What is the best way to print a report to PDF in ASP.Net?

Question

I have a complicated report that I need to draw with GDI+ (I don't know of a better way) with multiple pages and have it save to PDF so the user can download. What is the best way to do this?

Answer 1

Not sure how complex your report is and what you are doing with GDI+ but here's some ideas that may help:

Checkout ITextSharp and/or PDFSharp.

The spark view engine also has pdf generation built in.

As another thought.... If you have access to SQL Report server and/or at least it's client and can use it to create your report you can generate and call from .Net MVC and output as PDF.

Check out this SO answer: Asp.Net MVC how to get view to generate PDF

Answer 2

There is another way of doing it, install Bullzip on the server, and using the COM interface, you can programmatically print it out to a pdf document which I would think would be less hassle...simply select the Bullzip PDF Printer as the active printer and print it out to a destination pdf folder. Have a look at this here to see how the COM works...the COM interface is the same as bioPDF's COM model.

Hope this helps, Best regards, Tom.

Answer 3

I'm a fan of Data Dynamics ActiveReports myself. Probably has a little do with the fact that they're local in town, and if I have a problem I can just call them up. Very good reporting engine though. Prints directly to PDF.