Applying a background color or image to a PDF can be an effective way to enhance its visual appeal, create a professional look, or reinforce branding elements. By adding a background, you can customize the overall appearance of your PDF document and make it more engaging for readers. Whether you want to use a solid color or incorporate a captivating image, this feature allows you to personalize your PDFs and make them stand out. In this article, you will learn how to set a background color or image for a PDF document in Python using Spire.PDF for Python.
Install Spire.PDF for Python
This scenario requires Spire.PDF for Python and plum-dispatch v1.7.4. They can be easily installed in your Windows through the following pip command.
pip install Spire.PDF
If you are unsure how to install, please refer to this tutorial: How to Install Spire.PDF for Python on Windows
Set a Background Color for PDF in Python
Spire.PDF for Python offers the PdfPageBase.BackgroundColor property to get or set the background color of a certain page. To add a solid color to the background of each page in the document, follow the steps below.
- Create a PdfDocument object.
- Load a PDF file using PdfDocument.LoadFromFile() method.
- Traverse through the pages in the document, and get a specific page through PdfDocument.Pages[index] property.
- Apply a solid color to the background through PdfPageBase.BackgroundColor property.
- Save the document to a different PDF file using PdfDocument.SaveToFile() method.
- Python
from spire.pdf.common import *
from spire.pdf import *
# Create a PdfDocument object
doc = PdfDocument()
# Load a PDF file
doc.LoadFromFile("C:\\Users\\Administrator\\Desktop\\input.pdf")
# Loop through the pages in the document
for i in range(doc.Pages.Count):
# Get a particular page
page = doc.Pages[i]
# Set background color
page.BackgroundColor = Color.get_LightYellow()
# Save the document to a different file
doc.SaveToFile("output/SetBackgroundColor.pdf")

Set a Background Image for PDF in Python
Likewise, an image can be applied to the background of a specific page via PdfPageBase.BackgroundImage property. The steps to set an image background for the entire document are as follows.
- Create a PdfDocument object.
- Load a PDF file using PdfDocument.LoadFromFile() method.
- Traverse through the pages in the document, and get a specific page through PdfDocument.Pages[index] property.
- Apply an image to the background through PdfPageBase.BackgroundImage property.
- Save the document to a different PDF file using PdfDocument.SaveToFile() method.
- Python
from spire.pdf.common import *
from spire.pdf import *
# Create a PdfDocument object
doc = PdfDocument()
# Load a PDF file
doc.LoadFromFile("C:\\Users\\Administrator\\Desktop\\input.pdf")
# Loop through the pages in the document
for i in range(doc.Pages.Count):
# Get a particular page
page = doc.Pages[i]
# Set background image
page.BackgroundImage = Stream("C:\\Users\\Administrator\\Desktop\\img.jpg")
# Save the document to a different file
doc.SaveToFile("output/SetBackgroundImage.pdf")

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