PDF Generate Plugin for MkDocs

---

This plugin will generate a single PDF file from your MkDocs repository. This plugin is inspired by MkDocs PDF Export Plugin.

Features

• Cover and Table of Contents integrated in the PDF
• Automatically numbers on heading(h1-h3).
• Shift down sub-page headings level.
• using WeasyPrint.

Samples

• PDF of 'MkDocs' docs
• PDF of 'Material for MkDocs' docs

Requirements

1. This package requires MkDocs version 1.0 or higher (0.17 works as well)
2. Python 3.6 or higher
3. WeasyPrint depends on cairo, Pango and GDK-PixBuf which need to be installed separately. Please follow the installation instructions for your platform carefully:
   • Linux
   • MacOS
   • Windows

How to use

Installation

1. Install the package with pip:

   pip install mkdocs-with-pdf

2. Enable the plugin in your mkdocs.yml:

   plugins:
       - with-pdf

   More information about plugins in the MkDocs documentation.

Testing

When building your repository with mkdocs build, you should now see the following message at the end of your build output:

Converting 10 articles to PDF took 7.1s

Configuration

You may customize the plugin by passing options in mkdocs.yml:

plugins:
    - with-pdf:
        #author: WHO
        #copyright: ANY TEXT
        #
        #cover: false
        #back_cover: true
        #cover_title: TITLE TEXT
        #cover_subtitle: SUBTITLE TEXT
        #custom_template_path: TEMPLATES PATH
        #
        #toc_title: TOC TITLE TEXT
        #heading_shift: false
        #toc_level: 3
        #ordered_chapter_level: 2
        #excludes_children:
        #    - 'release-notes/:upgrading'
        #    - 'release-notes/:changelog'
        #
        #exclude_pages:
        #    - 'bugs/'
        #    - 'appendix/contribute/'
        #convert_iframe:
        #    - src: IFRAME SRC
        #      img: POSTER IMAGE URL
        #      text: ALTERNATE TEXT
        #    - src: ...
        #two_columns_level: 3
        #
        #render_js: true
        #headless_chrome_path: headless-chromium
        #
        #output_path: any-place/document.pdf
        #enabled_if_env: ENABLE_PDF_EXPORT
        #
        #debug_html: true
        #show_anchors: true
        #verbose: true

Options

for Properties

• author

  Set the author text.
  default: use site_author in your project mkdocs.yml

• copyright

  Set the author text.
  default: use copyright in your project mkdocs.yml

author and copyright values are drawn in Cover, and you can use '@page' content.

@page {
  @bottom-left {
    content: string(author) !important;
  }
  @bottom-right {
    content: string(copyright) !important;
  }
}

for Cover

• cover

  Set the value to false if you don't need a cover page.
  default: true

• back_cover

  Set the value to true if you need a back cover page.
  default: false
  since: v0.8.0

  You would be better to install the qrcode package:

  pip install qrcode

• cover_title

  Set the title text in cover page.
  default: use site_name in your project mkdocs.yml

• cover_subtitle

  Set the subtitle text in cover page.
  default: None

• cover_logo

  Set the logo image in cover page. This value is URL or simply specify the relative path to the docs directory.
  default: None
  since: v0.8.0

for Heading and TOC

• toc_title

  Set the title text of Table of Content.
  default: Table of Content
  since: v0.4.0

• heading_shift

  Set this value to false, disable shift heading in child page.
  default: true

  In this flags enable, heading move down one level in child page.

• toc_level

  Set the level of Table of Content. This value is enabled in the range of from 1 to 3.
  default: 3

• ordered_chapter_level

  Set the level of heading number addition. This value is enabled in the range of from 1 to 3.
  default: 3

• excludes_children

  Set the page id of nav url. If the id matches in this list, it will be excluded from the heading number addition and table of contents.
  default: []

for Page

• exclude_pages

  Set the page id of nav url. If the id matches in this list, it will be excluded page contents.
  default: []
  since: v0.3.0

• convert_iframe

  List of iframe to a conversions. Every iframe that matches a src in this list will be replace to a contains each img and/or text. it's using for such as embedded VIDEO.
  default: []
  since: v0.6.0

