I've been asked to automate the exporting of metadata from ESRI feature classes into .pdf files. We don't want the .xml files, rather a .pdf version of what you see in the Description panel in Catalog. Manually we can achieve this by using the print button in the description panel tools and then using the cutepdf print drive. But I don't see a print option for metadata in ArcPy, all I see are options for exporting to .xml files.
In ArcObjects the IGxView object which looks like it could do what I need.
Is there a way to do what I want in ArcPy or should I use ArcObjects and its IGxView instead?
Best Answer
@dvdhns suggestions, are what you should do.
However you don't need to write a xslt for html conversion because Esri has done this for you. see this code snippet:
This code converts your table/Layer metadata directly to html. (You don't need to convert it to a standalone xml file)
Afterward, use this python library to convert formatted HTMLs to pdf.