Click here to Skip to main content
15,867,686 members
Articles / Programming Languages / C#
Article

Gios PDF .NET library

Rate me:
Please Sign up or sign in to vote.
4.89/5 (157 votes)
18 Apr 2005LGPL32 min read 2.2M   13.1K   558   358
A .NET library for generating impressive PDF reports.

Image 1

Introduction

This article describes how to use the Gios Pdf.NET open source library, a complete object-oriented .NET library for generating impressive reports with few lines of code.

Background

I started writing this library because I really couldn’t find a good C# library for exporting my reports. When you open a PDF document with Notepad to find out if it’s possible to edit it… well… you change your mind!

...But if you download the PDF format specifications from Adobe’s official site… you can demystify everything!

In this article, it’s not my intention to teach “how to write a clone of my library” but “how to use it” … By the way, if you want to try to write your own library… try it: it’s not impossible and it's a good (and difficult!) exercise!

Using the code

Start instantiating the document with a new PdfDocument object. Remember to set the document format. In this case we specify width and height in centimeters. Document format is provided by the PdfDocumentFormat class:

C#
PdfDocument myPdfDocument = 
  new PdfDocument(PdfDocumentFormat.InCentimeters(21,29.7));

Now we create a table of 100 lines, 6 columns and 4 points of padding:

C#
PdfTable myPdfTable = 
  myPdfDocument.NewTable(new Font("Verdana",12),200,6,4);

Importing data from the datatables... (also column names for the headers!):

C#
myPdfTable.ImportDataTable(Table);

Set the format for correct date-time representation:

C#
myPdfTable.Columns[2].SetContentFormat("{0:dd/MM/yyyy}");

Now we set our Graphic Design: Colors and Borders...

C#
myPdfTable.HeadersRow.SetColors(Color.White,Color.Navy);
myPdfTable.SetColors(Color.Black,Color.White,Color.Gainsboro);
myPdfTable.SetBorders(Color.Black,1,BorderType.CompleteGrid);

With just one method, we can set the proportional width of the columns. It's a "percentage like" assignment, but the sum can be different from 100.

C#
myPdfTable.SetColumnsWidth(new int[]{5,25,16,20,20,15});

You can also set colors for a range of cells, in this case, a row:

C#
myPdfTable.Rows[7].SetColors(Color.Black,Color.LightGreen);

Now we set some alignment... for the whole table and then, for a column:

C#
myPdfTable.SetContentAlignment(ContentAlignment.MiddleCenter);                      
myPdfTable.Columns[1].SetContentAlignment(ContentAlignment.MiddleLeft);

This is the most important feature of the library: each page generated by the table can be managed in all the details:

C#
while (!myPdfTable.AllTablePagesCreated)
{
    // we create a new page to put the generation of the new TablePage:

    PdfPage newPdfPage=myPdfDocument.NewPage();
    PdfTablePage newPdfTablePage = 
      myPdfTable.CreateTablePage(new PdfArea(myPdfDocument,48,120,500,670));

    // we also put a Label 
 
    PdfTextArea pta=new PdfTextArea(new Font("Verdana",26, FontStyle.Bold), 
      Color.Red, new PdfArea(myPdfDocument,0,20,595,120), 
      ContentAlignment.MiddleCenter,"Contact List");

    // nice thing: we can put all the objects
    // in the following lines, so we can have
    // a great control of layer sequence... 

    newPdfPage.Add(newPdfTablePage);
    newPdfPage.Add(pta);

    // Now we create a loop for serching for people born in 1968. If we find
    // one, we will draw a circle over
    // the birthday cell. This is possible using the
    // the CellArea, that is the Area occupied by a rasterized Cell.
 
    for (int index=newPdfTablePage.FirstRow;index<=newPdfTablePage.LastRow;index++)
       if (((DateTime)myPdfTable.Rows[index][2].Content).Year==1968)
       {
          PdfCircle pc=newPdfTablePage.CellArea(index,2).InnerCircle(Color.Blue,2);
          pc.StrokeWidth=3.5;
          newPdfPage.Add(pc);
       }

    // we save each generated page before start rendering the next.
    newPdfPage.SaveToDocument();

}

At last... remember to save the document!

