How can I generate a pdf in Reportlab from information from different documents?

Question

Would anybody who knows, help me understand how this code can work to produce the required page.

c = canvas.Canvas("sample.pdf")
sample1 = csv.reader(open('sample1.csv'))
for i in sample1:
    first = i[0]
    c.drawString(100,800,first)
    sample2 = csv.reader(open('sample2.csv'))
    for x in sample2:
        sec = x[0]
        third = x[1]
        fourth = x[2]
        c.drawString(200,700,sec)
        c.drawString(200,600,third)
        c.drawString(200,500,fourth)
    c.showPage()
c.save()

As it is, it prints only the documents in sample2 successfully and one page of the items in sample1.... I'm trying to extract information from two documents to use in generating one pdf.

Answer 1

I don't know if I understand problem but I would do this without nesting loops

I assum you have three rows in sample1 X, Y, Z and three rows in sample2 ABC, DEF, GHI

It creates three pages X, Y, Z and next three pages ABC, DEF, GHI

from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas
import csv

c = canvas.Canvas("sample.pdf")

#sample1 = csv.reader(open('sample1.csv'))
#sample2 = csv.reader(open('sample2.csv'))
sample1 = ["X", "Y", "Z"]
sample2 = ["ABC", "DEF", "GHI"]

for a in sample1:
    c.drawString(100, 800, a[0])  # X / Y / Z
    c.showPage()

for b in sample2:
    c.drawString(200, 700, b[0])  # A / D / G
    c.drawString(200, 600, b[1])  # B / E / H
    c.drawString(200, 500, b[2])  # C / F / I
    c.showPage()

c.save()

But if you want to create only three pages X+ABC, Y+DEF, Z+GHI then you need zip()

from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas
import csv

c = canvas.Canvas("sample.pdf")

#sample1 = csv.reader(open('sample1.csv'))
#sample2 = csv.reader(open('sample2.csv'))
sample1 = ["X", "Y", "Z"]
sample2 = ["ABC", "DEF", "GHI"]

for a, b in zip(sample1, sample2):
    c.drawString(100, 800, a[0])

    c.drawString(200, 700, b[0])
    c.drawString(200, 600, b[1])
    c.drawString(200, 500, b[2])

    c.showPage()

c.save()

---

BTW: If you need nine pages

• X+ABC, X+DEF, X+GHI
• Y+ABC, Y+DEF, Y+GHI
• Z+ABC, Z+DEF, Z+GHI

then you have to move drawString( a[0]) and showPage() inside second loop

from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas
import csv

c = canvas.Canvas("sample.pdf")

#sample1 = csv.reader(open('sample1.csv'))
sample1 = ["X", "Y", "Z"]

for a in sample1:

    #sample2 = csv.reader(open('sample2.csv'))
    sample2 = ["ABC", "DEF", "GHI"]

    for b in sample2:
        c.drawString(100, 800, a[0])

        c.drawString(200, 700, b[0])
        c.drawString(200, 600, b[1])
        c.drawString(200, 500, b[2])

        c.showPage()

c.save()