Show HN: SnazzyPDF – Convert Any JSON Data to Beautifully Formatted PDFs (opens in new tab)

(snazzypdf.com)

27 pointspatafemma1y ago17 comments

Hi HN,

I'm a freelance developer, and I built SnazzyPDF in my spare time to solve a problem I encountered frequently: converting structured data into PDF documents. The existing solutions I found either required manually creating a template or forced you to transform your data into a specific structure. I wanted a tool where you could simply input arbitrary JSON data and get a decent-looking document out. That's why I built SnazzyPDF.

* Works with any JSON: No need to restructure your data. SnazzyPDF handles (almost) any JSON data, including deeply nested arrays and objects.

* Use REST API or drag & drop web interface.

* Zero configuration: Convert your JSON to a finished PDF in seconds. Start simple and incrementally add customization.

* Save time: Automate PDF generation for reports, logs, or other structured data. No more manual formatting or custom export workflows.

* Free tier for testing or light use, paid plans that scale for larger needs.

I'd love to hear feedback from the HN community. Check it out, and let me know what you think! I'm happy to answer any questions. Thanks!

17 comments

xupybd1y ago

I think this is great but you might need to think about your point of difference. I suspect you have a product here but it might need some refining.

I asked Claude to create me something to do this. It worked first go.

import json from reportlab.lib.pagesizes import letter from reportlab.platypus import SimpleDocTemplate, Table, TableStyle, Paragraph from reportlab.lib.styles import getSampleStyleSheet from reportlab.lib import colors

def create_pdf_from_json(json_file, pdf_file): # Read JSON data with open(json_file, 'r') as file: data = json.load(file)

    # Create PDF document
    doc = SimpleDocTemplate(pdf_file, pagesize=letter)
    elements = []

    # Add title
    styles = getSampleStyleSheet()
    elements.append(Paragraph("JSON Data Report", styles['Title']))
    elements.append(Paragraph("\n", styles['Normal']))

    # Create table data
    table_data = [["Key", "Value"]]
    for key, value in data.items():
        table_data.append([str(key), str(value)])

    # Create table
    table = Table(table_data, colWidths=[200, 300])
    table.setStyle(TableStyle([
        ('BACKGROUND', (0, 0), (-1, 0), colors.grey),
        ('TEXTCOLOR', (0, 0), (-1, 0), colors.whitesmoke),
        ('ALIGN', (0, 0), (-1, -1), 'CENTER'),
        ('FONTNAME', (0, 0), (-1, 0), 'Helvetica-Bold'),
        ('FONTSIZE', (0, 0), (-1, 0), 14),
        ('BOTTOMPADDING', (0, 0), (-1, 0), 12),
        ('BACKGROUND', (0, 1), (-1, -1), colors.beige),
        ('TEXTCOLOR', (0, 1), (-1, -1), colors.black),
        ('ALIGN', (0, 0), (-1, -1), 'CENTER'),
        ('FONTNAME', (0, 1), (-1, -1), 'Helvetica'),
        ('FONTSIZE', (0, 1), (-1, -1), 12),
        ('TOPPADDING', (0, 1), (-1, -1), 6),
        ('BOTTOMPADDING', (0, 1), (-1, -1), 6),
        ('GRID', (0, 0), (-1, -1), 1, colors.black)
    ]))

    elements.append(table)

    # Build PDF
    doc.build(elements)

if __name__ == "__main__": create_pdf_from_json("input.json", "output.pdf")

patafemmaOP1y ago

Thanks for the feedback! You're absolutely right: simple cases like rendering lists, tables or key-value pairs are straightforward and can be done with many different tools without much effort. But the devil is in the details.

Where it gets tricky is handling more complex data structures: deeply nested objects and arrays, different date formats, varying element types and adapting the layout based on the structure. SnazzyPDF's layout engine automates those decisions. The configuration options are still limited but that's what I'm focusing on improving next.

its_down_again1y ago

That's awesome! Mind sharing the prompt you used? I'm working on something pretty similar but a little more complex—looking to convert from an Excel sheet to Markdown or JSON.

rovr1381y ago

If it was just that, I'd probably load onto a pandas df, then export the df to json. There's other ways, but this would be a simple enough way.

