The Triplicate: A Data-Driven Large-Format Newspaper Layout Engine

Abstract We present template newspaper, a pure-Python engine that renders a complete twelve-page, large-format newspaper to a print-ready PDF from structured YAML content. The exemplar edition is The Triplicate, a homage to the historic newspaper of Crescent City, California (founded 1879). The engine demonstrates designed multi-column page layout — nameplate and ears, spanning headlines, flowing column frames with an optional rail, drop caps, pull quotes, ruled modular boxes, data tables, halftone "engraving" figures and running folios — while keeping a strict separation between content (data) and engine (code): a new title is a data edit, never a code change. The layout strategy is a hybrid in which fixed furniture is drawn directly on the canvas to establish where the column grid begins, after which body copy flows through ReportLab frames that split paragraphs across columns automati