Open Source
ReportLab is the time-proven, ultra-robust open-source engine for creating complex, data-driven PDF documents and custom vector graphics. It's free, open-source , and written in Python. The package sees 50,000+ downloads per month, is part of standard Linux distributions, is embedded in many products, and was selected to power the print/export feature for Wikipedia.
The ReportLab Toolkit has evolved over the years in direct response to the real-world reporting needs of large institutions. The library implements three main layers:
- A graphics canvas API that 'draws' PDF pages
- A charts and widgets library for creating reusable data graphics.
- A page layout engine - PLATYPUS ("Page Layout and TYPography Using Scripts") - which builds documents from elements such as headlines, paragraphs, fonts, tables and vector graphics.
The open-source ReportLab Toolkit provides the core of our commercial product, ReportLab PLUS, which generates PDF at higher speed and allows use of our smart XML-based templating language RML. ReportLab PLUS contains significant upgrades over the open-source library that allows for a much faster development cycle. If you are putting substantial time into building a solution please consider the commercial version; it is faster, does more, and the revenues directly support ongoing development. You can trial ReportLab PLUS for free.
ReportLab open-source |
ReportLab PLUS |
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| ReportLab's free PDF toolkit... | All the features of ReportLab open-souce plus... |
| Automate document production | Powerful templating tools |
| Generate multiple PDFs fast | Build your PDFs like HTML with Report Markup Language (RML) |
| Diagra charting toolkit | Intelligently flow text, charts and graphics with conditional logic |
| Reduce paperwork and print costs | PageCatcher™ - import and overprint existing design assets |
| Fill pre-existing forms | |
| Synchronise content from multiple data sources | |
| Web and print-grade output from a single source | |
| Commercial support hours included as standard | |
Install via pip from PYPI
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Install ReportLab PLUS
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All our products are cross-platform and work with Linux, Windows, Mac OSX, Solaris, AIX, FreeBSD and more. You may need to install development tools to compile our C extensions properly.
For help and guidance please see our Documentation page and FAQ.
If you are developing a complex system with ReportLab functionality please look at our solutions page - we have built bespoke platforms for some of the world's biggest companies and could help you get started.