How can I use LaTeX from Python.

PyTeX is an Open Source project allowing to use TeX from within Python.

While I love LaTeX, you probably don't want or need TeX to solve your problem. Check out ReportLab Toolkit

PyX is a useful package if you want graphs and charts.

Where does the data for the PDF you want to generate come from? A database?

I ask because (despite being a big Python fan) I once used PHP to generate a latex file with data populated from a database (this was for a very small conference proceedings). It's a bit messy, but works reasonably well; you can easily intermingle PHP code which pulls from the database with latex source, in the same way that you can mix PHP with HTML. Then just compile the resulting latex file to get a PDF.

Depending on what you want to do, Sphinx may suit you. I think its the best Python-based tool for technical documentation, and it supports restructured text.

Depending on exactly what you want to do, you may want to take a look at plasTeX. It's a python version of the TeX engine. It's not a true LaTeX interpreter, but if you have control over the input format of the documents then it could be possible to write them in such a manner that plasTeX can render them. At present, it renders the document to XHTML.

So if you wanted web-viewable copies, you could have it so that your documents were sufficiently simple that plasTeX can read them, then use plasTeX for XHTML-rendering and call pdflatex externally for PDF.

This question should be closed because it actually has nothing to do with LaTeX and is more suited for StackOverflow. In any case the answer is that just like with HTML the best way is to use a templating system like Jinja2 and just output a LaTeX file. Once you have a LaTeX file simply use the subprocess module to run pdflatex (obviously you need it installed on your server). Don't forget to use the "-interaction nonstopmode" flag. I could go into technical details but again it's really more suited for a different site.

Is this what you're asking about? ( I used TeX to save code-space, but LaTeX is the same). If it is the what you're asking about, and you cut and paste this example, make sure the indents are correct after the paste.

#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys, os, os.path
filename = sys.argv[1]
opfile = sys.argv[1] + '.tex'
outfile = open(opfile, 'w')
pageAry = []
def a_tex_file(title):
    global pageAry
    pageAry.append('vskip2emnfonttitlefont=cmr12 at 14.4ptnfontdefault=cmr12n')
    pageAry.append('deftoday{January 21, 2011}n')
    pageAry.append('centerline{titlefont ' + title + '}nvskip5ptnvskip5ptcenterline{default blahblahblah}n')
    pageAry.append('nbye')
return 1

a_tex_file("blunk")

for i in pageAry:
    outfile.writelines(i)
outfile.close()
os.system('tex '+ opfile)
os.system('xdvi ' + filename + '.dvi & ')

check latexmake. It allows easily to create your pdf files with python.

Bit late for an answer, but would like to share my experience. I had a similar problem. Basically needed to get output from Python application in pdf form. Had a look at various alternatives

1. Jinja2
2. Reportlab
3. Pollyreports
4. As well as the options listed above

Eventually I settled on using Latex. Basically just wrote a small class that assembled my elements into a tex file and then ran pdflatex on the generated tex file. Other options had a lot of control, but tex already has great formatting predefined and I just needed a professional container for my figures and tables.

Recently I've written a library exactly for this purpose. It supports tables, plots, matrices and more. https://github.com/JelteF/PyLaTeX

If you want to convert a web page into a pdf, maybe the better way is using the python-pisa package, perform a direct conversion, I used it in a django projects for this purpose.

For folks interested in a newer solution, I also ran into this problem and coded up a workaround. Repo has more information: (py2tex)

Basically, you surround your Python code with ? tags. Anything you print inside these tags is inserted into your final tex file! For example:

documentclass{article}
begin{document}

?
print('Python textrightarrow LaTeX!')
?

end{document}

becomes:

documentclass{article}
begin{document}

Python textrightarrow LaTeX!


end{document}

All you need to do is run the py2tex.py utility from the linked GitHub repo. Alternatively, you can hook into it from latexmk using a custom dependency (instruction for this also in the git repo).

This tool saved me a lot of time and heartache. I hope you like it!