Substack to PDF Converter CLI Tool

Overview

This command-line tool converts a Substack post into a PDF file. It fetches the post content, applies custom CSS for styling (such as customizable font sizes), and then generates a PDF using wkhtmltopdf via the pdfkit library.

Objectives

• Fetch Content: Retrieve the HTML content and title from a specified Substack post.
• Custom Styling: Apply custom CSS to adjust text sizes, line height, margins, and other formatting details.
• Optional Image Removal: Provide an option to exclude images from the PDF.
• Custom Font Size: Allow users to choose between small and big font sizes.
• Flexible Output: Enable users to save the output PDF with a custom file name and location (e.g., directly to the Desktop).

Features

• CLI-Based Operation: Use command-line arguments to control the conversion process.
• Image Exclusion: Optionally remove all images from the post before conversion.
• Font Customization: Choose between predefined font size presets (small or big).
• Custom Titles: Optionally override the post's title with a custom title for both the PDF header and file name.
• Automatic Desktop Saving: If no output path is specified, the PDF is saved to the user’s Desktop with the post's title as the filename.

Requirements

• Python packages: requests, beautifulsoup4, and pdfkit
• wkhtmltopdf (Installed and available in the system PATH or specified explicitly in the code)

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   • git clone <repository-url>
   • cd <repository-folder>

2. Create a virtual environment(good practice):

   • python -m venv venv
     • source venv/bin/activate # On macOS/Linux
     • venv\Scripts\activate # On Windows

3. Install the required Python packages:

   • pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Install wkhtmltopdf:

   • https://wkhtmltopdf.org/downloads.html
   • Add wkhtmltopdf to the system PATH

5. Run the script

Usage

Export with default settings (big font with images, title taken from post name):

• python3 substack2pdf.py "https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/the-cure"

Export with custom title:

• python3 substack2pdf.py "https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/pvp" --output ~/Desktop/arthur_hayes_pvp.pdf

Export with custom title and font:

• python3 substack2pdf.py "https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/the-cure" --font-size small -o ~/Desktop/arthur_hayes_the_cure.pdf

Export without images and custom title:

• python3 substack2pdf.py "https://cryptohayes.substack.com/p/the-cure" --no-images --o ~/Desktop/no_images.pdf

Export from Medium (Cannot render images for now):

• python3 substack2pdf.py "https://ehandbook.com/teach-me-daddy-33e7a66dfe76" --medium --no-images --font-size small