rst2pdf

What it is and what it does

rst2pdf is a command-line tool and Python library that converts reStructuredText documents directly to PDF without requiring LaTeX. It uses ReportLab as its PDF generation backend, offering an alternative workflow for developers and technical writers who want to produce PDFs from plain-text markup.

The package supports a wide range of features including custom page layouts with multiple frames, cascading stylesheets, TTF and Type1 font embedding, syntax highlighting via Pygments, image embedding, and hyphenation. It integrates with Sphinx as an extension for building PDF documentation. Runtime dependencies include docutils (for RST parsing), Jinja2 (templating), Pygments (syntax highlighting), PyYAML (configuration), packaging (version handling), and ReportLab (PDF generation).

Use it for:

• Generate PDF technical documentation directly from reStructuredText source without LaTeX toolchain.
• Build PDF output in Sphinx documentation projects via the rst2pdf.pdfbuilder extension.
• Convert standalone RST files to styled PDFs with custom fonts, page layouts, and syntax-highlighted code blocks.
• Automate PDF report generation from RST templates in CI/CD pipelines.
• Create branded PDF documents with cascading stylesheets and embedded images from RST markup.

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying

Converts reStructuredText documents directly to PDF using ReportLab, bypassing LaTeX and offering customizable page layouts, styling, and embedded fonts.

Yes. rst2pdf is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, installs with low friction, and solves a real problem—direct RST-to-PDF conversion without LaTeX. It's suitable for technical documentation, Sphinx integration, and automated PDF generation workflows. The MIT license is permissive. Install it if you work with reStructuredText and need PDF output.

Install

rst2pdf on PyPI

pip install rst2pdf

uv add rst2pdf

poetry add rst2pdf

Installing rst2pdf

Before you install

Low friction install with a pure-Python wheel. Actively maintained with recent commits and no known vulnerabilities. Requires Python 3.10 or greater; version 0.105 is current as of March 2026.

License in practice

MIT license permits free use, modification, and distribution with minimal restrictions—suitable for both open-source and commercial projects.

Quickstart

pip install rst2pdf
rst2pdf input.rst output.pdf

Requires Python 3.10 or greater. Optional extras (aafiguresupport, mathsupport, plantumlsupport, rawhtmlsupport, sphinx, svgsupport) require additional dependencies.

Verify before relying

• Whether Sphinx integration requires additional configuration beyond enabling the rst2pdf.pdfbuilder extension.
• Performance characteristics when processing large or complex reStructuredText documents.
• Completeness of reStructuredText feature support compared to LaTeX-based converters.

Package facts

Evidence: rst2pdf-0.105-py3-none-any.whl

Keywords: convert, docutils, pdf, pygments, reportlab', restructured, rst

Tags

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