  @see Sample of MkDocs Material

• two_columns_level (Experimental)

  Set the heading level of Two Column Layout. Currently only 0(disable) or 3 is valid for this value. So slow processing, but a little nice.

  default: 0
  since: v0.7.0

  @see Sample of MkDocs Material

Renderer for JavaScript

• render_js

  Set the value to true if you're using 'MathJax', 'Twemoji' or any more.
  Require "Chrome" which has "headless" mode.

  default: false
  since: v0.7.0

• headless_chrome_path

  Set the "Headless Chrome" program path.
  If render_js is false, this value will be ignored.

  default: chromium-browser

Check on your system:

$ <PROGRAM_PATH> --headless \
   --disable-gpu \
   --dump-dom \
   <ANY_SITE_URL(eg. 'https://google.com')>

... and more

• output_path

  This option allows you to use a different destination for the PDF file.
  default: pdf/document.pdf

• custom_template_path

  The path where your custom cover.html and/or styles.scss are located. default: templates
  since: v0.8.0

• enabled_if_env

  Setting this option will enable the build only if there is an environment variable set to 1. This is useful to disable building the PDF files during development, since it can take a long time to export all files.
  default: None

  PDF generation can take significantly longer than HTML generation which can slow down mkdocs's built-in dev-server.

  Adding enabled_if_env: ENABLE_PDF_EXPORT under - with-pdf: disables PDF generation during development. Run the dev-server normally:

  $ mkdocs serve
  INFO    -  Browser Connected: http://127.0.0.1:8000/
  INFO    -  Running task: builder (delay: None)
  INFO    -  Building documentation...
  WARNING -  without generate PDF(set environment variable ENABLE_PDF_EXPORT to 1 to enable)
  ... 2 seconds later ...
  INFO    -  Reload 1 waiters: /.../index.md

  and to build files to deploy specify ENABLE_PDF_EXPORT=1 at the command line:

  $ ENABLE_PDF_EXPORT=1 mkdocs build
  ...
  INFO    -  Converting 10 articles to PDF took 7.1s
  INFO    -  Documentation built in 8.29 seconds

• debug_html

  Setting this to true will out HTML to stdout on build time.
  default: false

  You can try this:

  mkdocs build > for_pdf_print.html

  ...and browse output with Google Chrome. Chrome DevTools Into Print Preview Mode will you help.

  Note: WeasyPrint and Google Chrome are not fully compatible.

• show_anchors

  Setting this to true will list out of anchor points provided during the build as info message.
  default: false
  since: v0.7.4

• verbose

  Setting this to true will show all WeasyPrint debug messages during the build.
  default: false

Custom cover page and document style

It is possible to create a custom cover page for the document. You can also add a custom style sheet to modify the whole document.

To do so, add a templates folder at the root level of your mkdocs project and place a cover.html and/or a styles.scss inside. Alternatively, you can specify a different location with the custom_template_path option.

Custom cover page

Using jinja2 syntax, you can access all data from your mkdocs.yml. To make template creation easier, you can use plugin_some_plugin to access variables from plugins. E.g. use {{ author }} to get the author from your mkdocs.yml that looks like:

plugins:
    - with-pdf:
        author: WHO

You can use custom variables extra: in your mkdocs.yml And, you can check it in the log if run with verbose or debug_html options.

Custom stylesheet

Since your stylesheet is appended to the default ones, you can override every setting from them.

Tip: setting the debug_html option to true to get the generated html that is passed to weasyprint can help you determine the html tags, classes or identifiers you want to modify in your stylesheet.

