PDF Viewers for .NET

PDF Viewer Control for ASP.NET

The Winnovative PDF Viewer Control for ASP.NET can be used in a ASP.NET application to display a PDF document inside a ASP.NET page and allows the application users to browse and print the PDF document. The source of the PDF document can be a URL or a stream of bytes represented as a byte[] object. The viewer requires Adobe Reader to be installed on the client computer in order to work properly.

The Winnovative PDF Viewer Control for ASP.NET 2.0 is delivered as a single assembly 'PdfViewerAspNet.dll'. The main class defined by this assembly is the PdfViewer class which represents the ASP.NET control.

Features
• ASP.NET server control and C# samples
• Display a PDF document given as a stream of bytes
• Display PDF documents from a specified URL
• Allow clients to navigate and print the document from browser
• Allow to set PDF security options to disable printing or copying
• Royalty free development libraries and samples

Adding the PDF Viewer Control to the Microsoft Visual Studio Toolbox

First of all you have to add the control from PdfViewerAspNet.dll to the Visual Studion 2005 toolbox. To do this you right click on the toolbox panel and select 'Choose Items'. You browse to the PdfViewerAspNet.dll and the PdfViewer control should have been added in the toolbox panel. To use the control in a web page of your ASP.NET application you simply drag and drop the PdfViewer control from the toolbox on the web page like you would do with any other server control. As result of this, a reference to the PdfViewerAspNet.dll is added to your application and the following line is added to your web page:

<%@ Register Assembly="PdfViewerAspNet" Namespace="PdfViewer4AspNet"
TagPrefix="cc1" %>

A reference to the PdfViewer4AspNet namespace is also added. At this moment you are ready to use the control and display PDF documents inside your ASP.NET page.

Displaying PDF Documents from Streams

In order to display a PDF document represented as a stream of bytes inside your ASP.NET page, you have to register a HTTP handler defined by the PDF viewer control in the Web.config file of your application. This can be done by adding the handler definition in the section of the Web.config configuration file as in the example below:

<system.web>
<httpHandlers>
<add verb="*" path="PdfBytesHandler.axd"

type="PdfViewer4AspNet.PdfSourceBytesHandler,PdfViewerAspNet"></add>
</httpHandlers>
</system.web>

The next step is to set the PdfSourceBytes property of the control with a byte[] object representing the binary image of the PDF document. The byte[] stream can be taken from PDF file or can be produce by other tools like our PDF converter library, as you can see in the sample ASP.NET application from the downloaded archive. The byte[] object is stored in the session of the application, so there is no need to set the PdfSourceBytes property on each postback.

Here is a sample C# code, taken from our sample application, to convert the HTML code from a specified URL to PDF and load the stream into the PDF viewer control when a button is pressed:

1: protected void btnConvert_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
2: {
3: string urlToConvert = textBoxURLToConvert.Text.Trim();
4: byte[] pdfBytes = new PdfConverter().GetPdfFromUrlBytes(urlToConvert);
5: PdfViewer1.LicenseKey =

"jv5MIS071Ff6wtSNTyQtYqQIIFt/0AuR+QW8s/fFzuJzU4WI1daYrw6LjI1FtxTP";
6: PdfViewer1.PdfSourceBytes = pdfBytes;
7: }

There is no temporary file in the sample above and this can greatly simplify the deployment of your web applications on various hardware and software configurations.

Displaying PDF Documents from URLs

Displaying a PDF document from a specified URL is as simple as setting the PdfSourceURL property of the PdfViewer control with the URL of the PDF document to be displayed.

Here is the C# code we are using in the demo ASP.NET application to display the PDF document from a specified URL when a button is pressed:

1: protected void btnDisplayPDF_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
2: {
3: PdfViewer1.LicenseKey =

"jv5MIS071Ff6wtSNTyQtYqQIIFt/0AuR+QW8s/fFzuJzU4WI1daYrw6LjI1FtxTP";
4: PdfViewer1.PdfSourceURL = textBoxURLToDisplay.Text.Trim();
5: }


Running the Samples
The samples are located in the Samples folder. To run the samples, open the projects with the Microsoft Visual Studio and run them from there.

PDF Viewer Control for Windows Forms .NET

The PDF Viewer control for Windows Forms .NET 2.0 can be linked into any Windows Forms application to add pdf visualization and manipulation capabilities to your application.

With Winnovative PDF Viewer for .NET you can display a PDF from a specified file, navigate the document, print the documents, etc. The integration is extremely easy. Adobe Acrobat Reader is required.

Features
• NET user control and C# samples
• Display PDF documents from files
• Display PDF documents from streams
• Navigate and print documents
• Allow to set PDF security options to disable printing or copying
• Royalty free development libraries and samples

Adding the PDF Viewer Control to the Microsoft Visual Studio Toolbox

First of all you have to add the control from PdfViewerWinNet.dll to the Visual Studion 2005 toolbox. To do this you right click on the toolbox panel and select 'Choose Items'. You browse to the PdfViewerWinNet.dll and the PdfViewer control should have been added in the toolbox panel. To use the control in a form of your Windows Forms application you simply drag and drop the PdfViewer control from the toolbox on the web page like you would do with any other server control. At this moment you are ready to use the control and display PDF documents inside your form.

Loading a PDF File

A PDF file can loaded into the PDF Viewer control using the LoadFile() method of the PdfViewer class. Here is a simple sample code to load the PDF file in the viewer in Load event handler of the parent form:

1: private void MainForm_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
2: {
3: string demoFilePath = System.IO.Path.Combine(Application.StartupPath,

"WinnovativeSoftware.pdf");
4: pdfViewer1.LicenseKey =
"WxrvvaNw5mDcoQ30mCbmRsrypMqSDHC2y4FhJojo+g+XWYQGh3F7cx6nZbdUAwgH";
5: if (System.IO.File.Exists(demoFilePath))
6: {
7: pdfViewer1.LoadFile(demoFilePath);
8: }
9: }

After you have loaded the PDF file in the viewer you can programmatically navigate to a page of the document, print the PDF document with or without the print dialog, set the zoom percentage, show or hide the viewer toolbar, etc. A full description of all the viewer methods can be found in the API Reference document PdfViewerWinNet.chm.

Running the Samples
The samples are located in the Samples folder. To run the samples, open the projects with the Microsoft Visual Studio and run them from there.