PDF and DOCX output - GrantKit Docs

grantkit build compiles your responses into one document. PDF and DOCX are optional formats behind extras.

Quick start¶

pip install "grantkit[pdf]"      # PDF (WeasyPrint)
pip install "grantkit[docx]"     # DOCX (python-docx)

grantkit build --format pdf --output proposal.pdf
grantkit build --format docx --output proposal.docx

If the extra isn’t installed, build prints an actionable message and exits with code 2 rather than a stack trace.

How it works¶

build assembles every section (in grant.yaml order) into a single styled HTML document, then renders it to PDF with WeasyPrint or to DOCX with python-docx. For plain-text portals (accepts_markdown: false) it strips Markdown so the output matches what the portal will accept.

For deep NSF PAPPG PDF compliance (embedded fonts, precise margins, separated references) the lower-level grantkit.pdf.PDFGenerator pipeline is retained and available programmatically.

Page limits¶

grantkit check flags sections whose estimated page count exceeds their page_limit (rule page_limit_estimate_exceeded). The estimate is a rough words-per-page heuristic — always confirm the exact page count in the built PDF before submitting.

Citations¶

Citations use pandoc-style [@key] syntax resolved against references.bib. grantkit check reports any [@key] with no matching entry (unresolved_citation). See Citation management.

Troubleshooting¶

WeasyPrint won’t import. WeasyPrint needs system libraries in addition to the Python package:

# macOS
brew install pango

# Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install libpango-1.0-0 libpangocairo-1.0-0

Fonts. Install standard serif fonts (e.g. fonts-cmu on Ubuntu, font-computer-modern via Homebrew) for the closest match to NSF’s expected typography.