Check,

- https://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/reference/api/p...

Try something like,

    import pandas as pd

    file_path = 'excel_file.xlsx'
    df = pd.read_excel(file_path, sheet_name='WORKSHEET NAME')
    df.to_json('output.json', orient='records', indent=4)

xupybd1y ago

Sure, here is the prompt.

Can you write me a program that can generate formatted PDFs from JSON? Preferably using the simplest of tools

rovr1381y ago

Not really. The code, as is, doesn't run.

`data` isn't defined. It missed loading the json into it.

Edit here,

I've been testing some models today. It's a great solution, easy to fix. I like the package it chose.

My head is simply on evaluating things and code. Criticizing the model and output, not directed at you.

xupybd1y ago

It ran for me?

1 more reply

godzillabrennus1y ago

Neat but as others are saying this is for a technical audience and there is a lot of other options for this.

I could see some devs opting to use an open source software version and electing to host with your cloud hosting when devs do not want to bother keeping it securely hosted.

Small market though. Better to create a bunch of freemium sites to help normies do things with pdfs like convert them to docx or other image types… normies pay a fee to do a bunch of them, a big one, or to unlock a password protected one…

patafemmaOP1y ago

Thank you for the feedback! I agree, the niche seems pretty small. But I think there are not so many other options for this use case. At least I feel that creating a template and fitting your data into it is a different use case than throwing an arbitrary JSON against an API and getting a PDF document out straight away.

Open sourcing the project is not something that I have decided against. Maybe it could drive more adoption. I've found Chrome to be the best tool for PDF creation in this use case, so the API is actually running a pool of Chrome instances that are used for the rendering. This makes self-hosting slightly more complicated.

sylviangth1y ago

I checked it out and it looks quite cool. I’m curious what the use cases for this are beyond invoice generation?

2Gkashmiri1y ago

Is there any agpl compatible Python library or a product that creates PDF from json like this but has a wyswig PDF layout editor, like an invoice format builder ?

mstijak1y ago

CxReports is a commercial product that lets you create PDFs from JSON using a WYSIWYG editor, perfect for building invoices. It can be hosted on-premise with Docker and has a Python client library. There’s a free tier allowing 500 PDFs/year.

https://cx-reports.com/

https://cx-reports.com/templates/invoices

aszen1y ago

Yes, see https://www.reportbro.com/

aszen1y ago

Btw I'm also from kashmir, we should exchange contacts

RadiozRadioz1y ago

Looks nice, well done.

Though I worry about the narrowness and "whip-up-ability" for the price and target market. It's a small enough featureset in a domain that skews technical, many would be inclined to template an HTML table to wkhtml2pdf and call it a day. Maybe they'd open source it after. I suppose you're aiming for the people who wouldn't do that, but would still expend the effort of integrating with an external HTTP API (and paying monthly for it)

I know a measure of a project's usefulness is "if a HN commenter says they could make it in a weekend but haven't, you've got something!", so maybe I'm wrong.

P.s. 50 pages / 1Mb per PDF is ludicrously far too small for a business tier.

patafemmaOP1y ago

Thanks for the feedback! You're right, many technical users could likely roll their own solution, and for one-off projects, that's a valid approach. However, after working on this for a while, I've found that building a more generic and flexible solution is definitely not a simple task. The goal with SnazzyPDF is to hide the more complicated bits like the layout and consistent formatting of deeply nested JSON, without the need for maintenance. It's aimed for the people who value saving time over building from scratch. I know, maybe it's not really for the most hacker-minded.

Regarding the page/file size limits, that's helpful input. I have set the current limits based on my own experience but haven't had much opportunity to validate them yet. I’ll definitely take another look and try to find a good balance.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

17 comments

xupybd1y ago

I think this is great but you might need to think about your point of difference. I suspect you have a product here but it might need some refining.

