pdf-documents

PDF documents

Produce PDF deliverables with two libraries: fpdf2 to generate new documents and pypdf to manipulate existing ones (merge, split, rotate, fill forms). Follow every section below before declaring a PDF done.

Installing the libraries

Install each pinned dependency with its own exec call — commands have a bounded wall clock, and one pip invocation per package stays inside it:

python3 -m pip install --user fpdf2==2.8.3
python3 -m pip install --user pypdf==6.16.1

Installs work only when this chat's network policy allows package managers, and they persist for the rest of the conversation. If an install is refused by policy, do not retry: tell the user to enable the package-manager network policy for this chat, and offer the closest format you can produce without the library (for example markdown or HTML) — only with their knowledge, never as a silent substitution. If a dependency cannot be installed at all, say so plainly instead of quietly delivering a lesser format.

Generating PDFs with fpdf2

• Build documents from fpdf.FPDF: add_page(), set_font(...), then cell(...) / multi_cell(...) for text and image(...) for figures.
• The core fonts (Helvetica, Times, Courier) cover ASCII reliably. For text beyond Latin-1, register a Unicode TrueType font with add_font(...) before use; never let glyphs silently render as placeholders.
• Set metadata that helps the user: set_title(...), set_author(...) when the document has a named author.
• Prefer multi_cell for paragraphs so long lines wrap instead of overflowing the page; leave margins at their defaults unless the layout needs otherwise.

Manipulating PDFs with pypdf

• Merge: append pages from several PdfReader sources into one PdfWriter.
• Split: copy the selected page ranges into separate writers.
• Forms: read fields with PdfReader.get_fields() and fill them with PdfWriter.update_page_form_field_values(...); call writer.set_need_appearances_writer(True) so viewers render the values.
• Always open source PDFs from the workspace (attachments arrive under documents/), and never assume a page count — read it.