Extension:PDF Writer

MediaWiki extensions manual - list

PDF Writer Release status: beta
Implementation	Data extraction
Description	Generates PDF from single articles or collections
Author(s)	PediaPress
License	GPL
Download	http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Programming/Libraries/mwlib-43845.shtml
Example	http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Help:Collections
Check usage (experimental)

Overview

mwlib.rl is a python library for writing pdf documents from MediaWiki articles which were parsed by the mwlib library.

See this press release Wikis Go Printable for more information on this project.

No Installation required !

The PDF Writer can run standalone on a server and provide PDF generation for multiple MediaWiki instances. A server for public testing and low traffic Wikis runs at http://tools.pediapress.com .

All you need is the Collection extension which is configured to use this server by default.

Example

Solar system, example article from the English language Wikipedia, rendered as PDF using the PediaPress technology.

Technical

The PDF Writer uses the Python Reportlab libraries to generate PDF based on a DOM derived from parsing mediawiki-markup using the mwlib parser. The Collection Extension can be used to select and manage articles that shall constitute the resulting PDF.

Source

mwlib.rl is copyrighted by PediaPress and is distributed under a BSD license (see the included README.txt for details).

Install

Using easy_install

Make sure, you have the needed environment. On Debian systems:

apt-get install g++ perl python python-dev python-setuptools python-imaging python-lxml libevent-dev

Simply download and install mwlib with easy_install:

easy_install mwlib && rehash

RPM

RPM based Distros that have yum - just do : yum search mwlib , then do : yum install mwlib

fyi: mwlib has some depedencies which makes it more hard to compile from scratch.

Mailing List

We have set up a google group for discussion of mwlib.rl. You can subscribe to it via email: mailto:mwlib-subscribe@googlegroups.com.

Help Needed

Please help us translate some strings used in the generated PDF. The process of internationalisation is done at translatewiki.net. We appreciate your help there.

Programs

mwlib installs the following programs:

mw-render

generates documents in formats like PDF or ODF from MediaWiki articles

mw-zip

generates ZIP files from MediaWiki articles that contain all information to produce some output document like a PDF file

mw-serve

starts a render server that allows the Collection extension to render documents from article collections

Configuration

If your MediaWiki has the MediaWiki API enabled, you just specify the base URL of the wiki as the configuration. For example using the English Wikipedia, this

$ mw-render --config http://en.wikipedia.org/w/ --username='xxxx' --password='yyyy' --output test.pdf --writer rl Physics

will produce a PDF document containing the article Physics.

Customization

It is possible to customize the resulting PDFs - for more information check the README.rst

Other Approaches

• Extension:Pdf Book
• Extension:Pdf Export
• Extension:Wiki2LaTeX

See also

• http://code.pediapress.com
• Extension:Collection
• Extension:XML_Bridge
• Extension:OpenDocument_Export

• [1] mw-render Server Examples