The best way to deal with logins is to avoid them if possible and render HTML directly from a file or a string.

Get started with IronPDF

Start using IronPDF in your project today with a free trial.

First Step:

How to Convert HTML to PDF Behind Login Authentication

Download the C# IronPDF Library
Download the HTML to Avoid Logins
Login using Network Authentication with LoginCredentials property
Use HTML Form for Authentication
Workaround for MVC Login Authentication

Best Practices

IronPDF supports TLS network authentication (username and password) which is extremely secure, and .NET web apps can easily support it: ChromeHttpLoginCredentials API

The best practice is to use System.Net.WebClient or HttpClient to download the HTML and any assets. This fully supports headers, logins, and everything else you may require. Once downloaded to memory or the disk, IronPDF can turn your HTML into a PDF. Assets such as stylesheets and images can be discovered using the HtmlAgilityPack and then downloaded using the System.Net.WebClient as well.

string html;
using (WebClient client = new WebClient()) {
    html = client.DownloadString("http://www.google.com");
}
HtmlDocument doc = new HtmlDocument();        
doc.LoadHtml(html);
foreach(HtmlNode img in doc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//img")) {
    Console.WriteLine(img.GetAttributeValue("src", null));
}

string html;
using (WebClient client = new WebClient()) {
    html = client.DownloadString("http://www.google.com");
}
HtmlDocument doc = new HtmlDocument();        
doc.LoadHtml(html);
foreach(HtmlNode img in doc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//img")) {
    Console.WriteLine(img.GetAttributeValue("src", null));
}

Dim html As String
Using client As New WebClient()
	html = client.DownloadString("http://www.google.com")
End Using
Dim doc As New HtmlDocument()
doc.LoadHtml(html)
For Each img As HtmlNode In doc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//img")
	Console.WriteLine(img.GetAttributeValue("src", Nothing))
Next img

VB C#

Please note

Any relative Url can be rebased to an absolute url using an overloaded constructor for the System.Uri class. To rebase any relative paths in an entire HTML document, add atab to the header using HtmlAgilityPack. Example.

Most ASP.NET applications support network authentication, which is more reliable than HTML form posting.

:path=/static-assets/pdf/content-code-examples/how-to/logins-username-password.cs

using IronPdf;
using System;

ChromePdfRenderer renderer = new ChromePdfRenderer
{
    // setting login credentials to bypass basic authentication
    LoginCredentials = new ChromeHttpLoginCredentials()
    {
        NetworkUsername = "testUser",
        NetworkPassword = "testPassword"
    }
};

var uri = new Uri("http://localhost:51169/Invoice");

// Render web URL to PDF
PdfDocument pdf = renderer.RenderUrlAsPdf(uri);

// Export PDF
pdf.SaveAs("UrlToPdfExample.Pdf");

Imports IronPdf
Imports System

Private renderer As New ChromePdfRenderer With {
	.LoginCredentials = New ChromeHttpLoginCredentials() With {
		.NetworkUsername = "testUser",
		.NetworkPassword = "testPassword"
	}
}

Private uri = New Uri("http://localhost:51169/Invoice")

' Render web URL to PDF
Private pdf As PdfDocument = renderer.RenderUrlAsPdf(uri)

' Export PDF
pdf.SaveAs("UrlToPdfExample.Pdf")

VB C#

To log in by sending data to an HTML form may also be achieved using the ChromeHttpLoginCredentials class, as in the previous example. See IronPDF's ChromeHttpLoginCredentials API.

Please Consider:

The login data must be posted to the URL specified in the HTML form's ACTION attribute. This should be set as the *LoginFormUrl* attribute of the HttpLoginCredentials. This may vary from the URL you actually want to render as a PDF.
The data to be sent should represent every input and textarea in the HTML form. The name attributes define the name of each variable (not the id, as is commonly misunderstood).
Some websites may actively protect against this kind of machine login.

MVC

The following workaround allows a .NET MVC view to be rendered programmatically to a string, which is very useful in avoiding MVC logins yet rendering a view faithfully.

public static string RenderPartialViewToString(this Controller controller, string viewPath, object model = null)
{
    try
    {
        var context = controller.ControllerContext;

        controller.ViewData.Model = model;

        using (var sw = new StringWriter())
        {
            var viewResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(context, viewPath);

            if (viewResult.View == null)
            {
                throw new Exception($"Partial view {viewPath} could not be found.");
            }

            var viewContext = new ViewContext(context, viewResult.View, context.Controller.ViewData, context.Controller.TempData, sw);

            viewResult.View.Render(viewContext, sw);
            viewResult.ViewEngine.ReleaseView(context, viewResult.View);

            return sw.GetStringBuilder().ToString();
        }
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        return ex.Message;
    }
}

public static string RenderPartialViewToString(this Controller controller, string viewPath, object model = null)
{
    try
    {
        var context = controller.ControllerContext;

        controller.ViewData.Model = model;

        using (var sw = new StringWriter())
        {
            var viewResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(context, viewPath);

            if (viewResult.View == null)
            {
                throw new Exception($"Partial view {viewPath} could not be found.");
            }

            var viewContext = new ViewContext(context, viewResult.View, context.Controller.ViewData, context.Controller.TempData, sw);

            viewResult.View.Render(viewContext, sw);
            viewResult.ViewEngine.ReleaseView(context, viewResult.View);

            return sw.GetStringBuilder().ToString();
        }
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        return ex.Message;
    }
}

<System.Runtime.CompilerServices.Extension> _
Public Function RenderPartialViewToString(ByVal controller As Controller, ByVal viewPath As String, Optional ByVal model As Object = Nothing) As String
	Try
		Dim context = controller.ControllerContext

		controller.ViewData.Model = model

		Using sw = New StringWriter()
			Dim viewResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(context, viewPath)

			If viewResult.View Is Nothing Then
				Throw New Exception($"Partial view {viewPath} could not be found.")
			End If

			Dim viewContext As New ViewContext(context, viewResult.View, context.Controller.ViewData, context.Controller.TempData, sw)

			viewResult.View.Render(viewContext, sw)
			viewResult.ViewEngine.ReleaseView(context, viewResult.View)

			Return sw.GetStringBuilder().ToString()
		End Using
	Catch ex As Exception
		Return ex.Message
	End Try
End Function

VB C#