Export GridView to Pdf-ASP.NET

1:58:00 am 1 Comments

Export gridview to pdf using iTextsharp
In this example i m exporting Gridview populated with SqlDataSource to Pdf using iTextSharp in click event of Button

This is the html source of the page in which i've created a gridview,Sqldatasource and a Button to export GridView to Pdf












<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true"
CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="_Default" %>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head runat="server">
<title>Untitled Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
<div>
<asp:GridView ID="GridView1" runat="server"
AutoGenerateColumns="False"
DataSourceID="SqlDataSource1">
<Columns>
<asp:BoundField DataField="Name"
HeaderText="Name"
SortExpression="Name" />
<asp:BoundField DataField="Location"
HeaderText="Location"
SortExpression="Location" />
</Columns>
</asp:GridView>
<asp:SqlDataSource ID="SqlDataSource1"
runat="server"
ConnectionString="<%$ ConnectionStrings:ConnectionString %>"
SelectCommand="SELECT [Name], [Location] FROM [Test]">
</asp:SqlDataSource>

</div>
<br />
<asp:Button ID="btnExport" runat="server"
OnClick="btnExport_Click"
Text="Export to PDF" />

</form>
</body>
</html>

To use iTextSharp , we need to add these namspaces in the code behind and itextsharp.dll in Bin folder of Application
using iTextSharp.text;
using iTextSharp.text.pdf;
using iTextSharp.text.html;
using System.IO;
using System.Collections;
using System.Net;

Now in Click event of button i m creating a new HtmlForm and adding the gridview control to this form in code behind , than creating instance of StringWriter class and HtmlTextWriter to write strings and than rendernig these to form created earlier
protected void btnExport_Click
(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
HtmlForm form = new HtmlForm();
form.Controls.Add(GridView1);
StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
HtmlTextWriter hTextWriter = new HtmlTextWriter(sw);
form.Controls[0].RenderControl(hTextWriter);
string html = sw.ToString();

In next lines of code i m creating a new Document in specified location and opening it for writing
Document Doc = new Document();

If u wanna save the pdf in application's root folder in server
than use Requesr.PhysicalApplicationPath

//PdfWriter.GetInstance
//(Doc, new FileStream(Request.PhysicalApplicationPath 
//+ "\\AmitJain.pdf", FileMode.Create));

And if u wanna save the PDF at users Desktop than use
Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop

PdfWriter.GetInstance
(Doc, new FileStream(Environment.GetFolderPath
(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop)
+ "\\AmitJain.pdf", FileMode.Create));
Doc.Open();

Now i m adding a paragraph to this document to be used as
Header by creating a new chuck and adding it to paragraph

Chunk c = new Chunk
("Export GridView to PDF Using iTextSharp \n",
FontFactory.GetFont("Verdana", 15));
Paragraph p = new Paragraph();
p.Alignment = Element.ALIGN_CENTER;
p.Add(c);
Chunk chunk1 = new Chunk
("By Amit Jain, amit_jain_online@yahoo.com \n",
FontFactory.GetFont("Verdana", 8));
Paragraph p1 = new Paragraph();
p1.Alignment = Element.ALIGN_RIGHT;
p1.Add(chunk1);

Doc.Add(p);
Doc.Add(p1);

Now i m reading the html string created above through 
xmlTextReader and htmlParser to parse html elements

System.Xml.XmlTextReader xmlReader =
new System.Xml.XmlTextReader(new StringReader(html));
HtmlParser.Parse(Doc, xmlReader);

Doc.Close();
string Path = Environment.GetFolderPath
(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop)
+ "\\AmitJain.pdf";


ShowPdf(Path);


The complete code looks like this

using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Security;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;
using iTextSharp.text;
using iTextSharp.text.pdf;
using iTextSharp.text.html;
using System.IO;
using System.Collections;
using System.Net;

public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{

}
protected void btnExport_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
HtmlForm form = new HtmlForm();
form.Controls.Add(GridView1);
StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
HtmlTextWriter hTextWriter = new HtmlTextWriter(sw);
form.Controls[0].RenderControl(hTextWriter);
string html = sw.ToString();
Document Doc = new Document();

//PdfWriter.GetInstance
//(Doc, new FileStream(Request.PhysicalApplicationPath 
//+ "\\AmitJain.pdf", FileMode.Create));

PdfWriter.GetInstance
(Doc, new FileStream(Environment.GetFolderPath
(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop)
+ "\\AmitJain.pdf", FileMode.Create));
Doc.Open();

Chunk c = new Chunk
("Export GridView to PDF Using iTextSharp \n",
FontFactory.GetFont("Verdana", 15));
Paragraph p = new Paragraph();
p.Alignment = Element.ALIGN_CENTER;
p.Add(c);
Chunk chunk1 = new Chunk
("By Amit Jain, amit_jain_online@yahoo.com \n",
FontFactory.GetFont("Verdana", 8));
Paragraph p1 = new Paragraph();
p1.Alignment = Element.ALIGN_RIGHT;
p1.Add(chunk1);

Doc.Add(p);
Doc.Add(p1);

System.Xml.XmlTextReader xmlReader =
new System.Xml.XmlTextReader(new StringReader(html));
HtmlParser.Parse(Doc, xmlReader);

Doc.Close();
string Path = Environment.GetFolderPath
(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop)
+ "\\AmitJain.pdf";


ShowPdf(Path);


}

private void ShowPdf(string strS)
{
Response.ClearContent();
Response.ClearHeaders();
Response.ContentType = "application/pdf";
Response.AddHeader
("Content-Disposition","attachment; filename=" + strS);
Response.TransmitFile(strS);
Response.End();
//Response.WriteFile(strS);
Response.Flush();
Response.Clear();

}

}

This code doesn't work if paging is enabled in GridView and the other this is cloumns become of variable width in PDF document , to fix these issues read my next Post Exporting Paging enabled GridView to PDF using iTextSharp

Download the sample Code

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