#!/usr/bin/env python
# also submitted to showmecode: http://showmecode.com/code/100/
text = """
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  N  | Ambul.|Insur|Policy |         N A M E            |Gnd| Birthday | Hospital   |   Activity status /    | Arrival  | Discharge |Serv.|  DS   |DS |Tariff | CTQ |  Summ     | Summ      | Comments                           |
|     | card  |comp.|ser/num|                            |   |          |            |       Profile          |   date   |   date    |qnt. |       |typ|       |     | to pay    | to hold   |                                    |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
"""

from reportlab.lib import units, styles, pagesizes
from reportlab import platypus as pp

stylesheet = styles.getSampleStyleSheet()
codestyle = stylesheet['Code']
codestyle.fontSize = 7

class ZeroPadDocTemplate(pp.SimpleDocTemplate):
    def addPageTemplates(self, pageTemplates):
        """fix up the one and only Frame"""
        if pageTemplates:
            f = pageTemplates[0].frames[0]
            f._leftPadding = f._rightPadding = 0
            f._geom()
            f.showBoundary = 1
        pp.SimpleDocTemplate.addPageTemplates(self, pageTemplates)

def _elements(txt):
    elements = [pp.Spacer(0, units.mm)]
    for page in txt:
        elements += [pp.Preformatted(para, codestyle, dedent=6) for para in page]
        elements += [pp.PageBreak()]
    return elements

def pdfgen(txt, outname):
    elements = _elements(txt)
    pagesize = pagesizes.landscape(pagesizes.A4)
    doc = ZeroPadDocTemplate(outname, leftMargin=0, rightMargin=0, 
                               pagesize=pagesize, title=outname)
    doc.build(elements)

def main():
    data = [[text]]
    outname = "ex.pdf"
    pdfgen(data, outname)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()