C# Free Component to Generate PDF - Convert HTML to PDF

I was trying different components and methods of generating a PDF dynamically using C# and ASP.NET. There are quite a few pay-for

components with prices ranging between $250 and $1,000+ for a license. These pay-for products do a great job and some of them can

generate very complex PDF documents. But I just needed something that would generate simple PDF documents without too much in the way

of formatting.

There are also quite a few open source projects that provide rudimentary support for PDF creation. Many are pretty limited in their

feature sets. It seems Adobe has really kept it's power position by making sure their PDF format is as complex as possible. There is

one component in particular that I tried that worked quite well for my needs and is completely free. It's called Pdfizer. You can

view the site for this project here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfizer

It was a little difficult finding an up-to-date code sample. There is a post on Code Project on how to use this component but it was

dated 2004 that you can read here:

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/pdfizer.aspx

Unfortunately, the code shown in this article is out-dated and won't even compile anymore. After some playing around and a few

different tries, I was able to get things working. To get this code to work, first download the latest build from sourceforge.net or

you can download the files here just in case the link for sourceforge.net is unavailable:

Pdfizer.zip

Generate PDF from HTML

First, set a reference in your project to the 3 DLL's that Pdfizer uses. Here are the 3 dll names to set a reference to:

ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib.dll (This component is used to parse the HTML)

itextsharp.dll (This component is used by Pdfizer to create the PDF document)

Pdfizer.dll (This is the main component with the HtmlToPdf object that executes the conversion operations).

Now we can add some code to use this component. Here is the code to generate a PDF from some HTML specified:

// set a path to where you want to write the PDF to.
string sPathToWritePdfTo = @"C:\new_pdf_name.pdf";
 
// build some HTML text to write as a PDF.  You could also 
// read this HTML from a file or other means.
// NOTE: This component doesn't understand CSS or other 
// newer style HTML so you will need to use depricated 
// HTML formatting such as the <font> tag to make it look correct.
System.Text.StringBuilder sbHtml = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
sbHtml.Append("<html>");
sbHtml.Append("<body>");
sbHtml.Append("<font size='14'>My Document Title Line</font>");
sbHtml.Append("<br />");
sbHtml.Append("This is my document text");
sbHtml.Append("</body>");
sbHtml.Append("</html>");
 
// create file stream to PDF file to write to
using (System.IO.Stream stream = new System.IO.FileStream

(sPathToWritePdfTo, System.IO.FileMode.OpenOrCreate))
{
    // create new instance of Pdfizer
    Pdfizer.HtmlToPdfConverter htmlToPdf = new Pdfizer.HtmlToPdfConverter();
    // open stream to write Pdf to to
    htmlToPdf.Open(stream);
    // write the HTML to the component
    htmlToPdf.Run(sbHtml.ToString());
    // close the write operation and complete the PDF file
    htmlToPdf.Close();
}

This component also supports PDF Chapters. You could add a single line of code right before the Run() method to make the HTML specified a single chapter like this:

// open stream to write Pdf to to
htmlToPdf.Open(stream);
 
// add a chapter for this HTML
htmlToPdf.AddChapter("My Chapter Title 1");
 
// write the HTML to the component
htmlToPdf.Run(sbHtml.ToString());

Repeat the AddChapter() and Run() methods for each chapter you want to add and then Close() to commit it to the PDF.

Your PDF should look something like this:

sample pdfizer pdf format

Download PDF using ASP.NET

Once the PDF is created, you can dynamically stream it back to the client browser in ASP.NET on the fly as a file download using code like this:

// clear the http response so nothing else is in the stream so we can just isolate the file bits.
HttpContext.Current.Response.Clear();
// add the HTTP header to tell the browser to accept this as a file.  Also, the friendlypdfname.pdf is the name 
// of the PDF as you want it to appear to the user (regardless of what it is named in your file system).
HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", string.Format("attachment; filename={0}", "friendlypdfname.pdf"));
// tell the browser what type of file this is so it can have a mime type associated with it.
HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentType = "application/pdf";
 
// pass the path that you wrote the file to on your file system as the parameter to WriteFile()


HttpContext.Current.Response.WriteFile(sPathToWritePdfTo);
// end the response and commit the file to the stream
HttpContext.Current.Response.End();

You could put this code in an OnClick() button event or other means that would then stream this new PDF down to your client browser.

I am using following

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 02/24/2010 - 00:19.

I am using following code:
StringBuilder s = new StringBuilder();
//test aspx = new test();
StringWriter sw = new StringWriter(s);
HtmlTextWriter writer = new Html32TextWriter(sw);
base.Render(writer);

System.IO.Stream stream = new System.IO.FileStream(@"C:\new_pdf_name6.pdf", FileMode.OpenOrCreate);
Pdfizer.HtmlToPdfConverter htmlToPdf = new Pdfizer.HtmlToPdfConverter();
// open stream to write Pdf to to
htmlToPdf.Open(stream);
// write the HTML to the component
htmlToPdf.Run(s.ToString());
// close the write operation and complete the PDF file
htmlToPdf.Close();

This is giving following error on this statement:
htmlToPdf.Run(s.ToString());

Error is: The remote server returned an error: (503) Server Unavailable.