I asked Claude to create me something to do this. It worked first go.

def create_pdf_from_json(json_file, pdf_file): # Read JSON data with open(json_file, 'r') as file: data = json.load(file)

    # Create PDF document
    doc = SimpleDocTemplate(pdf_file, pagesize=letter)
    elements = []

    # Add title
    styles = getSampleStyleSheet()
    elements.append(Paragraph("JSON Data Report", styles['Title']))
    elements.append(Paragraph("\n", styles['Normal']))

    # Create table data
    table_data = [["Key", "Value"]]
    for key, value in data.items():
        table_data.append([str(key), str(value)])

    # Create table
    table = Table(table_data, colWidths=[200, 300])
    table.setStyle(TableStyle([
        ('BACKGROUND', (0, 0), (-1, 0), colors.grey),
        ('TEXTCOLOR', (0, 0), (-1, 0), colors.whitesmoke),
        ('ALIGN', (0, 0), (-1, -1), 'CENTER'),
        ('FONTNAME', (0, 0), (-1, 0), 'Helvetica-Bold'),
        ('FONTSIZE', (0, 0), (-1, 0), 14),
        ('BOTTOMPADDING', (0, 0), (-1, 0), 12),
        ('BACKGROUND', (0, 1), (-1, -1), colors.beige),
        ('TEXTCOLOR', (0, 1), (-1, -1), colors.black),
        ('ALIGN', (0, 0), (-1, -1), 'CENTER'),
        ('FONTNAME', (0, 1), (-1, -1), 'Helvetica'),
        ('FONTSIZE', (0, 1), (-1, -1), 12),
        ('TOPPADDING', (0, 1), (-1, -1), 6),
        ('BOTTOMPADDING', (0, 1), (-1, -1), 6),
        ('GRID', (0, 0), (-1, -1), 1, colors.black)
    ]))

    elements.append(table)

    # Build PDF
    doc.build(elements)

if __name__ == "__main__": create_pdf_from_json("input.json", "output.pdf")

patafemmaOP1y ago

its_down_again1y ago

That's awesome! Mind sharing the prompt you used? I'm working on something pretty similar but a little more complex—looking to convert from an Excel sheet to Markdown or JSON.

rovr1381y ago

If it was just that, I'd probably load onto a pandas df, then export the df to json. There's other ways, but this would be a simple enough way.

Check,

- https://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/stable/reference/api/p...

Try something like,

    import pandas as pd

    file_path = 'excel_file.xlsx'
    df = pd.read_excel(file_path, sheet_name='WORKSHEET NAME')
    df.to_json('output.json', orient='records', indent=4)

xupybd1y ago

Sure, here is the prompt.

Can you write me a program that can generate formatted PDFs from JSON? Preferably using the simplest of tools

rovr1381y ago

Not really. The code, as is, doesn't run.

`data` isn't defined. It missed loading the json into it.

Edit here,

I've been testing some models today. It's a great solution, easy to fix. I like the package it chose.

My head is simply on evaluating things and code. Criticizing the model and output, not directed at you.

xupybd1y ago

It ran for me?

1 more reply

godzillabrennus1y ago

Neat but as others are saying this is for a technical audience and there is a lot of other options for this.

I could see some devs opting to use an open source software version and electing to host with your cloud hosting when devs do not want to bother keeping it securely hosted.

patafemmaOP1y ago

sylviangth1y ago

I checked it out and it looks quite cool. I’m curious what the use cases for this are beyond invoice generation?

2Gkashmiri1y ago

Is there any agpl compatible Python library or a product that creates PDF from json like this but has a wyswig PDF layout editor, like an invoice format builder ?

mstijak1y ago

https://cx-reports.com/

https://cx-reports.com/templates/invoices

aszen1y ago

Yes, see https://www.reportbro.com/

aszen1y ago

Btw I'm also from kashmir, we should exchange contacts

RadiozRadioz1y ago

Looks nice, well done.

I know a measure of a project's usefulness is "if a HN commenter says they could make it in a weekend but haven't, you've got something!", so maybe I'm wrong.

P.s. 50 pages / 1Mb per PDF is ludicrously far too small for a business tier.

patafemmaOP1y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse