Asp.Net MVC how to get view to generate PDF

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I would like to call an action on a controller. Have the controller get the data from the model. The view then runs and generates a PDF. The only example I have found is in an article by Lou http://whereslou.com/2009/04/12/returning-pdfs-from-an-aspnet-mvc-action. His code is very elegant. The view is using ITextSharp to generate the PDF. The only downside is his example uses the Spark View Engine. Is there a way to do a similar thing with the standard Microsoft view engine?

pdf asp.net-mvc
8 Answers

I use iTextSharp to generate dynamic PDF's in MVC. All you need to do is put your PDF into a Stream object and then your ActionResult return a FileStreamResult. I also set the content-disposition so the user can download it.

public FileStreamResult PDFGenerator()
{
    Stream fileStream = GeneratePDF();

    HttpContext.Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", 
    "attachment; filename=form.pdf");

    return new FileStreamResult(fileStream, "application/pdf");
}

I also have code that enables me to take a template PDF, write text and images to it etc (if you wanted to do that).

  • Note: you must set the Stream position to 0.
private Stream GeneratePDF()
{
    //create your pdf and put it into the stream... pdf variable below
    //comes from a class I use to write content to PDF files

    MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();

    byte[] byteInfo = pdf.Output();
    ms.Write(byteInfo, 0, byteInfo.Length);
    ms.Position = 0;

    return ms;
}
user_874160

A small example using rotativa package in asp.net mvc

We will create a function to populate the data. We will insert data for 7 days (Feb 1 2018 - Feb 7 2018) showing the first punch and the last punch for particular day with remarks.

public ReportViewModel PopulateData()
        {
            var attendances = new List<Attendance>
            {
                new Attendance{ClassName = "present",Day = new DateTime(2018, 02, 01).ToString("ddd"),Date = new DateTime(2018, 02, 01).ToString("d"),FirstPunch = "09:01:00",LastPunch = "06:00:01",Remarks = ""},
                new Attendance{ClassName = "absent",Day = new DateTime(2018, 02, 02).ToString("ddd"),Date = new DateTime(2018, 02, 02).ToString("d"),FirstPunch = "",LastPunch = "",Remarks = "Absent"},
                new Attendance{ClassName = "holiday",Day = new DateTime(2018, 02, 03).ToString("ddd"),Date = new DateTime(2018, 02, 03).ToString("d"),FirstPunch = "",LastPunch = "",Remarks = "Democracy Day"},
                new Attendance{ClassName = "present",Day = new DateTime(2018, 02, 04).ToString("ddd"),Date = new DateTime(2018, 02, 04).ToString("d"),FirstPunch = "09:05:00",LastPunch = "06:30:01",Remarks = ""},
                new Attendance{ClassName = "present",Day = new DateTime(2018, 02, 05).ToString("ddd"),Date = new DateTime(2018, 02, 05).ToString("d"),FirstPunch = "09:01:00",LastPunch = "06:00:01",Remarks = ""},
                new Attendance{ClassName = "leave",Day = new DateTime(2018, 02, 06).ToString("ddd"),Date = new DateTime(2018, 02, 06).ToString("d"),FirstPunch = "",LastPunch = "",Remarks = "Sick Leave"},
                new Attendance{ClassName = "present",Day = new DateTime(2018, 02, 07).ToString("ddd"),Date = new DateTime(2018, 02, 07).ToString("d"),FirstPunch = "08:35:00",LastPunch = "06:15:01",Remarks = ""}
            };


            return new ReportViewModel
            {
                UserInformation = new UserInformation
                {
                    FullName = "Ritesh Man Chitrakar",
                    Department = "Information Science"
                },
                StartDate = new DateTime(2018, 02, 01),
                EndDate = new DateTime(2018, 02, 07),
                AttendanceData = attendances
            };
        }

We will then create a function to DownloadPdf. To download the pdf we will need to create 2 function. 1. to download pdf 2. to view pdf 

public ActionResult DownloadPdf()
        {
            var filename = "attendance.pdf";

            /*get the current login cookie*/
            var cookies = Request.Cookies.AllKeys.ToDictionary(k => k, k => Request.Cookies[k]?.Value);

            return new ActionAsPdf("PdfView", new
            {
                startDate = Convert.ToDateTime(Request["StartDate"]),
                endDate = Convert.ToDateTime(Request["EndDate"])
            })
            {
                FileName = filename,
                /*pass the retrieved cookie inside the cookie option*/
                RotativaOptions = {Cookies = cookies}
            };
        }

public ActionResult PdfView()
        {
            var reportAttendanceData = PopulateData();

            return View(reportAttendanceData);
        }

You can view the detail explanation on this link . Visit here .

Curtesoy : thelearninguy.com

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