Question

I’ve created a template which renders pdf files from csv input. However, when the csv input fields contain user formatting, with line breaks and indentations, it messes with the rst2pdf formatting engine. Is there a way to consistently deal with user input in a way that doesn’t break the document flow, but also maintains the formatting of the input text? Example script below:

from mako.template import Template
from rst2pdf.createpdf import RstToPdf

mytext = """This is the first line
Then there is a second
Then a third
   This one could be indented

I'd like it to maintain the formatting."""

template = """
My PDF Document
===============

It starts with a paragraph, but after this I'd like to insert `mytext`. 
It should keep the formatting intact, though I don't know what formatting to expect.

${mytext}

"""

mytemplate = Template(template)
pdf = RstToPdf()
pdf.createPdf(text=mytemplate.render(mytext=mytext),output='foo.pdf')

I have tried adding the following function in the template to insert | at the start of each line, but that doesn’t seem to work either.

<%!
def wrap(text):
    return text.replace("\\n", "\\n|")
%>

Then ${mytext} would become |${mytext | wrap}. This throws the error:

<string>:10: (WARNING/2) Inline substitution_reference start-string without end-string.

Answer 1

Actually it turns out I was on the right track, I just needed a space between the | and the text. So the following code works:

from mako.template import Template
from rst2pdf.createpdf import RstToPdf

mytext = """This is the first line
Then there is a second
Then a third
    How about an indent?

I'd like it to maintain the formatting."""

template = """
<%!
def wrap(text):
    return text.replace("\\n", "\\n| ")
%>

My PDF Document
===============

It starts with a paragraph, but after this I'd like to insert `mytext`. 
It should keep the formatting intact.

| ${mytext | wrap}

"""

mytemplate = Template(template)
pdf = RstToPdf()
#print mytemplate.render(mytext=mytext)
pdf.createPdf(text=mytemplate.render(mytext=mytext),output='foo.pdf')