Advanced Rendering Hooks (Experimental)

You can hook the PDF rendering process by creating a pdf_event_hook.py(or pdf_event_hook/__init__.py) in your working directory (usually the same directory as mkdocs.yml).
since: v0.8.2

Sample pdf_event_hook.py (or pdf_event_hook/__init__.py)

import logging

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
from mkdocs.structure.pages import Page


def inject_link(html: str, href: str,
                page: Page, logger: logging) -> str:
    """Adding PDF View button on navigation bar(using material theme)"""

    def _pdf_icon():
        _ICON = '''
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 512 512">
<path d="M128,0c-17.6,0-32,14.4-32,32v448c0,17.6,14.4,32,32,32h320c17.6,0,32-14.4,32-32V128L352,0H128z" fill="#E2E5E7"/>
<path d="m384 128h96l-128-128v96c0 17.6 14.4 32 32 32z" fill="#B0B7BD"/>
<polygon points="480 224 384 128 480 128" fill="#CAD1D8"/>
<path d="M416,416c0,8.8-7.2,16-16,16H48c-8.8,0-16-7.2-16-16V256c0-8.8,7.2-16,16-16h352c8.8,0,16,7.2,16,16  V416z" fill="#F15642"/>
<g fill="#fff">
<path d="m101.74 303.15c0-4.224 3.328-8.832 8.688-8.832h29.552c16.64 0 31.616 11.136 31.616 32.48 0 20.224-14.976 31.488-31.616 31.488h-21.36v16.896c0 5.632-3.584 8.816-8.192 8.816-4.224 0-8.688-3.184-8.688-8.816v-72.032zm16.88 7.28v31.872h21.36c8.576 0 15.36-7.568 15.36-15.504 0-8.944-6.784-16.368-15.36-16.368h-21.36z"/>
<path d="m196.66 384c-4.224 0-8.832-2.304-8.832-7.92v-72.672c0-4.592 4.608-7.936 8.832-7.936h29.296c58.464 0 57.184 88.528 1.152 88.528h-30.448zm8.064-72.912v57.312h21.232c34.544 0 36.08-57.312 0-57.312h-21.232z"/>
<path d="m303.87 312.11v20.336h32.624c4.608 0 9.216 4.608 9.216 9.072 0 4.224-4.608 7.68-9.216 7.68h-32.624v26.864c0 4.48-3.184 7.92-7.664 7.92-5.632 0-9.072-3.44-9.072-7.92v-72.672c0-4.592 3.456-7.936 9.072-7.936h44.912c5.632 0 8.96 3.344 8.96 7.936 0 4.096-3.328 8.704-8.96 8.704h-37.248v0.016z"/>
</g>
<path d="m400 432h-304v16h304c8.8 0 16-7.2 16-16v-16c0 8.8-7.2 16-16 16z" fill="#CAD1D8"/>
</svg>
'''  # noqa: E501
        return BeautifulSoup(_ICON, 'html.parser')

    logger.info(f'(hook on inject_link: {page.title})')
    soup = BeautifulSoup(html, 'html.parser')

    nav = soup.find(class_='md-header-nav')
    if not nav:
        # after 7.x
        nav = soup.find('nav', class_='md-header__inner')
    if nav:
        a = soup.new_tag('a', href=href, title='PDF',
                         **{'class': 'md-header__button md-header-nav__button md-icon'})
        a.append(_pdf_icon())
        nav.append(a)
        return str(soup)

    return html


# def pre_js_render(soup: BeautifulSoup, logger: logging) -> BeautifulSoup:
#     logger.info('(hook on pre_js_render)')
#     return soup


# def pre_pdf_render(soup: BeautifulSoup, logger: logging) -> BeautifulSoup:
#     logger.info('(hook on pre_pdf_render)')
#     tag = soup.find(lambda tag: tag.name ==
#                     'body' and 'data-md-color-scheme' in tag.attrs)
#     if tag:
#         tag['data-md-color-scheme'] = 'print'
#     return soup

... and check log:

$ mkdocs build
INFO    -  Found PDF rendering event hook module.
INFO    -  Cleaning site directory
INFO    -  Building documentation to directory: /tmp/sample/site
INFO    -  (hook on inject_link: Home)
   ...

Contributing

From reporting a bug to submitting a pull request: every contribution is appreciated and welcome. Report bugs, ask questions and request features using Github issues. If you want to contribute to the code of this project, please read the Contribution Guidelines.

Special thanks to

• Terry Zhao the author of the MkDocs PDF Export Plugin the source of our inspiration. We've used some of his code in this project.