docxtpl python library for creating automated reports as word and pdf files from templates

Skill - docxtpl python library for creating automated reports as word and pdf files from templates

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Skills Required

• Setup python development environment
• Basic Printing in Python
• Commenting in Python
• Managing Variables in python

Please make sure to have all the skills mentioned above to understand and execute the code mentioned below. Go through the above skills if necessary for reference or revision

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• docxtpl is a python library for populating data into word file templates.
• This helps in automating reports very easily.
• Since we are using word file templates we can use rich text features like fonts, font sizes, colors etc without any programming.

The following files are used in this blog post

• Template word files - inviteTmpl.docx, reportTmpl.docx
• images - party_banner_0.png, party_banner_1.png, party_banner_2.png

While running this scripts, create folders named images, invites and reports. Download the images and move them into the images folder placed in the same folder as the script file.

Placeholder for variable in word file

If can render a variable named xyz by writing {{ xyz }} in the template word file. The variable can be text or image.

Basic Example

• This is a simple example using docxtpl for populating words and images into a birthday invitation template word file.
• We are using the DocxTemplate and InlineImage classes.
• Output should be created as a files named invitation.docx and invitation.pdf.
• We are using the convert function from docx2pdf library for converting word file to pdf file.

from docxtpl import DocxTemplate, InlineImage
import datetime as dt
from docx2pdf import convert

# create a document object
doc = DocxTemplate("inviteTmpl.docx")

# create context dictionary
context = {
    "todayStr": dt.datetime.now().strftime("%d-%b-%Y"),
    "recipientName": "Chaitanya",
    "evntDtStr": "21-Oct-2021",
    "venueStr": "the beach",
    "senderName": "Sanket",
}

# inject image into the context
context['bannerImg'] = InlineImage(doc, 'images/party_banner_0.png')

# render context into the document object
doc.render(context)

# save the document object as a word file
doc.save('invitation.docx')

# convert word file to a pdf file
convert('invitation.docx', 'invitation.pdf')

Creating multiple files from single template

• In this example, we are populating data into a template word file multiple times for each person name to create an invitation file for each person name.

from docxtpl import DocxTemplate, InlineImage
import datetime as dt
from docx2pdf import convert

# template word file path
tmplPath = "inviteTmpl.docx"

personNames = ["Aakav", "Aakesh", "Aarav",
               "Advik", "Chaitanya", "Chandran", "Darsh"]

# run for each person in a for loop
for pItr, p in enumerate(personNames):
    # create a document object
    doc = DocxTemplate(tmplPath)

    # create context dictionary
    context = {
        "todayStr": dt.datetime.now().strftime("%d-%b-%Y"),
        "recipientName": p,
        "evntDtStr": "21-Oct-2021",
        "venueStr": "the beach",
        "senderName": "Sanket",
    }

    # inject image into the context
    bannerImgPath = 'images/party_banner_{0}.png'.format(pItr % 3)
    imgObj = InlineImage(doc, bannerImgPath)
    context['bannerImg'] = imgObj

    # render context into the document object
    doc.render(context)

    # save the document object as a word file
    resultFilePath = 'invites/invitation_{0}.docx'.format(pItr)
    doc.save(resultFilePath)

    # convert the word file into pdf
    convert(resultFilePath, resultFilePath.replace('.docx', '.pdf'))

print("execution complete...")

Render a list of items using “for” loop in docxtpl templates

for loop can be used by with tables in word file templates as shown below

Reports Automation example

• In this example we will create a sales report based on a word template
• An bar chart image file is created at the location images/trendImg.png using matplotlib plotting library and the image is rendered in the report using InlineImage Object

import datetime as dt
import random
from docx2pdf import convert
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from docxtpl import DocxTemplate, InlineImage

# create a document object
doc = DocxTemplate("reportTmpl.docx")

# create data for reports
salesTblRows = []
for k in range(10):
    costPu = random.randint(1, 15)
    nUnits = random.randint(100, 500)
    salesTblRows.append({"sNo": k+1, "name": "Item "+str(k+1),
                         "cPu": costPu, "nUnits": nUnits, "revenue": costPu*nUnits})

topItems = [x["name"] for x in sorted(salesTblRows, key=lambda x: x["revenue"], reverse=True)][0:3]

todayStr = dt.datetime.now().strftime("%d-%b-%Y")

# create context to pass data to template
context = {
    "reportDtStr": todayStr,
    "salesTblRows": salesTblRows,
    "topItemsRows": topItems
}

# inject image into the context
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.bar([x["name"] for x in salesTblRows], [x["revenue"] for x in salesTblRows])
fig.tight_layout()
fig.savefig("images/trendImg.png")
context['trendImg'] = InlineImage(doc, 'images/trendImg.png')

# render context into the document object
doc.render(context)

# save the document object as a word file
reportWordPath = 'reports/report_{0}.docx'.format(todayStr)
doc.save(reportWordPath)

# convert the word file as pdf file
convert(reportWordPath, reportWordPath.replace(".docx", ".pdf"))

Video

Video for this post can be found here

References

• Official documentation - https://docxtpl.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

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