Creating PDF Documents in ASP.NET

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Introduction

This short article explains how to create PDF documents from ASP.NET web pages using this free library: http://sourceforge.net/projects/itextsharp/.

The code

First of all, I will create a simple "Hello PDF". Next, I will create a more complex PDF document with tables. To start creating PDF documents, you need to download the iTextSharp library from http://sourceforge.net/projects/itextsharp/ and reference it in your project. The PDF documents are created "on the fly" by the web page "ShowPDF.aspx". This page also does a "Response.Redirect" to the created PDF. We will first import the required namespaces:

Imports System
Imports System.IO
Imports iTextSharp.text
Imports iTextSharp.text.pdf

Next, in the Page_Load event, we find out which document was requested by the user:

Partial Class ShowPDF
   Inherits System.Web.UI.Page
   
   Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, _
             ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
      If Request.QueryString("id") = 1 Then
         ShowHello()
       Else
         ShowTable()
       End If
   End Sub
End Class

The ShowHello function creates a simple document with just one string: "Hello World", and then redirects the user to the newly created document:

Sub ShowHello()
   Dim doc As Document = New Document
   PdfWriter.GetInstance(doc, New FileStream(Request.PhysicalApplicationPath + _
                         "\1.pdf", FileMode.Create))
   doc.Open()
   doc.Add(New Paragraph("Hello World"))
   doc.Close()
   Response.Redirect("~/1.pdf")
End Sub

A more complex example

The function ShowTable is slightly more complex. It also creates a PDF document and redirects the user to it:

Sub ShowTable()
   Dim doc As Document = New Document
   PdfWriter.GetInstance(doc, New FileStream(Request.PhysicalApplicationPath + _
                         "\2.pdf", FileMode.Create))
   doc.Open()
   Dim table As Table = New Table(3)
   table.BorderWidth = 1
   table.BorderColor = New Color(0, 0, 255)
   table.Padding = 3
   table.Spacing = 1
   Dim cell As Cell = New Cell("header")
   cell.Header = True
   cell.Colspan = 3
   table.AddCell(cell)
   cell = New Cell("example cell with colspan 1 and rowspan 2")
   cell.Rowspan = 2
   cell.BorderColor = New Color(255, 0, 0)
   table.AddCell(cell)
   table.AddCell("1.1")
   table.AddCell("2.1")
   table.AddCell("1.2")
   table.AddCell("2.2")
   table.AddCell("cell test1")
   cell = New Cell("big cell")
   cell.Rowspan = 2
   cell.Colspan = 2
   cell.HorizontalAlignment = Element.ALIGN_CENTER
   cell.VerticalAlignment = Element.ALIGN_MIDDLE
   cell.BackgroundColor = New Color(192, 192, 192)
   table.AddCell(cell)
   table.AddCell("cell test2")
   doc.Add(table)
   doc.Close()
   Response.Redirect("~/2.pdf")
End Sub

Using the iTextSharp library (http://sourceforge.net/projects/itextsharp/) makes it very easy to create PDF documents from web applications.