A library for reading, creating and manipulating PDF files in python

borb is a library for creating and manipulating PDF files in python.

0. About borb

borb is a pure python library to read, write and manipulate PDF documents.
It represents a PDF document as a JSON-like datastructure of nested lists, dictionaries and primitives (numbers, string, booleans, etc)

This is currently a one-man project, so the focus will always be to support those use-cases that are more common in favor of those that are rare.

1. About the Examples

The examples can be found in a separate repository.
This ensures the borb repository stays relatively small, whilst still providing a thorough knowledgebase of code-samples, screenshots and explanatory text.

Check out the examples repository here!

They include;

Reading a PDF and extracting meta-information
Changing meta-information
Extracting text from a PDF
Extracting images from a PDF
Changing images in a PDF
Adding annotations (notes, links, etc) to a PDF
Adding text to a PDF
Adding tables to a PDF
Adding lists to a PDF
Using a PageLayout manager

and much more

1.1 Hello World

To give you an immediate idea of the way borb works,
this is the classic Hello World example, in borb:

from pathlib import Path

from borb.pdf.canvas.layout.page_layout.multi_column_layout import SingleColumnLayout
from borb.pdf.canvas.layout.text.paragraph import Paragraph
from borb.pdf.document import Document
from borb.pdf.page.page import Page
from borb.pdf.pdf import PDF

# create an empty Document
pdf = Document()

# add an empty Page
page = Page()
pdf.append_page(page)

# use a PageLayout (SingleColumnLayout in this case)
layout = SingleColumnLayout(page)

# add a Paragraph object
layout.add(Paragraph("Hello World!"))
    
# store the PDF
with open(Path("output.pdf"), "wb") as pdf_file_handle:
    PDF.dumps(pdf_file_handle, pdf)

2. License

borb is dual licensed as AGPL/Commercial software.

AGPL is a free / open source software license.
This doesn't mean the software is gratis!

Buying a license is mandatory as soon as you develop commercial activities distributing the borb software inside your product or deploying it on a network without disclosing the source code of your own applications under the AGPL license.
These activities include: