How to Generate PDF from Template in C#

PDF documents are prevalent in today's culture, used by various enterprises for creating invoices and other documents. When selecting a .NET Library for projects, the ease of creating, reading, and writing PDF files should be considered.

IronPDF Features

IronPDF is one of the best HTML-to-PDF converters available on the market. IronPDF can handle almost any operation that a browser is capable of handling. It can create PDF files from HTML5, JavaScript, CSS, and images. The .NET PDF library makes it simple to produce/generate PDF files, read existing PDFs, and edit PDF files. Possible modifications include changing font sizes, pagination, text content, etc. Users of IronPDF can create form fields in rendered PDF documents.

IronPDF is compatible with all .NET Framework project types, including ASP.NET, Windows Forms, and other traditional Windows Application types. IronPDF is capable of rendering ASPX, Razor, and other MVC view components directly into PDFs.

IronPDF's full set of features include:

• Convert images to PDFs (and PDF pages into images)
• Merge and split PDFs
• Complete PDF forms programmatically
• Extract text and images from PDFs
• IronPDF can convert picture files as well as HTML files to PDF
• Create PDFs from web pages, HTML markup, and offline HTML documents
• Generate PDFs from web pages locked behind HTML login forms.
• Annotate PDFs.
• Add headers, footers, text, images, bookmarks, watermarks, and more

Creating a New Project in Visual Studio

This article will demonstrate IronPDF's document generation abilities with a simple Console Application.

Open Visual Studio software and go to the File menu. Select "New project", and then select "Console App".

New Project

Specify the project name and its location. Click on the Next button and choose a .NET Framework.

.NET Framework Selection

Finally, click on Create to generate the new Visual Studio project.

.NET Program.cs

3. Install the IronPDF Library

The IronPDF library can be downloaded and installed in four ways.

These four ways are:

• Use Visual Studio.
• Use the Visual Studio Command-Line.
• Download from the NuGet website directly.
• Download from the IronPDF website directly.

3.1 Using Visual Studio

The NuGet Package Manager is available in the Visual Studio software for easy installation of packages from NuGet. The below screenshot shows how to open the NuGet Package Manager GUI.

NuGet Package Manager

Search for "IronPDF" in the Browse tab of the Package Manager GUI.

IronPDF Installation

Choose the IronPdf package (first option) and click on the Install button to add it to the Solution.

3.2 Using the Visual Studio Command-Line

In Visual Studio, go to Tools > NuGet Package Manager > Package Manager Console

Enter the following command in the Package Manager Console tab and press ENTER.

Install-Package IronPdf

Install IronPDF

3.3 Download from the NuGet Website Directly

• Navigate to the IronPDF NuGet package page.
• Click the Download package from the menu on the right-hand side.
• Double-click the downloaded package from within Windows Explorer to install it in your project automatically.

3.4 Download from the IronPDF Website Directly

Download the IronPDF ZIP file directly with the latest version of the IronPDF package.

Once downloaded, follow the steps below to add the package to the project.

• Right-click the project from the Solution Explorer window.
• Then, select the option Reference and browse the location of the downloaded reference.
• Next, click OK to add the reference.

4. Create a PDF Document from Template

The code example below shows how to create PDF files from the given HTML template with just a few lines of code.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using IronPdf;

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        // Create an instance of ChromePdfRenderer
        var renderer = new IronPdf.ChromePdfRenderer();

        // Render the HTML as PDF and save it as Test.pdf
        renderer.RenderHtmlAsPdf(BuildTemplate()).SaveAs("Test.pdf");
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Builds an HTML template string using StringBuilder
    /// </summary>
    /// <returns>HTML string representation of a table</returns>
    static string BuildTemplate()
    {
        var builder = new StringBuilder();
        builder.Append("<table border='1'>");
        builder.Append("<tr>");
        builder.Append("<th>");
        builder.Append("Cat Family");
        builder.Append("</th>");
        builder.Append("</tr>");

