How to add image to PDF file in Python?

Question

I have a PDF document but I must put my own image on it. It's an official document and I must apply an image with the text "example" to the whole page.

Is there any way to solve this problem in python?

(text in the document is curves)

Answer 1

If you're here from Google, PyPDF has been replaced by PyPDF2. The syntax has changed somewhat.

import PyPDF2 as pypdf

with open("original.pdf", "rb") as inFile, open("overlay.pdf", "rb") as overlay:
    original = pypdf.PdfFileReader(inFile)
    background = original.getPage(0)
    foreground = pypdf.PdfFileReader(overlay).getPage(0)

    # merge the first two pages
    background.mergePage(foreground)

    # add all pages to a writer
    writer = pypdf.PdfFileWriter()
    for i in range(original.getNumPages()):
        page = original.getPage(i)
        writer.addPage(page)

    # write everything in the writer to a file
    with open("modified.pdf", "wb") as outFile:
        writer.write(outFile)

Answer 2

Look into PyPDF. You might use something like the following code to apply an overlay:

page = PdfFileReader(file("document.pdf", "rb")).getPage(0)
overlay = PdfFileReader(file("overlay.pdf", "rb")).getPage(0)
page.mergePage(overlay)

Put any overlay you want, including "Example", into overlay.pdf. Personally, I prefer PDFTK, which, while not strictly Python, can be invoked from a script with os.system(command).