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Thread: 3rd party PDF viewer control

  1. #1

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    3rd party PDF viewer control

    I'm looking for recommendations for a 3rd party PDF viewer control for WinForms. I dont want to use the Adobe Reader control or use any viewer control that relies on Adobe Reader being installed. I'm looking for the best bang for the buck. What have you guys used? I welcome all thoughts, comments & recommendations. Thanks.
    Last edited by nbrege; Jan 26th, 2015 at 01:29 PM.

  2. #2

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    Re: 3rd party PDF viewer control

    Anyone?

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    Superbly Moderated NeedSomeAnswers's Avatar
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    Re: 3rd party PDF viewer control

    At my work we use PDFSharp which does the job AND is Open source so doesn't cost you anything here is the site
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    Re: 3rd party PDF viewer control

    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    At my work we use PDFSharp...
    Seems like it is geared more for the creation of PDF files & not for viewing them. I already use iTextSharp for creating PDF's.
    I am looking for a full featured viewer control for displaying existing PDF's on a form.

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    Still learning kebo's Avatar
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    Re: 3rd party PDF viewer control

    You can use a web browser control and navigate to the file path

    Code:
    Me.WebBrowser1.Navigate("c:\myPDF.pdf")
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    Last edited by kebo : Now. Reason: superfluous typo's

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    Re: 3rd party PDF viewer control

    Quote Originally Posted by kebo View Post
    You can use a web browser control and navigate to the file path
    Yes, I know. Not what I want. As the title says ... I am looking for a 3rd party control.

  7. #7
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    Re: 3rd party PDF viewer control

    What features do you need the viewer to have?

    Are you happy to Pay for this control as most of the full featured ones cost money?

    Alternatively if you have less requirements you could look at something like this
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    Re: 3rd party PDF viewer control

    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    Are you happy to Pay for this control as most of the full featured ones cost money?
    Yes, I'm looking for a paid solution. I know there are many available. Some are stand-alone products, others are part of a larger suite of controls. I'm just looking for any experience anyone may have had with these products & can provide a recommendation. My other option is to download & install the trial versions of a bunch of different products to evaluate each one.

  9. #9
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    Re: 3rd party PDF viewer control

    We use PDFExchange at my work which is actually pretty good and is a proper fully featured viewer control.

    There is a paid for version and free version, but i think you need the paid for version if you are distributing as part of a commercial application.
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    Re: 3rd party PDF viewer control

    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    We use PDFExchange at my work which is actually pretty good and is a proper fully featured viewer control.
    There is a paid for version and free version, but i think you need the paid for version if you are distributing as part of a commercial application.
    Thanks, this is one of the products I have been considering, though I dont see any mention of a free version. Can you provide a link? Foxit also makes a viewer control for .Net that looks promising.

  11. #11
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    Re: 3rd party PDF viewer control

    In the PDFExchange Link i posted in post #9 if you scroll down a bit it says this -

    The FREE PDF viewer download of the PDF-XChange Viewer may be used without limitation for Private, Commercial, Government and all uses, provided it is not -: incorporated or distributed for profit/commercial gain with other software or media distribution of any type - without first gaining permission.
    Foxit also makes a viewer control for .Net that looks promising.
    Yeh i have used Foxit before that's not a bad control either.
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    Re: 3rd party PDF viewer control

    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    Yeh i have used Foxit before that's not a bad control either.
    They say they are charging $999/100 distributions. Really?
    Process control doesn't give you good quality, it gives you consistent quality.
    Good quality comes from consistently doing the right things.

    Vague general questions have vague general answers.
    A $100 donation is required for me to help you if you PM me asking for help. Instructions for donating to one of our local charities will be provided.

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    Last edited by kebo : Now. Reason: superfluous typo's

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    Re: 3rd party PDF viewer control

    Quote Originally Posted by NeedSomeAnswers View Post
    In the PDFExchange Link i posted in post #9 if you scroll down a bit it says this...
    The link you posted, along with that verbage, refers to their actual PDF-Xchange Viewer application, which is meant to be a replacement for Adobe Reader. Here is the link to their viewer control for .Net. They offer 2 versions, both paid.

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    Re: 3rd party PDF viewer control

    Quote Originally Posted by kebo View Post
    They say they are charging $999/100 distributions. Really?
    Yeah, pretty pricey. I'm trying to find something a little more reasonable, but not having much luck.

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    Re: 3rd party PDF viewer control

    Have you seen the Ghostscript.NET wrapper ? Apperantly you can use it to render the PDFs. I've never used it, but I have used the GhostScript tools though.
    Process control doesn't give you good quality, it gives you consistent quality.
    Good quality comes from consistently doing the right things.

    Vague general questions have vague general answers.
    A $100 donation is required for me to help you if you PM me asking for help. Instructions for donating to one of our local charities will be provided.

    ______________________________
    Last edited by kebo : Now. Reason: superfluous typo's

  16. #16
    Superbly Moderated NeedSomeAnswers's Avatar
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    Re: 3rd party PDF viewer control

    The link you posted, along with that verbage, refers to their actual PDF-Xchange Viewer application, which is meant to be a replacement for Adobe Reader. Here is the link to their viewer control for .Net. They offer 2 versions, both paid.
    Ah yes sorry, i didn't read it properly, and i didn't buy the control i just use it so i don't know what we paid for it!!

    Looking at PDFExchange's licence pricing what the hell does CDLP stand for ? when i put it into google all it gives me is - "California Distance Learning Project" which i am fairly sure has nothing to do with PDFExchange

    They say they are charging $999/100 distributions. Really?
    Yeh i hate that licencing model as once you go to 101 distributions you immediately jump to the next price point, but the control itself is pretty good.

    To be fair though the PDFExchange pricing looks pretty expensive as well.

    What it might be worth your while looking into is both DevExpress & Telerik have a PDFViewer as part of there WinForms Controls pack, so you pay $899 (DevExpress) or $999 (Telerik) for a single developer licence for their Winforms controls which give you loads of other controls AND the PDFViewer. Also as they are developer licences that's all you pay.

    Telerik PDFViewer

    DevExpress PDFViewer

    Personally we use the Telerik controls at my work and they are really pretty good.

    (The Telerik controls are a fairly recent purchase and we already had PDFExchange, so i haven't actually used the Telerik PDFViewer)
    Last edited by NeedSomeAnswers; Jan 30th, 2015 at 04:28 AM.
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