AssignmentWriter

I hope a STAR ⭐ from you 😊.

A Python package and command line tool that writes your text on a sheet of paper, in a handwriting font and ink colour of your choice. Pick a paper, a font and an ink, and get back an image of the page(s) (in form of pdf too) - all in a few lines of code.

Installation

pip install assignmentwriter -U

Quick Start

from assignmentwriter import Assignment, AssignmentConfigOptions

config = AssignmentConfigOptions(Text="Hello World", Paper="lined", Font="caveat", Ink="blue")
result = Assignment(config).create()

result.save("page.png")  # saves the image
print(result)            # prints the saved path (if saved)

Or write a whole text file, on as many pages as it needs:

config = AssignmentConfigOptions(File="essay.txt", Paper="spiral", Ink="teal")
result = Assignment(config).create()

result.save("essay.png")      # essay_1.png, essay_2.png, ...
result.save_pdf("essay.pdf")  # or all the pages in one PDF

Previews

Paper	Font	Ink	Preview
a4	greatvibesregular	red
lined	caveat	blue
rough	caveat	blue
spiral	caveat	teal
wrinkled	caveat	purple
cream	caveat	brown

The colored papers are cream, cyan, lightblue, lightgreen, lime, orange and pink.

All 12 fonts:

Papers, fonts and inks

Option	Values
Paper	a4, lined, rough, spiral, wrinkled, cream, cyan, lightblue, lightgreen, lime, orange, pink
Font	adinekirnberg, alanishand, architex, caveat, greatvibesregular, hand_note, homemadeapple, honeyscript, jottflf, note_this, pleasewritemeasong, s_hand
Ink	blue, black, red, green, pencil, brown, purple, orange, teal, magenta, or any hex colour such as "131394"

A font can also be chosen by its number, 1 to 12, in the order shown above (Font=4 is caveat). Names are not case sensitive and spaces, dashes and underscores are ignored ("Hand Note" and "Light Green" work).

from assignmentwriter import available_fonts, available_papers, INKS

print(available_papers())  # ['a4', 'lined', 'rough', 'spiral', 'wrinkled', 'cream', 'cyan', 'lightblue', 'lightgreen', 'lime', 'orange', 'pink']
print(available_fonts())   # ['adinekirnberg', 'alanishand', 'architex', 'caveat', 'greatvibesregular', 'hand_note', 'homemadeapple', 'honeyscript', 'jottflf', 'note_this', 'pleasewritemeasong', 's_hand']
print(list(INKS))          # ['blue', 'black', 'red', 'green', 'pencil', 'brown', 'purple', 'orange', 'teal', 'magenta']

Note: alanishand draws the digits 2 and 5 very wide, so lines with those numbers can run off the page. Use another font for text with numbers.

Configuration

AssignmentConfigOptions accepts these fields:

Field	Type	Default	Description
Text	str	None	Text to write (give Text or File, not both)
File	str or Path	None	A UTF-8 text file to write instead of Text
Paper	str	"a4"	Paper to write on
Font	str	"caveat"	Handwriting font (name or number)
Ink	str	"blue"	Ink colour (name or hex)
KeepLineBreaks	bool	False	Start a new line wherever your text has one
FontSize	int	None	Override the font size
MaxLineLength	int	None	Override the number of characters per line
MarginLeft	int	None	Override the left margin (pixels)
MarginTop	int	None	Override the top margin (pixels)
MarginBottom	int	None	Override the space kept free at the bottom of each page (pixels)
LineSpacing	float	None	Override the space between lines (pixels)

The last six are None by default, which keeps the layout that is tuned for the chosen paper and font. An invalid value raises a ValueError as soon as the config is created.

By default your text is written as one paragraph, line breaks are treated as spaces. Use KeepLineBreaks=True to keep headings, lists and paragraphs on their own lines.

Text from a file

Pass the path of a UTF-8 text file as File instead of Text:

from assignmentwriter import Assignment, AssignmentConfigOptions

config = AssignmentConfigOptions(File="essay.txt", Paper="lined", Ink="black", KeepLineBreaks=True)
result = Assignment(config).create()
result.save("essay.png")

A ValueError is raised if the file cannot be read, is empty, or if you give both Text and File.

Get the tuned layout for a paper and font:

Returns a dictionary with the default layout values.

from assignmentwriter import Assignment, AssignmentConfigOptions

config = AssignmentConfigOptions(Text="Hi", Paper="lined", Font="caveat")
print(Assignment(config).get_defaults())
# {'Paper': 'lined', 'Font': 'caveat', 'FontFile': 'caveat.ttf', 'FontSize': 85,
#  'MaxLineLength': 52, 'MarginLeft': 370, 'MarginTop': 333, 'MarginBottom': 130, 'LineSpacing': 22}

Several pages

When your text is too long for one page, it continues on as many pages as it needs, so none of it is lost. A line is never split between two pages.

config = AssignmentConfigOptions(File="essay.txt", Paper="spiral")
result = Assignment(config).create()

print(len(result))            # the number of pages
result.save("essay.png")      # essay_1.png, essay_2.png, ...
result.save_pdf("essay.pdf")  # or all the pages in one PDF

AssignmentResult

Assignment.create() returns an AssignmentResult object:

result = Assignment(config).create()

bool(result)                 # False if the pages could not be created
len(result)                  # the number of pages
result.image                 # the first page as a Pillow Image
result[1]                    # the second page, `for page in result` goes through all of them
result.save()                # assignment.png, or assignment_1.png, assignment_2.png ... for several pages
result.save("out.png")       # save to a specific path (png, jpg, ...), returns the list of paths
result.save("pages/")        # save in a folder
result.save_pdf("out.pdf")   # all the pages in one PDF (as wide as an A4 sheet), returns the path
str(result)                  # the paths of the last save, one per line ("" before saving)

Each page is drawn when you ask for it, so a very long text does not keep every page in memory at once.

If anything fails, create() returns a falsy AssignmentResult and logs the error. save() and save_pdf() return None and log the error if a file cannot be written. A warning is logged if some lines run past the right edge of the page. Use a smaller FontSize / MaxLineLength.

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CLI

First, install the extra dependency for coloured output (optional, the CLI also works without it):

pip install "assignmentwriter[cli]"

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Usage

No arguments — launches an interactive prompt:

assignmentwriter

Quick create — just pass your text directly (saved as assignment.png):

assignmentwriter "Hello World"

Pick a paper, font and ink:

assignmentwriter "Hello World" --paper lined --font caveat --ink black

Save the image to a file:

assignmentwriter "Hello World" --save output.png

Write the text of a file (keep its line breaks):

assignmentwriter --file notes.txt --keep-line-breaks

Long text continues on more pages, saved as essay_1.png, essay_2.png, ... :

assignmentwriter --file essay.txt --paper spiral --save essay.png

Save all the pages as one PDF:

assignmentwriter --file essay.txt --paper spiral --pdf

Plain output (just the saved paths, no colors — useful for scripting):

assignmentwriter "Hello World" --as-text

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List

See every paper, font and ink:

assignmentwriter list

Add --as-text to get plain line-by-line output instead of a table.

On Some OS

On some operating systems, the CLI may not be available as assignmentwriter immediately after installation. If you encounter a "command not found" error, try running it with Python:

python -m assignmentwriter "Hello World"

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Fonts and papers

The code is MIT licensed, but the fonts and paper images have their own terms. See NOTICE.md for the font details.

Coffee is love, coffee is life.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome — open an issue or submit a pull request.

License

MIT © TheHritu