Using ArcPy and Python to export Table View as PDF format?

Question

I am using ArcPy to select from a layer and display the result on map as a table view.

Now I want to export the table view as a PDF format.

Anybody know about it?

If it is beyond ArcPy to export as PDF directly, with intermediate format also welcome.

Answer 1

You may be able to put something together with ReportLab. There is a sample script that uses ReportLab to make a set of page indexes for a mapbook on arcgis.com that may be useful as a reference.

Answer 2

For both (2) and (3), arcpy.TableToTable_conversion() is what you're looking for. You can export the selected attribute table records of the feature layer in (1) to a geodatabase or the in_memory workspace (from where it can be added to the ArcMap document), and subsequently export either that table or the original selection on the feature layer to the output format of your choice.

Exporting a table to PDF is not an option with any part of arcpy that I'm aware of.

Answer 3

I have done something similar using both what was suggested by @nmpeterson and @Jason, here is a basic Platypus (ReportLab) sample with a table:

from reportlab.platypus import SimpleDocTemplate, Paragraph, Spacer, Table, TableStyle
from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet
from reportlab.rl_config import defaultPageSize
from reportlab.lib.units import inch
from reportlab.lib import colors

import arcpy

PAGE_HEIGHT=defaultPageSize[1]
PAGE_WIDTH=defaultPageSize[0]
styles = getSampleStyleSheet()
Title = "Table"
pageinfo = "Table example"

def myFirstPage(canvas, doc):
    canvas.saveState()
    canvas.setFont('Times-Bold',16)
    canvas.drawCentredString(PAGE_WIDTH/2.0, PAGE_HEIGHT-108, Title)
    canvas.setFont('Times-Roman',9)
    canvas.drawString(inch, 0.75 * inch,"First Page / %s" % pageinfo)
    canvas.restoreState()

def myLaterPages(canvas, doc):
    canvas.saveState()
    canvas.setFont('Times-Roman', 9)
    canvas.drawString(inch, 0.75 * inch,"Page %d %s" % (doc.page, pageinfo))
    canvas.restoreState()

def go():

    # Convert your table to an array with whatever method works best for you
    dataDic = tableToDic(tablePath)
    columnName = dataDic.keys()
    dataArray = dicToArray(dataDic)

    # Create the ReportLab document
    doc = SimpleDocTemplate("helloTable.pdf")

    # Create the table element with whatever parameters suit you best
    Story = [Spacer(1,2*inch)]
    style = styles["Normal"]
    dataArray = tableArray
    width = len(columnNames)
    dataArray.insert(0, columnNames)
    cellWidth = [7 * inch / width for i in columnNames]
    table = Table(dataArray, cellWidth)
    table.setStyle(TableStyle([
        ('BACKGROUND', (0, 0), (-1, 0), colors.grey),
        ('GRID',(0,0),(-1,-1),0.5,colors.black),
    ]))

    # Generate the document
    Story.append(table)
    doc.build(Story, onFirstPage=myFirstPage, onLaterPages=myLaterPages)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    go()

About the "convert the table to an array" part, it depends on what ArcGIS version you are using. I have discussed a similar issue on the thread : Is it a bad idea to convert a File Geodatabase table to a dictionary? If you are using ArcGIS 10.1+, you can use nmpeterson's make_attribute_dict function and customize it to make an array instead of a dictionary. If you're using an older version, I can give you some other pieces of code to convert your tables to a dictionary/array. If you use the table to dictionary function such as, you can also use the following line to convert the dictionary to an array:

tableArray = [tuple(tableDic[key]) for key in tableDic.iterkeys()]

Of course you can always turn things around to work directly with arrays.