Please help

can you add your source code

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 05/28/2009 - 04:22.

thank you for a quite nice html2pdf machine...
the thing is that i want to add new font styles with CP1250 encoding and it sounds impossible with this old itextsharp.dll library, besides this one is not compatibile with the newest version.
the original code doesn't support [table],[br],[p] and so on...
Michal

Image Support Updated

Submitted by Ben Hodson on Fri, 03/13/2009 - 13:01.

I think the reason your image support worked is because your image paths look to be local paths.  What most have tried and failed with is using images that are at URL paths on the web.  The component seems to have no functionality to download the images and put them in the PDF.  But it looks like if the images are a local path, it works.  I think that might reconcile the difference.

Image Support WORKS!

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 03/12/2009 - 19:31.

I'm not sure why others had a problem with it, however, I was able to use this with images without any problem. Below is the basic HTML that I generated (my images were 800X600).

<html>
<body>
<table height='800' width='600'>
<tr><td><img src='filepath1' /></td></tr>
<tr><td><img src='filepath2' /></td></tr>
<tr><td><img src='filepath3' /></td></tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>

This is a great little free method to get simple PDFs created. I highly recommend it!

Damn and blast that really sucks.....

Submitted by Ryan (not verified) on Thu, 12/04/2008 - 05:20.

Damn and blast that really sucks..... Its unfortunate that there isn't a open source Html to Pdf converter that can compete with the commercial solutions with out the ridiculous licensing costs. Thanks for the quick reply none the less.

~3~

hello

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 05/22/2009 - 13:42.

very cool realy thanks....evden eve nakliyat
evden eve nakliyat

I hadn't tried images but it looks like

Submitted by Ben Hodson (not verified) on Wed, 12/03/2008 - 16:44.

I hadn't tried images but it looks like support is not good. It seems to just ignore your image URL's. Kind of sucks. When I put this together, I only had need for text and formatting. Looks like that is as far as this component goes.

Great article, helped a ton, just one

Submitted by Ryan (not verified) on Wed, 12/03/2008 - 11:15.

Great article, helped a ton, just one question, what is the support for images like? I have a document rendered in valid XHTML but by adding images the pdf only contains a single table cell, it doesn't contain any of the HTML I had fed to it! Any ideas?

~3~

Simple and good article.

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 01/14/2010 - 16:31.

thank you for posting the code and necessary info.... its a great article.
There are so many paid products available. Some of the PDF converters are very close to the original Windows XP cost. Thanks again !!

Getting Error !!

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 01/14/2010 - 17:53.

Server Error in '/NewJcs' Application.
'0' is an unexpected token. The expected token is '"' or '''. Line 1, position 791.
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.Xml.XmlException: '0' is an unexpected token. The expected token is '"' or '''. Line 1, position 791.

Source Error:

Line 492: htmlToPdf.Open(stream);
Line 493: // write the HTML to the component
Line 494: htmlToPdf.Run(sbHtml);
Line 495: // close the write operation and complete the PDF file
Line 496: htmlToPdf.Close();

Source File: d:\Shared\Project\Under My Documents\NewJcs\App_Code\jwstore.cs Line: 494

Stack Trace:

[XmlException: '0' is an unexpected token. The expected token is '"' or '''. Line 1, position 791.]
System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(Exception e) +76
System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(String res, String[] args) +88
System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ThrowUnexpectedToken(String expectedToken1, String expectedToken2) +104
System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseAttributes() +3978624
System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseElement() +343
System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseElementContent() +121
System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Read() +45
System.Xml.XmlLoader.LoadNode(Boolean skipOverWhitespace) +58
System.Xml.XmlLoader.LoadDocSequence(XmlDocument parentDoc) +20
System.Xml.XmlLoader.Load(XmlDocument doc, XmlReader reader, Boolean preserveWhitespace) +129
System.Xml.XmlDocument.Load(XmlReader reader) +108
System.Xml.XmlDocument.LoadXml(String xml) +113
Pdfizer.HtmlToPdfConverter.Run(String html) +53
jwstore.html2pdf(String sbHtml, String sPathToWritePdfTo) in d:\Shared\Project\Under My Documents\NewJcs\App_Code\jwstore.cs:494
Secure_confirmpayment.generate_text() in d:\Shared\Project\Under My Documents\NewJcs\secured\confirmpayment1.aspx.cs:551
Secure_confirmpayment.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e) in d:\Shared\Project\Under My Documents\NewJcs\secured\confirmpayment1.aspx.cs:395
System.Web.Util.CalliHelper.EventArgFunctionCaller(IntPtr fp, Object o, Object t, EventArgs e) +14
System.Web.Util.CalliEventHandlerDelegateProxy.Callback(Object sender, EventArgs e) +35
System.Web.UI.Control.OnLoad(EventArgs e) +99
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +50
System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +627

Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:2.0.50727.3603; ASP.NET Version:2.0.50727.3082