        // Iterate over the data and populate the table rows
        foreach (var item in GetData())
        {
            builder.Append("<tr>");
            builder.Append("<td>");
            builder.Append(item.ToString());
            builder.Append("</td>");
            builder.Append("</tr>");
        }

        builder.Append("</table>");
        return builder.ToString();
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Provides a list of data representing different members of the cat family
    /// </summary>
    /// <returns>List of strings</returns>
    static List<string> GetData()
    {
        List<string> data = new List<string>
        {
            "Lion",
            "Tiger",
            "Cat",
            "Cheetah",
            "Lynx"
        };

        return data;
    }
}

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using IronPdf;

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        // Create an instance of ChromePdfRenderer
        var renderer = new IronPdf.ChromePdfRenderer();

        // Render the HTML as PDF and save it as Test.pdf
        renderer.RenderHtmlAsPdf(BuildTemplate()).SaveAs("Test.pdf");
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Builds an HTML template string using StringBuilder
    /// </summary>
    /// <returns>HTML string representation of a table</returns>
    static string BuildTemplate()
    {
        var builder = new StringBuilder();
        builder.Append("<table border='1'>");
        builder.Append("<tr>");
        builder.Append("<th>");
        builder.Append("Cat Family");
        builder.Append("</th>");
        builder.Append("</tr>");

        // Iterate over the data and populate the table rows
        foreach (var item in GetData())
        {
            builder.Append("<tr>");
            builder.Append("<td>");
            builder.Append(item.ToString());
            builder.Append("</td>");
            builder.Append("</tr>");
        }

        builder.Append("</table>");
        return builder.ToString();
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Provides a list of data representing different members of the cat family
    /// </summary>
    /// <returns>List of strings</returns>
    static List<string> GetData()
    {
        List<string> data = new List<string>
        {
            "Lion",
            "Tiger",
            "Cat",
            "Cheetah",
            "Lynx"
        };

        return data;
    }
}

Imports System
Imports System.Collections.Generic
Imports System.Text
Imports IronPdf

Friend Class Program
	Shared Sub Main()
		' Create an instance of ChromePdfRenderer
		Dim renderer = New IronPdf.ChromePdfRenderer()

		' Render the HTML as PDF and save it as Test.pdf
		renderer.RenderHtmlAsPdf(BuildTemplate()).SaveAs("Test.pdf")
	End Sub

	''' <summary>
	''' Builds an HTML template string using StringBuilder
	''' </summary>
	''' <returns>HTML string representation of a table</returns>
	Private Shared Function BuildTemplate() As String
		Dim builder = New StringBuilder()
		builder.Append("<table border='1'>")
		builder.Append("<tr>")
		builder.Append("<th>")
		builder.Append("Cat Family")
		builder.Append("</th>")
		builder.Append("</tr>")

		' Iterate over the data and populate the table rows
		For Each item In GetData()
			builder.Append("<tr>")
			builder.Append("<td>")
			builder.Append(item.ToString())
			builder.Append("</td>")
			builder.Append("</tr>")
		Next item

		builder.Append("</table>")
		Return builder.ToString()
	End Function

	''' <summary>
	''' Provides a list of data representing different members of the cat family
	''' </summary>
	''' <returns>List of strings</returns>
	Private Shared Function GetData() As List(Of String)
		Dim data As New List(Of String) From {"Lion", "Tiger", "Cat", "Cheetah", "Lynx"}

		Return data
	End Function
End Class

In the above code:

• First, we create an instance of the IronPDF ChromePdfRenderer class to access PDF creation features.
• Next, we call RenderHtmlAsPdf passing the HTML string built by the BuildTemplate method. This method converts the HTML into a PDF.
• The BuildTemplate method uses a StringBuilder to construct an HTML table populated with data.
• GetData returns a list of strings representing the 'cat family', which fills the rows of the HTML table.

Below is the sample PDF file, generated from the above code with just a few lines using the given template.

Generated PDF File

Any type of HTML tag can be used to create a template that can help the user generate user forms, receipts, etc., with a sample template but different data.

It is possible to use the method RenderUrlAsPdf or RenderHtmlFileAsPdf to generate PDF files from different sources. The former method accepts a URL to a webpage, while the latter accepts a string containing the location of an HTML file on the computer.

Read this tutorial for generating PDFs from HTML for more information.

Conclusion

Use IronPDF in production without a watermark with a free trial key. IronPDF comes with SaaS and OEM Redistribution licensing for an additional cost. To know more, refer to the IronPDF Licensing page.