About PDF Metamorphosis .Net

Welcome to PDF Metamorphosis .Net documentation and thanks for interest our product! Now the market presented a huge number of tools to convert HTML to PDF . But we offer a unique component for you - PDF Metamorphosis .Net. You will ask why it's so unique? Study formats such PDF, RTF, and HTML is not a simple matter. Therefore, much other converting components use standard Windows-dlls. For example, to parse HTML can be used mshtml.dll which comes with Internet Explorer. We don't use any other dlls or dependencies. We know HTML, PDF and RTF formats . Therefore, our component is fully independent. It could open the HTML or XHTML file with CSS, or even download it from Internet. Read the contents of HTML, understand all the tags and transform document to PDF format. SautinSoft Team

PDF Metamorphosis .Net is a robust .Net component to convert Text, RTF, XHTML, ASPX and HTML to PDF.

The PDF Metamorphosis .Net is absolutely independent .Net assembly, it doesn't require any additional components. Our component reads HTML and RTF documents directly converts it to PDF without Adobe Acrobat® or MS Office®.

Typical applications

• Conversion of HTML, RTF, Text documents to PDF for printing or exchanging
• Convert ASPX page to PDF dynamically on server side
• Merge or split PDF files
• Server side, batch document conversion without user interaction

Functions

The PDF Metamorphosis .Net is just a class library. To deploy it you will need only two lines of code. By the instrumentality of PDF Metamorphosis .Net you will add these functions into your application:

- Convert HTML url, file, string to PDF;
- Convert Text and RTF file, string to PDF;
- Split and merge PDF documents.

From to

Platform Independence

The PDF Metamorphosis .Net requires only .Net 1.1 platform or above. Using the PDF Metamorphosis .Net you can easily create any type of a 32-bit or 64-bit .NET application including ASP.NET, Web Services and WinForms. Our .Net assembly is Multi-Platform component, you may use it to build your application with Mono platform for Linux and Mac (http://www.mono-project.com).

The PDF Metamorphosis .Net is completely created on C#.

Requirements

Nothing special, only .Net 1.1 platform or higher.

Supported File Formats

The PDF Metamorphosisis .Net can convert HTML, XHTML, RTF and Text documents into PDF documents.

Input formats:
- any version of HTML, like a HTML 3.2, HTML 4.01 with CSS and XHTML. Our component doesn't require any special version of HTML format it will work with any version. Component also support CSS styles, these styles are supported now:

- any version of RTF files and text files.

Output format: PDF 1.4. It's absolutely compatible with any PDF readers, like a Actobat Readear etc.

The PDF Metamorphosis .Net can convert XHTML, HTML and RTF to PDF documents with such advantages:

- converting of remote HTML documents;
- converts images (.gif, .jpg, .bmp and .png);
- converts remote http:// images;
- tables;
- nested tables;
- CSS styles;
- hyperlinks;
- font face, color, size;
- page alignment;
- bold, italic and underline, strike and other rich formatted text;
- special characters;
- automatic encoding select (UTF-8, Windows-1251, etc..);
- select page size (A4, B5, Letter...);
- select page orientation (Landscape or Portrait);
- select page margins;
- Supports all HTML tags and special characters, such as   & &lt, � - ÿ 	 - я etc.

Technical Features

- Created with only pure C#
- Absolutely standalone, you will need to include only "PdfMetamorphosis.dll" into your application
- No other dependencies
- Reads RTF, HTML files and writes PDF directly
- Does not require installed Microsoft Office ® or Adobe Acrobat ® on the computer
- Works on any .Net platform (.Net 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5 etc)
- Works with Windows and even with Linux and Mac (thanks to Mono project http://www.mono-project.com)
- Has great abilities to adjust an output PDF, see Methods and properties

Developers can use the PDF Metamorphosis.Net with VB.NET, C#, J#, ASP.NET, Delphi .Net etc.

Amusing to know

In this manual there a lot info about converting HTML and RTF documents to PDF format. But you will not find any information here how to convert PDF documents to Word. By the way you will find such stuff Here ...

