pdfun

A pure-Rust HTML/CSS to PDF renderer with Python bindings. An alternative to WeasyPrint with zero system dependencies — no Pango, Cairo, or GObject stack to install.

Docs: thejchap.github.io/pdfun · Parity matrix: docs/PARITY.md · Issues: GitHub

Install

With uv:

uv add pdfun

Or with pip:

pip install pdfun

Python 3.12+. Wheels are published for Linux (x86_64), macOS (arm64), and Windows (x86_64) — no system libraries to install. See Getting Started for uvx / pipx one-shot usage and upgrade commands.

Quick Start

HTML to PDF

from pdfun import HtmlDocument

doc = HtmlDocument(string="""
<style>
  body { font-family: sans-serif; margin: 2cm; }
  h1 { color: navy; }
</style>
<h1>Hello, pdfun!</h1>
<p>A pure-Rust HTML/CSS to PDF renderer.</p>
""")
doc.write_pdf("output.pdf")

Layout API

from pdfun import PdfDocument, Layout, TextRun

doc = PdfDocument()
layout = Layout(doc)
layout.add_text("Hello, world!", font_size=24.0, spacing_after=12.0)
layout.add_paragraph(runs=[
    TextRun("Bold text", font_name="Helvetica-Bold"),
    TextRun(" and normal text."),
])
layout.finish()
doc.save("output.pdf")

CLI

pdfun render input.html -o output.pdf

More runnable examples live in examples/.

Features

• CSS 2.1 box model: margins, padding, borders, border-radius, box-sizing
• Selectors: type, class, id, descendant, child, adjacent-sibling, attribute, ::before / ::after
• Typography: font-family (14 built-in PDF fonts), font-weight, font-style, line-height, letter-spacing, text-align, text-decoration
• Colors: named, #rgb/#rrggbb/#rrggbbaa, rgb()/rgba(), hsl()/hsla()
• Paged media: @page, page-break-*, orphans, widows, @media print, @import
• Layout: float, clear, overflow, position: relative, display: block | inline | inline-block | list-item | none
• Backgrounds: background-color, background-image: url(...) with repeat / size / position
• Tables, lists, images (PNG/JPEG), auto-generated Table of Contents (toc=True)
• calc() expressions in lengths

See CSS Support for the full list including pitfalls, and docs/PARITY.md for the auto-generated per-behavior status.

Status

~114 of 133 tracked CSS behaviors implemented. Non-goals for now: flexbox, grid, @font-face / custom fonts, position: absolute/fixed, SVG, PDF encryption. The parity matrix is the authoritative list and is regenerated by CI from tools/parity/catalog.toml + inline # spec: markers in tests.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the local dev loop, commit conventions, and the stacked-PR workflow.