height = pdf.font_size * 1.5 # Row height in table
spacing = 1.3 # Space in each cell
pdf.add_page() # add new page
pdf.cell(epw, 0.0, 'My title', align='C') # create title cell
pdf.ln(row_height*spacing) # Define title line style
# Add header
for item in header: # for each column
pdf.cell(col_width, row_height*spacing, # Add a new cell
txt=item, border=1)
pdf.ln(row_height*spacing) # New line after header
for row in data: # For each row of the table
for item in row: # For each cell in row
pdf.cell(col_width, row_height*spacing, # Add cell
txt=item, border=1)
pdf.ln(row_height*spacing) # Add line at the end of row
pdf.output('simple_demo.pdf') # Create pdf file
pdf.close() # Close file
Finally, you just have to call the two methods:
header, data = get_data_from_prettytable(x)
export_to_pdf(header, data)