UTF-8 support in reportlab (Python)

Question

Problem

I can't create a PDF from UTF-8 encoded text using reportlab. What I get is a document full of black squares.

See the screenshot below:

Prerequisites

pip install faker reportlab

Code

import tempfile

from faker import Faker

from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter
from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet
from reportlab.lib.units import inch
from reportlab.platypus import SimpleDocTemplate, Paragraph

# FAKER = Faker()  # Latin based text generator

FAKER = Faker(locale="hy-AM")  # UTF-8 text generator
text = FAKER.text(max_nb_chars=1_000)

filename = tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(suffix=".pdf").name

styles = getSampleStyleSheet()
style_paragraph = styles["Normal"]
story = []

doc = SimpleDocTemplate(
    filename,
    pagesize=letter,
    bottomMargin=.4 * inch,
    topMargin=.6 * inch,
    rightMargin=.8 * inch,
    leftMargin=.8 * inch,
)

paragraph = Paragraph(text, style_paragraph)
story.append(paragraph)
doc.build(story)

Also tried

I also tried TTF font (Vera) but it didn't work either:

# ...

from reportlab.pdfbase import pdfmetrics

# ...

pdfmetrics.registerFont(TTFont("Vera", "Vera.ttf"))
pdfmetrics.registerFont(TTFont("VeraBd", "VeraBd.ttf"))
pdfmetrics.registerFont(TTFont("VeraIt", "VeraIt.ttf"))
pdfmetrics.registerFont(TTFont("VeraBI", "VeraBI.ttf"))

# ...

doc = SimpleDocTemplate(
    filename,
    pagesize=letter,
    bottomMargin=.4 * inch,
    topMargin=.6 * inch,
    rightMargin=.8 * inch,
    leftMargin=.8 * inch,
)

# ...

Answer 1

Here's a full code snippet that works:

import tempfile

from faker import Faker
from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter
from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet
from reportlab.lib.units import inch
from reportlab.pdfbase import pdfmetrics
from reportlab.pdfbase.ttfonts import TTFont
from reportlab.platypus import SimpleDocTemplate, Paragraph

FAKER = Faker(locale="hy-AM")  # UTF-8 text generator
text = FAKER.text(max_nb_chars=1_000)

filename = tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(suffix=".pdf").name

pdfmetrics.registerFont(TTFont("Vera", "Vera.ttf"))  # <- Important

styles = getSampleStyleSheet()
style_paragraph = styles["Normal"]
style_paragraph.fontName = "Vera"  # <- Important
story = []

doc = SimpleDocTemplate(
    filename,
    pagesize=letter,
    bottomMargin=.4 * inch,
    topMargin=.6 * inch,
    rightMargin=.8 * inch,
    leftMargin=.8 * inch,
)
paragraph = Paragraph(text, style_paragraph)
story.append(paragraph)
doc.build(story)

If you need more font types (such as Bold or Italic), you could add them as follows:

pdfmetrics.registerFont(TTFont("VeraBd", "VeraBd.ttf"))  # <- Important
pdfmetrics.registerFont(TTFont("VeraIt", "VeraIt.ttf"))  # <- Important
pdfmetrics.registerFont(TTFont("VeraBI", "VeraBI.ttf"))  # <- Important