A powerful Python library for creating complex visual compositions and beautifully styled images. Powered by Skia.

PicTex is a component-based graphics library that makes it easy to generate dynamic images for social media, video overlays, and digital art. It abstracts away the complexity of graphics engines, offering a declarative and chainable interface inspired by modern layout systems.

• Component-Based Layout: Compose complex visuals by nesting powerful layout primitives like Row, Column, and Image.
• Rich Styling: Gradients, multiple shadows, borders with rounded corners, and text decorations.
• Advanced Typography: Custom fonts, variable fonts, line height, alignment, and text shaping with kerning and ligatures.
• Automatic Font Fallback: Seamlessly render emojis and multilingual text.
• Flexible Output:
  • Raster: Save as PNG/JPEG/WebP, or convert to NumPy/Pillow.
  • Vector: Export to a clean, scalable SVG file with font embedding.
• High-Quality Rendering: Powered by Google's Skia graphics engine.

It is highly recommended to install PicTex in a virtual environment to avoid conflicts with system-wide packages and potential permission issues on certain operating systems like Windows.

# 1. Create and activate a virtual environment
python -m venv .venv

# On Windows:
.\.venv\Scripts\activate

# On macOS/Linux:
# source .venv/bin/activate

# 2. Install PicTex into the active environment
pip install pictex

Creating a stylized text image is as simple as building a Canvas and calling .render().

from pictex import Canvas, Shadow, LinearGradient

# 1. Create a style template using the fluent API
canvas = (
    Canvas()
    .font_family("Poppins-Bold.ttf")
    .font_size(60)
    .color("white")
    .padding(20)
    .background_color(LinearGradient(["#2C3E50", "#FD746C"]))
    .border_radius(10)
    .text_shadows(Shadow(offset=(2, 2), blur_radius=3, color="black"))
)

# 2. Render some text using the template
image = canvas.render("Hello, World! 🎨✨")

# 3. Save or show the result
image.save("hello.png")

Compose elements like Row, Column, and Text to build complex visuals. PicTex's fluent API makes styling declarative and intuitive.

from pictex import *

# 1. Build your visual components
avatar = (
    Image("avatar.png")
    .border_radius("50%")
    .background_color("silver")
    .border(3, "white")
    .box_shadows(Shadow(offset=(2, 2), blur_radius=5, color="black"))
)

user_info = Column(
    Text("Alex Doe").font_size(24).font_weight(700).color("#184e77"),
    Text("Graphic Designer").color("#edf6f9").text_shadows(Shadow(offset=(1, 1), blur_radius=1, color="black")),
).horizontal_align("center").gap(4)

# 2. Compose them in a layout container
card = (
    Column(avatar, user_info)
    .background_color(LinearGradient(["#d9ed92", "#52b69a"]))
    .border_radius(20)
    .padding(30)
    .horizontal_align("center")
    .gap(20)
)

# 3. Render and save the final image
canvas = Canvas().font_family("NataSans.ttf")
image = canvas.render(card)
image.save("profile_card.png")

PicTex 1.0's layout engine unlocks a huge range of possibilities, from social media graphics to data visualizations. We've created a collection of ready-to-run examples to showcase what you can build.

Preview	Description
	Tweet to Image Recreate the look and feel of a tweet, perfect for sharing on other social platforms. View Code »
	Data Table Generate a clean, styled table from a 2D list. Includes headers, zebra-striping, and shadows. View Code »
	Code Snippet Create beautifully syntax-highlighted images of your code snippets for tutorials or social media. View Code »

Check out the full examples directory for more!

For a complete guide on all features, from layout and the box model to advanced styling, check out our full documentation:

• Getting Started
• Core Concepts
• Styling Guide: The Box Model
• Styling Guide: Colors & Gradients
• Styling Guide: Text & Fonts

Symptom: You may notice that advanced typography features, such as font ligatures or complex scripts, do not render correctly on Windows.

Cause: This is typically caused by an incomplete installation of the skia-python dependency, where a crucial data file (icudtl.dat) required for advanced text shaping is missing. This often happens when pip installs the package in a user-level directory without administrator privileges.

Solutions:

1. (Recommended) Reinstall in a Virtual Environment: This is the safest and most reliable method to ensure a correct installation. A virtual environment does not require administrator rights and provides a clean slate.

   # If already installed, uninstall first
   pip uninstall pictex skia-python
   
   # Create and activate a new virtual environment (see installation section)
   python -m venv .venv
   .\.venv\Scripts\activate
   
   # Install PicTex again
   pip install pictex

2. Reinstall with Administrator Privileges: If you cannot use a virtual environment, running the installation from a terminal with administrator rights will allow pip to install the package correctly.

   # Open PowerShell or Command Prompt as an Administrator
   pip install --force-reinstall pictex

Contributions, issues, and feature requests are welcome! Feel free to check the issues page.

docker build -f Dockerfile.test -t pictex-test .
docker run --rm -v "$(pwd):/app" pictex-test pytest

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.