So yeah, I was wrestling with PDF reports again. Needed to add some charts for monthly stats because boss said plain numbers ain’t cutting it. Total nightmare at first, lemme tell ya.
The Dumb Idea Phase
Started by trying to export Excel charts straight into PDF. Looked perfect in the spreadsheet, right? Hit print-to-PDF and poof – alignment completely busted. Labels overlapping, legends chopped off. Useless. Took screenshots instead, pasted into Word doc. Still looked like garbage when saved as PDF. Pixelated mess.
Google Rabbit Hole Time
Got desperate, searched something like “stick charts in pdf without crying”. Found people yakking about Python libraries. Grabbed my dusty old Jupyter notebook from last year’s data cleanup project. Installed some package called PyPDF2 or whatever. Docs said “just draw the chart with matplotlib and slap it on page 17” – easy peasy? Ha.
- First attempt crashed ’cause I forgot numpy existed
- Second try made the chart, but it sat in the corner like a shy kid at a dance
- Fonts came out all jagged. Seriously, looked like ransom note scribbles
Wasted two hours resizing boxes and adjusting DPI settings. Coffee went cold. Dog gave me the “play with me or else” stare.
The “Good Enough” Solution
Finally stumbled on this library called ReportLab. Actually built for PDF generation. Wild concept! Made a new Python script from scratch:
- Built a fake data table with random sales numbers
- Used matplotlib to make a clean bar chart (simple is better, trust me)
- Drew the chart as an image
- Laid out a PDF page with ReportLab – header, paragraph of nonsense, then BAM, slapped the chart below
Ran the script holding my breath. Opened the PDF… actually looked semi-professional! Charts sat where they were supposed to. Colors didn’t bleed. Victory dance commenced. Dog got extra treats.
Reality Check Though
Still ain’t perfect. Tried adding fancy pie charts next week. Legends still escape their boxes sometimes. Spent another evening swearing at font embedding issues. Boss don’t care about the screaming behind the scenes though – just sees nice pictures in his reports now. Might tweak it next quarter… or might not. It works when the coffee’s hot. Ship it.
