Export contents of Form to PDF

[Richard]

I have a form generated using Html.Kendo().Form.  I would like to be able to export the contents of the form (labels, textboxes, checkboxes) to a new PDF on the click of a button, and then subsequently merge it with another PDF.

Is there a generic method that would enable me to do this, rather than using the PdfProcessing Library to create a new document and then add each of the fields from the ViewModel one by one.

Thank you.

[Richard]

demos.telerik.com/aspnet-core/pdf-export converts the DOM element (my form) to a drawing using kendo.drawing.drawDOM, and then uses kendo.drawing.exportPDF to render the result as a PDF file.

I need the base64 contents to merge with another PDF document using the PdfStreamWriter before writing the finished File.

Can the DOM element be passed to a Controller method so that the Kendo Drawing methods can be used, and then I can merge it with the PDF?

[Richard]

I eventually got the import from URL to work - there was a hidden error about being unable to find the style sheet, so I included a HtmlImportSettings property:

            // Create a document instance from the content
            HtmlFormatProvider provider = new HtmlFormatProvider();
            HtmlImportSettings importSettings = new HtmlImportSettings();

            importSettings.LoadStyleSheetFromUri += (s, e) =>
            {
                string styles = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(@"wwwroot\" + e.Uri);
                e.SetStyleSheetContent(styles);
            };

            provider.ImportSettings = importSettings;

            RadFlowDocument headerDocument = null;

            using (WebClient webClient = new WebClient())
            {
                var response = webClient.DownloadData(url);
                headerDocument = provider.Import(new MemoryStream(response));
            }

            PdfFormatProvider pdfProvider = new PdfFormatProvider();

            // Export the document
            Stream headerStream = new MemoryStream(pdfProvider.Export(headerDocument));

I was then able to merge the headerStream with a second PDF using a PdfStreamWriter.

Richard

[Eyup]

Hello Richard,

 

Thank you for writing to us.

This requirement is possible to achieve theoretically and this functionality is demonstrated in Implementation Section point 5 and point 6 of this blog post:
https://www.telerik.com/blogs/editing-pdf-files-in-browser-adding-signature-text-images

Feel free to check it and let me know if this sample helps you.

 

Regards,
Eyup
Progress Telerik

[Richard]

Hello Eyup,

Thank you for your reply.

I was wondering if there is a way to Export a page to PDF in the controller itself?  For instance, by using a url to get a response from a webpage I can get the raw html (responseStr) using a StreamReader.  However, using a html provider and RadFlowDocument I can't see to Import the response - the RadFlowDocument is blank in the example below.

            var request = HttpWebRequest.Create(url);
            string responseStr = string.Empty;

            HtmlFormatProvider htmlProvider = new HtmlFormatProvider();
            RadFlowDocument headerDocument = new RadFlowDocument();

            using (HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse())
            {
                using (var responseStream = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream()))
                {
                    responseStr = responseStream.ReadToEnd();
                }
                // Or
                using (Stream input = response.GetResponseStream())
                {
                    headerDocument = htmlProvider.Import(input);
                }
            }

Once I've got the first document (created from the imported html) I want to merge it with another PDF.

Is there a way to generate the pdf from the Web Response using the Telerik PDF processing libraries?

Kind regards,

Richard

[Eyup]

This live sample, albeit for another technology, demonstrates that PDF files can be processed using Streams:
https://demos.telerik.com/aspnet-ajax/pdfviewer/applicationscenarios/dplintegration/defaultcs.aspx

Make sure that the stream is complete and the PDF file is properly parsed.

[Richard]

Hi Eyup,

Many thanks again for your reply.  The example that you included is close to something that I was working on.  I think the difficulty is getting the complete stream.  So far I've got the following, but it gives me a null document based on a url to the web page that I want in the document.  Any ideas what I've done wrong?

             var request = HttpWebRequest.Create(url);

            // Create a document instance from the content
            IFormatProvider<RadFlowDocument> provider = new HtmlFormatProvider();
            RadFlowDocument document = null;

            using (HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse())
            {
                document = provider.Import(response.GetResponseStream());
            }

Richard