C#
myPdfDocument.SaveToFile("Example1.pdf");

And this is the result:

Image 2

Remember, you can also output the PDF to a generic Stream. These are the lines for a Web Response:

C#
Response.ClearHeaders();
Response.AppendHeader("Content-disposition", 
   string.Format("attachment;filename={0}","Report.pdf"));
Response.ContentType="application/pdf"; 
myPdfDocument.SaveToStream(Response.OutputStream);
Response.End();

History

  • April 18, 2005 - Initial release.

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPLv3)


Written By
Web Developer
Italy Italy
Freelance software ASPNET / C# Software Developer

I live in Torino, Italy

my homepage is: http://www.paologios.com

Comments and Discussions

 
Generalwmf Pin
killminusnine24-May-05 0:46
killminusnine24-May-05 0:46 
GeneralRe: wmf Pin
infal10-Jun-05 3:21
infal10-Jun-05 3:21 
GeneralRe: wmf Pin
killminusnine12-Jun-05 22:33
killminusnine12-Jun-05 22:33 
GeneralRe: wmf Pin
infal14-Jun-05 1:53
infal14-Jun-05 1:53 
GeneralRe: wmf Pin
killminusnine15-Jun-05 4:21
killminusnine15-Jun-05 4:21 
GeneralRe: wmf Pin
infal15-Jun-05 5:32
infal15-Jun-05 5:32 
GeneralCannot Open Pin
kmchong23-May-05 1:00
kmchong23-May-05 1:00 
GeneralRe: Cannot Open Pin
Paolo Gios23-May-05 1:07
Paolo Gios23-May-05 1:07 
Hello,

it's strange beacause each example solution starts without problem... maybe there's something wrong... Nobody else had this problem before.

Bye, Paolo.

GeneralRe: Cannot Open Pin
kmchong23-May-05 17:16
kmchong23-May-05 17:16 
GeneralRe: Cannot Open Pin
Paolo Gios23-May-05 21:53
Paolo Gios23-May-05 21:53 
GeneralGiustify text Pin
pappopappo200018-May-05 5:02
pappopappo200018-May-05 5:02 
GeneralRe: Giustify text Pin
Paolo Gios18-May-05 5:09
Paolo Gios18-May-05 5:09 
GeneralDo GIF images work. Pin
Member 197372318-May-05 4:46
Member 197372318-May-05 4:46 
GeneralRe: Do GIF images work. Pin
Paolo Gios18-May-05 4:53
Paolo Gios18-May-05 4:53 
GeneralRe: GIF &amp; TIF/MTIF Pin
cbruun4-Jun-05 23:26
cbruun4-Jun-05 23:26 
GeneralIt doesn't work in a web project Pin
Diego F.12-May-05 6:54
Diego F.12-May-05 6:54 
GeneralRe: It doesn't work in a web project Pin
Paolo Gios12-May-05 7:58
Paolo Gios12-May-05 7:58 
GeneralRe: It doesn't work in a web project Pin
Diego F.12-May-05 9:58
Diego F.12-May-05 9:58 
GeneralRe: It doesn't work in a web project Pin
Diego F.12-May-05 10:35
Diego F.12-May-05 10:35 
GeneralIt works! Pin
Diego F.12-May-05 21:14
Diego F.12-May-05 21:14 
GeneralRe: It works! Pin
Paolo Gios12-May-05 22:40
Paolo Gios12-May-05 22:40 
GeneralRe: It works! Pin
Diego F.13-May-05 2:23
Diego F.13-May-05 2:23 
GeneralRe: It works! Pin
Paolo Gios15-May-05 12:31
Paolo Gios15-May-05 12:31 
GeneralRe: It works! Pin
Diego F.18-May-05 0:48
Diego F.18-May-05 0:48 
GeneralRe: It works! Pin
Paolo Gios18-May-05 0:53
Paolo Gios18-May-05 0:53 

General General    News News    Suggestion Suggestion    Question Question    Bug Bug    Answer Answer    Joke Joke    Praise Praise    Rant Rant    Admin Admin   

Use Ctrl+Left/Right to switch messages, Ctrl+Up/Down to switch threads, Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right to switch pages.