django export images and text in the html as pdf

I was having trouble exporting images in an html file as pdf, a similar solution exists here.

The html is being rendered properly on the server. I verified it by cross checking it on a url.

but while trying to download/render the pdf **i get a pdf but which is blank, also it says error in the third line of the download function in views.py

Here is what i tried:

html file:

<html>
<head>
<link href="{{ STATIC_URL }}css/certificate.css" rel="stylesheet"
  type="text/css" />
</head> 
<body>
<div class="certificate_container">
    <div class="statictext">
        <p>{{ name }}</p>
    </div>
</div>
</body>
<html>

css file:

body{margin:0px; padding:0px;}
.certificate_container{ width:792px; height:612px; background:url("../images/certificate.gif") no-repeat;}
.statictext{width:400px; margin:0px auto; padding-top:240px; height:30px; text-align:center; font:bold 14px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#333;}

views.py:

#relevant imports
from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas
import xhtml2pdf.pisa as pisa
import cStringIO as StringIO

def download(request):
    html = render_to_string("certificate.html", { 'pagesize' : 'A4', }, context_instance=RequestContext(request))
    result = StringIO.StringIO()
    pdf = pisa.pisaDocument(StringIO.StringIO(), dest=result, link_callback=fetch_resources )
    if not pdf.err:
        return HttpResponse(result.getvalue(), mimetype='application/pdf')
    return HttpResponse('Gremlins ate your pdf! %s' % cgi.escape(html))

def fetch_resources(uri, rel):
    path = os.path.join(settings.STATIC_ROOT, uri.replace(settings.STATIC_URL, ""))
    return path


def home(request):
    return render(request, 'certificate.html', {'name':'user1'} )

The urls have been taken care of properly.

Solution

I later found, this could not be achieved using the above tech stack, hence i tried getting a template image and used PIL to modify it based on context. And that worked.