document-builder

The document-builder.py script produces nicely formatted PDF and HTML documents from Markdown source files. It also performs various checks on the source files and facilitates the sharing of data files associated with the documents. It has an "assignment mode" that allows specially formatted Markdown documents to be parsed to generate assignment and assignment key PDFs.

Requirements

• Python 3 version 3.8 or higher
• Pandoc
• markdown-link-check
• spellchecker
• mdl

Usage

First create a virtual environment and install the required packages:

python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Create a new empty project using the create command:

python document-builder.py create -p my_project -e

This will create a new folder named my_project containing project subfolders, a configuration file, and example content (because of the -e option):

my_project/
├── build_includes
├── config
├── data
├── data_links
├── final_documents
├── html
├── logs
├── markdown
├── pdf
└── source

Simply edit the source folder to add content. Initially it contains input data for three sample documents:

└── source
    ├── document_one
    │   ├── data
    │   ├── data_not_tracked
    │   ├── document.md
    │   ├── includes
    │   └── settings.yaml
    ├── document_three
    │   ├── data
    │   ├── data_not_tracked
    │   ├── document.md
    │   ├── includes
    │   └── settings.yaml
    └── document_two
        ├── data
        ├── data_not_tracked
        ├── document.md
        ├── includes
        └── settings.yaml

Rename the document folders or add new folders to hold the documents to be processed. Each document folder must contain the following files and folders, with the names as shown:

• data - a folder of various files to be used/consumed in conjunction with the document (for example data files to be processed using commands in the document).
• data_not_tracked - a folder of additional data files. Generally this will be used for large files (e.g. larger than 50 MB). The placement of these files in a separate folder allows them to be ignored in git by adding **/data_not_tracked/ to the .gitignore file.
• document.md - the main document in Markdown format.
• includes - a folder containing any files that are to be included with or in the document. Typically this folder will contain images.
• settings.yaml - the settings for the document in YAML format. This file is used to add title, header, and footer content to the document.

With your content in place, use the process command to generate the final documents from the Markdown source files:

python document-builder.py process -c my_project/config/config.json

The final content will be written to the my_project/final_documents folder, into various subfolders:

• data - .zip files, one for each document for which content was provided in the data or data_not_tracked folders.
• html - An HTML table of contents file (index.html) with links to each HTML document (provided in separate subfolders).
• markdown - A Markdown table of contents file (README.md) with links to each Markdown document (provided in separate subfolders).
• pdf - PDF documents, one per source document.

You may want the final content to be written to folders outside of the project folder (to a Dropbox folder for example). You can edit the config.json file to set the locations of the final content. For example, to have the final documents and data written to ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/to_share you would edit config.json so that it contains the following:

• "publish_folder_data": "~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/to_share"
• "publish_folder_html": "~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/to_share"
• "publish_folder_markdown": "~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/to_share"
• "publish_folder_pdf": "~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/to_share"

Next, create the folder that will hold the final documents (if it doesn't already exist):

mkdir -p ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/to_share

Re-run the process command to generate the final documents and data files in their new locations:

python document-builder.py process -c my_project/config/config.json

As needed, add new documents to the project, or edit existing documents. You can also change the data provided in the data and data_not_tracked folders. Re-run the process command to generate the final documents with the updated content:

python document-builder.py process -c my_project/config/config.json

Only the new or changed documents will be processed. The final documents will be written to the same locations as before, overwriting the previous versions.

Whenever data files are changed, you may need to update the sharable links for the data files. See the section on sharing data files for details. Once you have updated the sharable links, re-run the process command to generate the final documents with the updated links inserted:

python document-builder.py process -c my_project/config/config.json

Sharing data files

If you place a .zip file generated by document-builder.py in a folder that is synced to a cloud storage service (e.g. Dropbox), you can create a sharable link to the file (e.g. by right-clicking on the file in the Dropbox folder and selecting "Copy Dropbox link"). You can then add the link to the corresponding .txt file in the data_to_share_links folder. The next time you re-run document-builder.py, the link for accessing the .zip file will be inserted into the appropriate document, in place of any instances of [DATA_DOWNLOAD_LINK] in the document.

Should you need to update the data provided with the document, you can modify the content in the data or data_not_tracked folders, and then re-run document-builder.py with the --data option. This will generate new .zip files again for the data folders that have been updated. You can then get the new sharable links for the updated .zip files and add them to the corresponding .txt files in the data_to_share_links folder. Re-run document-builder.py without the --data option to generate the final documents with the updated links inserted.

Alternatively, you can use the dropbox command in place of the process command to automatically upload the compressed data files and insert the shareable links in place of instances of [DATA_DOWNLOAD_LINK] in the documents. For this to work you need to have the Dropbox Python SDK installed and a Dropbox access token accessible via the DROPBOX_TOKEN_ENV_VAR environment variable.

Log files

The document-builder.py script generates log files in the logs folder, in a separate subfolder for each source document. The log files contain the results of spell checking, link checking, and Markdown linting. A timestamp file is included in each log folder to indicate when the document was last processed.

Example output

See the sample-project/final_documents folder for sample output from test data.

Assignment mode

Assignment mode (using the process command with the --assignment option) is used to generate assignment and assignment key PDFs from specially formatted Markdown documents. The markdown_assignments_for_import folder contains three sample assignment documents. The final documents generated from these files are available in the sample-project-assignment/final_documents folder. For assignment projects several PDFs are generated for each input document: a student version of the assignment, an instructor version of the assignment (i.e. with answers), and feedback files (PDFs that provide the answer for a single question).

To make use of this mode, use the following simple structure for the Markdown documents:

# Assignment 1

Content goes here, e.g. a description of the assignment.

## Question 1

### 1 mark

Question content goes here, i.e. a question.

### Answer

Answer key content goes here, i.e. the answer to the question.

## Question 2

### 2 marks

Question content goes here, i.e. a question.

### Answer

Answer key content goes here, i.e. the answer to the question.

Within each content section you can have standard Markdown content, for example code blocks and images.

The # Assignment, ## Question, and ### Answer headings are required for parsing. The "mark" headings are used to add the total marks to the output documents, beneath the "Assignment" heading. Failure to include the proper headings will lead to missing or incorrect output files.

The data sharing functionality works with assignment mode. Any instances of [DATA_DOWNLOAD_LINK] in the Markdown documents will be replaced with the sharable links for the .zip files in the data_to_share_links folder.

Example usage

Creating a project and adding documents manually

First create a new empty project:

python document-builder.py create -p my_project -e

Next add document.md files to folders in the my_project/source folder. Edit the settings.yaml files in the document folders to add title, header, and footer content to the documents. Copy data files to the data and data_not_tracked folders as needed.

Next, generate the final documents:

python document-builder.py process -c my_project/config/config.json

Creating a project and importing existing documents

First create a new empty project:

python document-builder.py create -p my_project

Import Markdown documents from a folder into the project:

python document-builder.py import -c my_project/config/config.json -m markdown_for_import

Copy data files to the data and data_not_tracked folders as needed and then generate the final documents:

python document-builder.py process -c my_project/config/config.json