Hello, tech enthusiasts! \ud83d\udc4b<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Have you ever tried to make an Arabic PDF with a Python PDF library? Many people try it once and never again. The letters come out separated, like “\u0645 \u0631 \u062d \u0628 \u0627” instead of “\u0645\u0631\u062d\u0628\u0627”. The words go left to right. Numbers jump to the wrong place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This happens because Arabic needs two special things. The first is shaping<\/strong>: each letter changes its form depending on its neighbours. The second is right-to-left<\/strong> (RTL) direction. Many PDF libraries do not handle these well, so you need extra packages and tricks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But there is a program that already handles Arabic perfectly: your web browser. So today we will write the report as a simple web page (HTML), and ask Chrome to print it to PDF. No tricks needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Headless Chrome<\/strong> means Chrome running with no window. It does all the work in the background. Playwright downloads its own copy of Chromium (the open source version of Chrome).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Download the Cairo font family and put Your folder should look like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two small things make the page Arabic-friendly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n We also use CSS In a Python f-string, we write The Now Playwright opens the HTML file in headless Chromium and saves a PDF. We open the file from disk, so the browser can find the Put Step 3 and Step 4 in the same file, Instead of fighting with a PDF library, you let the browser do what it already does well. Write HTML, style it with CSS, and print it with one Playwright call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next idea: use a template library like Jinja2 to fill the HTML from an Excel file, and create one PDF per customer in a loop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Learn how to make clean Arabic PDF reports by writing simple HTML and printing it with headless Chrome from Python.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,11,53,12,54],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-arabic","tag-pdf","tag-playwright","tag-python","tag-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fsaeed.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fsaeed.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fsaeed.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fsaeed.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fsaeed.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fsaeed.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73,"href":"https:\/\/fsaeed.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions\/73"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fsaeed.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fsaeed.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fsaeed.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What you need<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Step 1: Install Playwright and Chromium<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
pip install playwright\npython -m playwright install chromium<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nStep 2: Prepare the font<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Cairo-Regular.ttf<\/code> and Cairo-Bold.ttf<\/code> in a folder called fonts<\/code>, next to your script. Using a local font file is better than loading it from the internet. The PDF will look the same every time, even with no connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\nreport_project\/\n make_report.py\n fonts\/\n Cairo-Regular.ttf\n Cairo-Bold.ttf<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nStep 3: Write the HTML<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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dir=\"rtl\"<\/code> tells the browser to write from right to left.<\/li>\n\n\nlang=\"ar\"<\/code> tells it the text is Arabic.<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n@page<\/code>. CSS is the styling language of web pages, and @page<\/code> controls the printed page: its size and margins.<\/p>\n\n\n\nfrom pathlib import Path\n\nHERE = Path(__file__).parent\n\nrows = [\n (\"\u064a\u0646\u0627\u064a\u0631\", 12500),\n (\"\u0641\u0628\u0631\u0627\u064a\u0631\", 9800),\n (\"\u0645\u0627\u0631\u0633\", 14250),\n]\n\ntable_rows = \"\\n\".join(\n f\"<tr><td>{month}<\/td><td>{amount:,}<\/td><\/tr>\" for month, amount in rows\n)\n\nhtml = f\"\"\"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html dir=\"rtl\" lang=\"ar\">\n<head>\n<meta charset=\"utf-8\">\n<style>\n @font-face {{ font-family: \"Cairo\"; src: url(\"fonts\/Cairo-Regular.ttf\"); font-weight: 400; }}\n @font-face {{ font-family: \"Cairo\"; src: url(\"fonts\/Cairo-Bold.ttf\"); font-weight: 700; }}\n @page {{ size: A4; margin: 20mm 15mm; }}\n body {{ font-family: \"Cairo\", sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: #222; }}\n h1 {{ font-weight: 700; color: #1a5f7a; }}\n table {{ width: 100%; border-collapse: collapse; margin-top: 10mm; }}\n th, td {{ border: 1px solid #ccc; padding: 6px 10px; text-align: right; }}\n th {{ background: #eef5f8; }}\n .num {{ direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed; }}\n<\/style>\n<\/head>\n<body>\n <h1>\u062a\u0642\u0631\u064a\u0631 \u0627\u0644\u0645\u0628\u064a\u0639\u0627\u062a \u0627\u0644\u0634\u0647\u0631\u064a<\/h1>\n <p>\u0647\u0630\u0627 \u062a\u0642\u0631\u064a\u0631 \u062a\u062c\u0631\u064a\u0628\u064a \u064a\u0648\u0636\u062d \u0645\u0628\u064a\u0639\u0627\u062a \u0627\u0644\u0631\u0628\u0639 \u0627\u0644\u0623\u0648\u0644.<\/p>\n <table>\n <tr><th>\u0627\u0644\u0634\u0647\u0631<\/th><th>\u0627\u0644\u0645\u0628\u064a\u0639\u0627\u062a<\/th><\/tr>\n {table_rows}\n <\/table>\n <p>\u0631\u0642\u0645 \u0627\u0644\u0637\u0644\u0628: <span class=\"num\">INV-2026-0042<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body>\n<\/html>\"\"\"\n\nhtml_path = HERE \/ \"report.html\"\nhtml_path.write_text(html, encoding=\"utf-8\")<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n{{<\/code> and }}<\/code> to get normal curly brackets in the CSS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n.num<\/code> class is a small helper. It keeps mixed codes like “INV-2026-0042” in left-to-right order inside Arabic text.<\/p>\n\n\n\nStep 4: Print it to PDF<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
fonts<\/code> folder next to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\nfrom playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright\n\nwith sync_playwright() as p:\n browser = p.chromium.launch()\n page = browser.new_page()\n page.goto(html_path.resolve().as_uri())\n\n # Wait until the fonts are fully loaded before printing\n page.evaluate(\"() => document.fonts.ready.then(() => true)\")\n\n page.pdf(\n path=str(HERE \/ \"report.pdf\"),\n format=\"A4\",\n print_background=True, # keep background colours\n prefer_css_page_size=True, # use the @page settings from CSS\n )\n browser.close()\n\nprint(\"Saved report.pdf\")<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nmake_report.py<\/code>, and run it. Open report.pdf<\/code>. The letters are joined, the text flows from the right, and the table looks clean. \ud83c\udf89<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhy this is easier than PDF libraries<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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report.html<\/code> in your normal browser to check the design before printing.<\/li>\n\n\nCommon problems<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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fonts<\/code> folder sits next to report.html<\/code>, and the file names match.<\/li>\n\n\nprint_background=True<\/code>.<\/li>\n\n\n<span class=\"num\"><\/code> as shown above.<\/li>\n\n\npython -m playwright install chromium<\/code>.<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nWrap-up<\/h3>\n\n\n\n