Provides a simple Web API to convert web pages to PDF and PNG using WeasyPrint.

• Flask
• WeasyPrint

Ensure you have a complete Python 3 installation. On Debian / Ubuntu, run (as root):

apt install build-essential python3 python3-dev python3-venv

You will also have to install additional dependencies for WeasyPrint. On Debian and Ubuntu, run the following command as root:

apt install libpango-1.0-0 libpangoft2-1.0-0 libharfbuzz-subset0

For other distributions, see the WeasyPrint installation documentation.

Then, to install Saltimbanque from PyPI, run (as root):

mkdir -p /opt/saltimbanque
python3 -m venv /opt/saltimbanque/env
/opt/saltimbanque/env/bin/pip install saltimbanque gunicorn

Alternatively, to install it from Git, run (as root):

mkdir -p /opt/saltimbanque
git clone /~https://github.com/wanadev/saltimbanque.git /opt/saltimbanque/saltimbanque.git
python3 -m venv /opt/saltimbanque/env
/opt/saltimbanque/env/bin/pip install gunicorn
/opt/saltimbanque/env/bin/pip install -e /opt/saltimbanque/saltimbanque.git

NOTE: If you need the export webpage to PNG, you should install an older WeasyPrint version:

/opt/saltimbanque/env/bin/pip install weasyprint==52.5

To run Saltimbanque:

/opt/saltimbanque/env/bin/gunicorn -w 4 saltimbanque:app

By default it will listen to port 8000. To run it on an other port:

/opt/saltimbanque/env/bin/gunicorn -w 4 -b 127.0.0.1:8888 saltimbanque:app

Important notes:

• It is recommanded to use supervisor or systemd to start the Saltimbanque server.
• You should also consider to setup a proxy server like Nginx in front of Gunicorn.

You can now open the Saltimbanque root route in your browser to access a demo web page:

• http://localhost:8000/

To build a PDF from a web page:

http://localhost:8000/html-to-pdf/<string:base64_url>

To build a PNG from a web page:

http://localhost:8000/html-to-png/<string:base64_url>

Where:

• base64_url is the URL of the HTML document, encoded in base64.

NOTE: html-to-png is no more available since WeasyPrint 53. You should install an older WeasyPrint version if you need this feature. For more information see https://www.courtbouillon.org/blog/00008-weasyprint-53-beta/ .

If you have any question, you can:

• Open an issue on GitHub
• Ask on Discord

Please open an issue on GitHub with as much information as possible if you found a bug:

• Your operating system / Linux distribution (and its version)
• How you installed the software
• All the logs and message outputted by the software
• etc.

Please consider filing a bug before starting to work on a new feature; it will allow us to discuss the best way to do it. It is obviously unnecessary if you just want to fix a typo or small errors in the code.

Please note that your code must follow the coding style defined by the pep8. Black and Flake8 are used on this project to enforce the coding style.

You must install Nox first:

pip install nox

Then you can check for lint error:

nox --session lint

You can also fix coding style errors automatically with:

nox -s black_fix

Install dependencies:

python3 -m venv __env__
__env__/bin/pip install -e ".[dev]"

Run:

__env__/bin/flask run

• [NEXT] (changes on master, but not released yet):
  • misc: Added Python 3.13 support (@flozz)
  • misc!: Removed Python 3.8 support (@flozz)
• v1.2.1:
  • misc: Added missing AGPL license
• v1.2.0:
  • Fixes deployment
  • Updates dependencies
  • Adds PNG raster function in addition to PDF
• v1.1.1: Fix encoding issue when decoding URLs
• v1.1.0: Encode URL in base64 to avoid issue when used with an Nginx front
• v1.0.1: Update deploy config
• v1.0.0: Initial release