Printable View
I have been looking for a way to make a pdf report from a database program I am making. My version of VB.net doesn't have CR so PDF is my best bet. I don't want to install a pdf printer, which is the option that most people use in the forums. Does anyone know of a good FREE PDF pluging that I can use. I don't need anything fancy, just text and image.
John Vickers
See the iTextSharp link in my signature.
If you need PDF format for a specific reason, then thats fine, but if you just picked PDF because you can use anything, and just picked it because you don't have CR, then you may want to also look into just using a printdocument.
They are pretty easy to use and totally customizable. You can print graphics and text on them. Use print previews, etc...
First off, I don't want to use something like printdocument, because I would like to be able to save it to a file. If printdocument can do this please corect me. I'm not tied to PDF, I have just used it in the past for php purposes and really liked the results.
jmc:
I am trying to get the PDF from your sig to work, and have gotten it to work with plain text, but I can't figure out how to import my own fonts or images into the pdf. I have loaded a ttf into an imbeded resource, and have it loaded into a privatefontcollection and can return it as a System.Font. Do you know how to set the pdf to use a font like this? Another solution would be to imbed an system.image directly into the pdf without saving it, as it would be generated dynamicly.
To All:
This is what im wanting to do, if the people above can't make any since out of what I am trying to say. I have a database linked with inventory barcodes, and I want to print reports that include these barcodes. I have a free true type barcode font that is embeded into my program, I can use it as a system font as well as create a system image from the barcode I generate. Most of the reports would be printed directly, but I would like to be able to save them to a file. What methods do you guys suggest to do this.
Sorry if I am not very coherent, I have been up for 20 hours doing school, research, work, then programming this in my free time. I am about to go to bed and am getting a little loopy, so I hope I have made since.
John Vickers
I'm afraid that I've never used iTextSharp myself so I can't tell you much about it. I just thought that a PDF-creation component might be useful and this was the only free one I'd seen so I kept the link.
Why not generate an HTML document? They are fairly easy to make and you can lay them out as you'd like.
Can't embed a font in HTML, however.... just a thought though.
Im good with html, but you can't embed the font, and they usually don't print well. Mainly because they are very dependant on the settings of the computer. Nice try though.
John Vickers
You could always draw your strings (that use the bar code fonts) and save as a bitmap. Then generate an HTML report with that. Or perhaps a Word Document.
Not sure how to use PDFs with .net.
Here are some other options (All Free of course):
Soft Reports
Print-Preview and More
QPrinter2
and for your charting needs:
RMCharts
John,
Is this a controlled environment where your app will be used? Like a corporate place where you know what end users will and will not have as far as windows and other applications?
If it is, and the users are using office (I think 2000 or later) then they should have a printer installed called "Microsoft Office Document Image Writer". It is basically the MS Office version of a PDF printer. It prints the output to a .MDI file, and is viewable by double clicking the file (opens in a viewer that is installed with office)
Just an idea.. if you have exhausted all others.
It will not be controlled, I am trying to make a program that is as self contained as possible so that it will run on almost any machine. Most people have pdf readers, so I usually stick to that. I may just resort to giving them a free pdf printer in use a print document since that would be the most versital in using built in fonts and images. Anyone know where there is a good tutorial on printdocuments?
John Vickers