bagme - boxes and glue made easy

bagme is a PDF library to format HTML fragments styled with CSS using the (pure Go) “boxes and glue” library. boxes and glue implements TeX's typesetting algorithms, so the idea is to get superb HTML rendering with almost no effort.

The goal is to have a PDF rendering engine for your Go software without having to do a lot of programming.

Sample code

package main

import (
    "log"

    "github.com/boxesandglue/bagme/document"
    "github.com/boxesandglue/boxesandglue/backend/bag"
)

var html = `<h1>The frog king</h1>

<p>In olden times when wishing still <em>helped</em> one,
   there lived a king whose daughters were all beautiful,
   but the <span class="green">youngest</span> was so beautiful that the sun itself,
   which has seen so much, was
   <span style="font-weight: bold">astonished</span> whenever it
   shone in her face.</p>

<p>Close by the king's castle lay a great dark forest,
    and under an old lime-tree in the forest was a well,
    and when the day was very warm, the king's child
    went out into the forest and sat down by the side of
    the cool <span id="important">fountain</span>, and when she was bored she took a
    golden ball, and threw it up on high and caught it,
    and this ball was her favorite plaything.
</p>`

var css = `
body {
    font-family: serif;
    font-size: 12pt;
    line-height: 14pt;
}

p {
    margin-top: 8pt;
    margin-bottom: 2pt;
}

.green {
    color: green;
}

#important {
    color: rebeccapurple;
    font-weight: bolder;
    font-style: italic;
}`

func dothings() error {
    d, err := document.New("out.pdf")
    if err != nil {
        return err
    }
    if d.AddCSS(css); err != nil {
        return err
    }
    // loads the font families serif, sans and monospace
    if err = d.Frontend.LoadIncludedFonts(); err != nil {
        return err
    }
    wd := bag.MustSp("280pt")
    colText := bag.MustSp("140pt")
    colImage := bag.MustSp("20pt")
    rowText := bag.MustSp("23cm")
    if err = d.OutputAt(html, wd, colText, rowText); err != nil {
        return err
    }

    if err = d.OutputAt(`<img src="https://github.com/boxesandglue/bagme/raw/main/img/frogking-a.pdf" width="4cm" height="6cm">`, wd, colImage, rowText); err != nil {
        return err
    }
    return d.Finish()
}

func main() {
    if err := dothings(); err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
}

Limitations

• No automatic page breaks: you have to take care of your items on the page.
• Limited HTML/CSS support: some things are implemented, most are not.

You can take a look at the examples repository to see what is possible.

Other

Contact: gundlach@speedata.de
License: New BSD License
Status: Beta: You can try it, but expect API changes.
Mastodon: boxesandglue@typo.social