Question

Question : I’m generating charts using ReportLab. Charts are generated properly but into different PDF. I want to combine them into a single existing pdf.

basic structure of code is

class BreakdownPieDrawing():

    def firstChart():
        #code for generating first Pie chart

    def secondChart():
        #code for generating second Pie chart

if __name__=="__main__":   
    drawing1 = BreakdownPieDrawing()  
    drawing1.firstChart()
    drawing1.save(formats=['pdf'],outDir='.',fnRoot='first')

    drawing2 = BreakdownPieDrawing()  
    drawing2.secondChart()
    drawing2.save(formats=['pdf'],outDir='.',fnRoot='second')

for full code Snippets please refer http://www.reportlab.com/snippets/4/

This code produces two separate PDFs. How can i combine them into single PDF.

I tried this to code :

def makePdf(self,drawing):  
    doc = SimpleDocTemplate('hello.pdf')
    doc.build(drawing)

and then after I’m passing “BreakdownPieDrawing” class’s object into this method. But this approach is not working.
I’m new to reportLab and python so pardon me for such a ugly code.

So the question is how to add this charts into existing pdf. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

If you look closely at the code snippet you provided (disclaimer: I wrote 😉 ) specifically at line#33 you see

# adding a pie chart to the drawing   
self._add(self,Pie(),name='pie',validate=None,desc=None)

That lines adds the Pie chart to the drawing, you will then need to add your second chart to the same drawing you use the _add method, again like the snippet does on line#46 for adding the legend. Your drawing will have the two charts and when you save it as PDF you should get them both.