How to change text/font color in reportlab.pdfgen

Question

I want to use a different color of text in my auto-generated PDF.

According to the reportlab docs all I need to do is:

self.canvas.setFillColorRGB(255,0,0)
self.canvas.drawCentredString(...)

But that doesn't do anything. The text is black no matter what.

Answer 1

If you copy and paste the code in User Guide Section 2. You'll get a fancy coloured rectangle with a coloured Text within it. Probably the approach is not that clear in the user guide, I'd spent some time playing with it and I finally know how it works.

You need to imagine yourself drawing a canvas. You need to do all the setup before you draw. Below is an example I prepared to show better how to style a text, draw a line, and draw a rectangle, all with the ability to put colour on them.

from reportlab.pdfgen import canvas

def hello(c):
    from reportlab.lib.units import inch

    #First Example
    c.setFillColorRGB(1,0,0) #choose your font colour
    c.setFont("Helvetica", 30) #choose your font type and font size
    c.drawString(100,100,"Hello World") # write your text

    #Second Example
    c.setStrokeColorRGB(0,1,0.3) #choose your line color
    c.line(2,2,2*inch,2*inch)

    #Third Example
    c.setFillColorRGB(1,1,0) #choose fill colour
    c.rect(4*inch,4*inch,2*inch,3*inch, fill=1) #draw rectangle

c = canvas.Canvas("hello.pdf")

hello(c)
c.showPage()
c.save()