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Generating a PDF through a web site

Wowbagger

The Infinitely Prolonged
Wowbagger
Joined
Feb 2, 2006
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Westchester County, NY (when not in space)
I have a possible project that involves writing a PDF file programmatically, through an ASP.NET web site.

More specifically, it will be filling in "blanks" in the document, with content provided by users.

(And, I'd like the component to be as inexpensive as possible.)

I have Googled "pdf generation .net" for some ideas. But, I'd like to see if anyone, here, has any recommendations, warnings, or comments.

Thanks!
 
Hi Wowbagger,

do you really need to modify an existing PDF? I think it would be simpler to complete generate the whole PDF with the user-supplied data.

Besides, there seem to be a whole bunch of different .NET components available for handling PDF's when searching for ".net pdf component". That ABCpdf thing (first link on that search) looks promising, and they offer a free license key if you link back to them.

I guess the best way is to check out some of the many available components. Never did that much with online PDF generation so far, so i really can't say that much about it at all.

Greetings,

Chris
 
Christian Klippel said:
do you really need to modify an existing PDF?
Click to expand...
I suppose the initial template content could come from a different form, such as Word document or something.

I already know how to programmatically manipulate Word content, using Word's API, if that is installed. Though, I guess I would need to use something else, if it is not.

But, the final output needs to be a PDF file.
 
I agree with CK. Generate a PDF from the data given by the user. I use a product called "PrimoPDF" that looks like a printer to my PC, but actually stores the finished PDF on the hard drive.

Best of all, it's free.

Maybe they have something that will fit your needs.
 
I've done a fair few for various clients, both in .NET and PHP. Had one just today, in fact. In .NET, I've been pretty happy with PDF4NET. I've used .net Charting for more fancy stuff (pie charts, etc..), but it's overkill for your run-of-the-mill print-and-post applications.

I've had two main issues. One is that, whatever library you use, it's quite temperamental. I've often had pages come out completely blank for no apparent reason, eventually being fixed after a few round trips to and from the designers. We've never been able to nail down exactly what causes trouble, but trial and error eventually fixes it.

I'm also quite lucky to be working for an agency with an absolutely fantastic design department, because of my second issue: the quality of some third party PDFs I've had has been, quite frankly, shocking. I've had one case in particular for an offshore mortgage application form (exciting stuff, I know), with six slightly different versions, where nothing lined up. If I had two applications with a few pages in common, I'd still have to move the text around because they couldn't be bothered to keep margins or field sizes consistent from one to the other. So if at all possible, keep PDF mastering in-house. It avoids a lot of frustration.

Finally, don't underestimate the time it takes to do it. It's a tedious, mind numbing job. For a full application, think one or two hours per page just filling in the fields.
 
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