PDF Libraries

[Ray Booysen]

Hi all

After finding out that my pdf library (ABCPdf) doesn't support HTML
being imported as an input (Well it does but doesn't support the <table>
element), I'm looking for a good quality component (can be commercial)
that takes in HTML (and a stylesheet) and can create a PDF based on that
HTML.

Any ideas?

Regards
Ray

 

[Ken Cox [Microsoft MVP]]

Hi Ray,

I did a review of the DynamicPDF library for the January 2005 issue of
Visual Studio Magazine. It discussed the HTML capabilities.

http://www.ftponline.com/vsm/2005_01/magazine/departments/firstlooks/page3.aspx

"Generator's Enterprise version makes text insertion easier because it
includes an HTMLTextArea object that understands and parses a simple subset
of HTML tags (see Figure 1). You assign a string of text with HTML markup to
the HTMLTextArea object, and Generator converts the HTML into PDF code at
run time and inserts it into the flow. I assembled a custom PDF creator
application in minutes by dropping a free HTML editor on a WinForms page and
passing its markup to Generator. You have to restrict your HTML to standard
fonts and bare-bones formatting (such as bold and colors). For example, the
object understands <B> but not <STRONG>. Even with the limitations, it's
better to let users create and insert blocks of text for PDFs so you can
avoid the coding grunt work."

If you want to evaluate it, you can check it out here.

http://www.cete.com/Products/GeneratorForNET/

Let us know how you may out?

Ken
Microsoft MVP [ASP.NET]

 

[bruce barker \(sqlwork.com\)]

there are several good libraries for writing pdf. as for parsing html into
pdf there are few. this is a small niche, and only a couple support full
html. http://www.activepdf.com/ is the leader.

most html to pdf libraries that support html 4.0, work by using IE as html
parser and a custom print driver to get pdf output. then they write some
components to bundle this up as a callable interface.

-- bruce (sqlwork.com)

 

[Ray Booysen]

Hi Ken

Thanks for the tip, I'll have a look.

Regards
Ray

Hi Ray,

I did a review of the DynamicPDF library for the January 2005 issue of
Visual Studio Magazine. It discussed the HTML capabilities.

http://www.ftponline.com/vsm/2005_01/magazine/departments/firstlooks/page3.aspx

"Generator's Enterprise version makes text insertion easier because it
includes an HTMLTextArea object that understands and parses a simple subset
of HTML tags (see Figure 1). You assign a string of text with HTML markup to
the HTMLTextArea object, and Generator converts the HTML into PDF code at
run time and inserts it into the flow. I assembled a custom PDF creator
application in minutes by dropping a free HTML editor on a WinForms page and
passing its markup to Generator. You have to restrict your HTML to standard
fonts and bare-bones formatting (such as bold and colors). For example, the
object understands <B> but not <STRONG>. Even with the limitations, it's
better to let users create and insert blocks of text for PDFs so you can
avoid the coding grunt work."

If you want to evaluate it, you can check it out here.

http://www.cete.com/Products/GeneratorForNET/

Let us know how you may out?

Ken
Microsoft MVP [ASP.NET]

Hi all

After finding out that my pdf library (ABCPdf) doesn't support HTML being
imported as an input (Well it does but doesn't support the <table>
element), I'm looking for a good quality component (can be commercial)
that takes in HTML (and a stylesheet) and can create a PDF based on that
HTML.

Any ideas?

Regards
Ray

 

[Ray Booysen]

Hi Bruce

Thanks for the link. I'll have a look.

Regards
Ray

 

[B]

Hey i have used both

Active PDF and ABCPDF ,,

Its a known fact that you cant convert any html directly to PDF in
active PDF , the main use of this active pdf is filling PDF forms or
PDF templates .. its really use full if thats your only need and when
you move to HTML parsing .. Active PDF will fail ,, there is another
tool called webgrabber from the same activePDF company,, but its little
tricky to configure...

Speaking about ABC Pdf ,, its really a good tool but it too has its own
cons .. within two or three lines of code you can convert HTML to PDF
,, but when you want to convert Templates to PDF the problem arrises
particularly when you trying to add images ,, its so simple in Active
PDF ,, and the Object.Clear() doesnt actually work most of the times ,,
until you change the input data ...and another issue is that when you
have any URL in the Text that you are adding into the page.. it
actually doesnt take it as string it conects to the site and displays
the page itself..