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PDF export customization
This How-to applies to: 2.0
PDF export first appeared in the 2.0 version, so there will be rough edges. Things that Zest software needed to customize for their initial customer (which should not end up in the generic product) have been made customizable. This means that the most common customizations ought to be possible; there will be room for improvement.
The initial version of the code was copied from Philipp von Weitershausen's "web component development with zope 3" book.
Customization is done entirely through zope3 utilities. The realestatebroker code queries for utilities implementing a certain interface and call the utility if found. Otherwise the defaults apply.
In your own product, add a snippet like this to your configure.zcml:
<utility component=".layout.modify_stylesheet"
provides="collective.realestatebroker.pdf.interfaces.IStyleModifier"/>
and, for this example snippet, provide a layout.py with a modify_stylesheet() method.
Style modification
Use an IStyleModifier utility to provide a method that accepts the existing stylesheet as a parameter and that returns it (modified or not). Within that method you can change or add to the provided styles.
Page layout
If an IHeaderAndFooter utility is provided it is called with the reportlab canvas and document as parameters. This way you can add headers and footers and other generic page components.
Front page
To replace the default front page, provide a IFrontPage utility. It gets passed the current context, request and style. Whatever the utility returns is added to the output instead of the default front page.
Back matter
The back matter is handled like the front page, but with a IBackMatter utility. The difference is that there's no default back matter, so everything is just appended to the end of the PDF. Good for inserting address information, listing disclaimers, etc.
Fonts
As an example, luxi sans fonts have been included. Use an IStyleModifier utility to add mappings and to change the styles to use those fonts. With fonts you ought to be real careful of copyrights and licenses, btw.
The Luxi TrueType fonts (luxis*.ttf) provided in this package are Copyright (c) 2001 by Bigelow & Holmes Inc. See COPYRIGHT.BH for further information.
Editor note
Note: this is the pdf/README.txt inside the realestatebroker product. So don't edit it directly on plone.org, but in svn.
