Tables

Tables can be built either using cells or with write_html.

Using cells

There is a method to build tables allowing for multilines content in cells:

from fpdf import FPDF

data = (
    ("First name", "Last name", "Age", "City"),
    ("Jules", "Smith", "34", "San Juan"),
    ("Mary", "Ramos", "45", "Orlando"),
    ("Carlson", "Banks", "19", "Los Angeles"),
    ("Lucas", "Cimon", "31", "Saint-Mahturin-sur-Loire"),
)

pdf = FPDF()
pdf.add_page()
pdf.set_font("Times", size=10)
line_height = pdf.font_size * 2.5
col_width = pdf.epw / 4  # distribute content evenly
for row in data:
    for datum in row:
        pdf.multi_cell(col_width, line_height, datum, border=1,
                new_x="RIGHT", new_y="TOP", max_line_height=pdf.font_size)
    pdf.ln(line_height)
pdf.output('table_with_cells.pdf')

Using write_html

An alternative method using fpdf.HTMLMixin, with the same data as above, and column widths defined as percent of the effective width:

from fpdf import FPDF, HTMLMixin

class PDF(FPDF, HTMLMixin):
    pass

pdf = PDF()
pdf.set_font_size(16)
pdf.add_page()
pdf.write_html(
    f"""<table border="1"><thead><tr>
    <th width="25%">{data[0][0]}</th>
    <th width="25%">{data[0][1]}</th>
    <th width="15%">{data[0][2]}</th>
    <th width="35%">{data[0][3]}</th>
</tr></thead><tbody><tr>
    <td>{'</td><td>'.join(data[1])}</td>
</tr><tr>
    <td>{'</td><td>'.join(data[2])}</td>
</tr><tr>
    <td>{'</td><td>'.join(data[3])}</td>
</tr><tr>
    <td>{'</td><td>'.join(data[4])}</td>
</tr></tbody></table>""",
    table_line_separators=True,
)
pdf.output('table_html.pdf')

Note that HTMLMixin has some limitations, notably regarding multi-lines cells.

Recipes

• our 5th tutorial provides examples on how to build tables: Tuto 5 - Creating Tables
• @bvalgard wrote a custom table() method: YouTube video - source code

Repeat table header on each page

The following recipe demonstrates a solution to handle this requirement:

from fpdf import FPDF

TABLE_COL_NAMES = ("First name", "Last name", "Age", "City")
TABLE_DATA = (
    ("Jules", "Smith", "34", "San Juan"),
    ("Mary", "Ramos", "45", "Orlando"),
    ("Carlson", "Banks", "19", "Los Angeles"),
    ("Lucas", "Cimon", "31", "Angers"),
)

pdf = FPDF()
pdf.add_page()
pdf.set_font("Times", size=16)
line_height = pdf.font_size * 2
col_width = pdf.epw / 4  # distribute content evenly

def render_table_header():
    pdf.set_font(style="B")  # enabling bold text
    for col_name in TABLE_COL_NAMES:
        pdf.cell(col_width, line_height, col_name, border=1)
    pdf.ln(line_height)
    pdf.set_font(style="")  # disabling bold text

render_table_header()
for _ in range(10):  # repeat data rows
    for row in TABLE_DATA:
        if pdf.will_page_break(line_height):
            render_table_header()
        for datum in row:
            pdf.cell(col_width, line_height, datum, border=1)
        pdf.ln(line_height)

pdf.output("table_with_headers_on_every_page.pdf")

Note that if you want to use multi_cell() method instead of cell(), some extra code will be required: an initial call to multi_cell with split_only=True will be needed in order to compute the number of lines in the cell.