Version history

Version 3.0.5.320 - January 21th, 2010

RTF to PDF:

• Fixed issue with crashing dll on some nonstandard RTF where table shifts by several pages
• Fixed issue with moving text aligned by right and center outside of table column
• Improved converting of tabulators

HTML to PDF:

• Improved algorithm of converting tables with missied width value
• Added support of new CSS

Merge PDF:

• Added two methods to merge PDF documents in memory
• Added a new sample code C#/VB.Net how to merge PDF in memory in ASP.Net application

Version 3.0.5.128 - September 16th, 2009

RTF to PDF:

• Fixed issue with crashing dll on some RTF with non-standard fonts (Thanks to Ilia Chekhter)
• Adding support of strike text

HTML to PDF:

• Changed name of the property 'ImageFolder' to 'BaseUrl'
• Fixed return value in method HtmlToPdfConvertFile() now returns 1 if HTML doesn't exist.

Version 3.0.5.0 - August 11th, 2009

This version differs from the previous 3.0.4.6. on a huge step. What we've made:

• HTML to PDF converting:
  • Added support of new CSS styles:
    • border-top-style:
    • border-right-style:
    • border-bottom-style:
    • border-left-style:
    • border-top-width:
    • border-right-width:
    • border-bottom-width:
    • border-left-width:
    • border-top-color:
    • border-right-color:
    • border-bottom-color:
    • border-left-color:
    • border:
    • border-top:
    • border-right:
    • border-bottom:
    • border-left:
    • border-style:
  • Improved algorithm of HTML table converting;
  • Fixed minor issues in converting of broken HTML tables;
  • Added the new property 'TraceType' which allows to select type of tracing file. A tracing file is necessary to debug component and helps to find some issues in HTML converting.
• RTF to PDF converting:
  • Fixed issue with converting of nested tables which expand on several pages
  • Fixed issue with loosing image quality in RTF for jpeg images
  • Fixed issue with padding in table cells
• Significantly improved two properties 'Header' and 'Footer', now you may specify any header/footer in HTML, RTF and Text format. For example, you may attach a HTML document into footer from URL.
• Added new samples of using PDF Metamorphosis .Net in ASP.Net, VB and C#
• Fixed issue with Text to PDF converting
• Improved the Demo application
• Improved this documentation.

Version 3.0.4.6 - March 26th, 2009

- Added the new property 'p.TextStyle.ImageQuality' which allows to specify quality for images inside PDF;
- Improved image converting algorithm;
- Fixed issues in the method merge PDF documents;
- Fixed issue in converting nested tables.

Version 3.0.0.4 (10-November-2008)

- Added new properties FontFace.Auto() and FontFace.Custom(). Now component can create PDF file with any font installed in your system;
- Improved converting of bullets and numbering lists;
- Improved HTML to PDF converting;
- Improved table converting engine.

Version 2.2.2 (17-March-2007)

- Improved converting of headers/footers;
- Fixed issues with text formatting inside tables (bold, italic, underline etc).

Version 2.2.1 (12-December-2007)

What's new in this release:

  - now it supports text groups and postioned text;
  - improved module for image converting;
  - table's background for HTML to PDF conversion;
  - images after converting now have the best quality!

Version 2.2.0 (19-November-2007)

  - PDF Metamorphosis .Net became faster in converting;
  - New algorithm of converting tables;

Version 2.1.1 (23-August-2007)

  - New property ‘ErrorTrace’ that helps to find detailed information about issues;

Version 2.1.0 (9-August-2007)

Added:
  - New independent conversion engine from HTML to PDF;
  - New methods for split and merge PDF files.

Version 2.0.5 (09-Jul-2007)

Fixed:
- alignment in nested tables.

Version 2.0.0 (01-May-2007)

- nested tables support;
- footer and header;

Version 1.1 (10-Apr-2007)

  - Added support of header, footers and page sections;
  - Corrected Text to Pdf converting direction;
  - Text formating and alignment improved;
  - Added new default fonts: italic, bold, italic-bold;
  - Improved algorithm of cell merging;
  - Cell padding support;
  - Transfer lengthy cells to new page;
  - Backgroud and shading for tables.