CODEWITHSUNDEEP
vb.netwinformspdf
Alex Gordon
Alex Gordon

Reputation: 60731

ideas on generating a pdf report in vb.net

i will need to generate a report based on user input for every food that will look like this:

alt text http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/1794/18169391.jpg

i plan to have a pdf displayed on a winform using the adobe pdf reader control. the pdf will be the header of the above graphic, but the list of foods and the reactions will be generated. this is what i need:

  1. i need the form to be printable to exactly at a usual paper size, what ever it is 8.5x11 or something

  2. i need to have images and probably textboxes that will go on top of the pdf. so each food name will probably be a separate textbox and each reaction picture will be created during run time from the user input.

i would like to clarify that i will not need to generate a new pdf file. i will just use an existing pdf file and will put images and text over it

what is the simplest way to accomplish this report?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 3216

Answers (3)

Jay Riggs
Jay Riggs

Reputation: 53593

iTextSharp.

I'm working with it now and I've found the following the most useful:

Create PDFs in ASP.NET - getting started with iTextSharp

iTextSharp Tutorial

Tutorials on creating PDF files using C# 2.0

So far I think the library is great but the documentation is not that great.

With the library you have control over the size of the document. You can also insert images. Filling out a form with predefined fields is the easiest, but you can programmatically position text where you want.

For filling out fields you need to check this out:

Fill in PDF Form Fields using the Open Source iTextSharp Dynamic Link Library

Post any specific questions you have.

Upvotes: 4

James Black
James Black

Reputation: 41858

I haven't used it on .NET, but have with Java, but nFOP will convert an xml file to a pdf using other files. The nice part is that if you later want to show the same xml file in HTML or in a different format, you just change the xslt.

Here is a short tutorial on using nFOP: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/dotnet/nfop.aspx

Upvotes: 0

Jason
Jason

Reputation: 52523

i haven't used it yet (although I plan to shortly) but i found itextsharp, which is a .NET library you can use to create PDFs.

Upvotes: 1

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