How to put a PNG image into a table, using an IO buffer?

[eabase]

Ok, these are really 2 questions:

• 1. How can I put multiple PNG images into a table, in lets say a (10 rows x 5 columns)?
• 2. How can I get the image from an IO buffer?

---

Using segno I can create a PNG IO buffer like this:

qrcode  = segno.make(str(i), micro=False, mode=qr_mode)
buff = io.BytesIO()
qrcode.save(buff, kind='png', **qr_args)
buff_val = str(buff.getvalue())

Your documentation for image() say to use:

def image(self, name, x=None, y=None, w=0, h=0, type='', link='', title=None, alt_text=None, dims=None) 

name
either a string representing a file path to an image, an URL to an image, an io.BytesIO, or a instance of PIL.Image.Image

But I am not able to get this to work.

---

UPDATE
I managed to get the image from the buffer, but I am not able to get the image into a table cell.

[Lucas-C]

Hi @eabase!
Glad that you found how to insert an image from an IO buffer, well done.

There is an example of putting images side by side in a table using write_html() there:
https://github.com/PyFPDF/fpdf2/blob/2.6.1/test/html/test_html.py#L285

Does that help you doing what you want?

This project being based on volunteering, if you want you can submit a Pull Request to also add an example in our documentation 😊
A good place to add a section about this could be https://github.com/PyFPDF/fpdf2/blob/master/docs/Images.md

[eabase]

Hi @Lucas-C
Thanks for the feedback.

Does that help you doing what you want?

Unfortunately not, as I have no need or intention to use HTML.

What I need is a simple example for generating 4-6 columns, in which every other has a QR code, like this:

#	QR	#	QR
1	<QR image1>	2	<QR image2>
55	<QR image3>	404	<QR image4>

PS. All QR images are square and of equal size, and possibly with some additional padding between columns, perhaps via an empty column.

[Lucas-C]

Hi @eabase!

Currently, fpdf2 main FPDF class does not have a table() method.
Several users asked for it, so I'm seriously considering implementing it in the library.
I'm think of something like this:

from fpdf import FPDF

pdf = FPDF()
with pdf.table() as table:
    table.set_col_widths(...)  # optional
    with table.row() as row:
        row.cell(...)  # or row.image(...)

For now, we only have a list of useful recipes in our documentation: https://pyfpdf.github.io/fpdf2/Tables.html#recipes
You can for example try @bvalgard create_table() method: https://github.com/bvalgard/create-pdf-with-python-fpdf2/blob/main/create_table_fpdf2.py It may not support images though.

You can also easily achieve your goal using write_html():

from fpdf import FPDF

pdf = FPDF()
pdf.add_page()
IMG_URL = "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/61/QR_deWP.svg/270px-QR_deWP.svg.png"
pdf.write_html(f"""
  <table>
    <thead>
      <tr>
        <th width="10%">#</th>
        <th width="40%">QR</th>
        <th width="10%">#</th>
        <th width="40%">QR</th>
      </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
      <tr>
        <td>1</td>
        <td><img src="{IMG_URL}"></td>
        <td>2</td>
        <td><img src="{IMG_URL}"></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td>55</td>
        <td><img src="{IMG_URL}"></td>
        <td>404</td>
        <td><img src="{IMG_URL}"></td>
      </tr>
    </tbody>
  </table>
""")
pdf.output("issue_680.pdf")

Does that answer your initial questions?

[eabase]

Hi @Lucas-C
Again thanks so much for trying to help.
A native Table implementation would be fantastic!

As for the 2nd option of using HTML, that is an absolute no-go, as I have 100's of rows, and really really don't want to see any HTML, anywhere! 😱 👹

[Lucas-C]

I'm closing this issue in favour of #701,
as I don't see how to better answer the initial questions / need of @eabase here

[eabase]

@Lucas-C
Hi Lucas,
Thank you so much for the rapid development and listening to our issues. 💯
I see the PR 701 is still open, so is this ready to be used yet?

Then, given your sample snippet above, how could I put this to practical use?
(What should I replace the ... with?)

---

OMG! I just found PR #703 ❤️
With new docs here
Wow, that is awesome!

[Lucas-C]

@eabase : you should be able to test PR #701 by installing fpdf2 from the table branch of this repo:

pip install git+https://github.com/PyFPDF/fpdf2.git@table

I'd be happy to have your feedbacks in #701, once you have tested the table() method 😊