PDFsharp Sign PDF documents Digitally vs IronPDF (Code Example)

PDFSharp is an open-source C# library primarily designed for creating and manipulating PDF documents. It is widely used for basic PDF tasks, such as generating simple PDF files, editing existing documents, and rendering graphics. However, its native support for advanced features like digital signatures is limited, and developers often need to rely on third-party libraries, such as BouncyCastle, to integrate such functionalities. PDFsharp is open-source, under the MIT License, making it a good choice for projects where cost and flexibility are a priority.

Key Features

• Open-source and free under the MIT License.
• Basic PDF creation and manipulation.
• Can be extended with external libraries like BouncyCastle for digital signatures.
• Lacks out-of-the-box support for advanced PDF features such as HTML-to-PDF conversion and complex form handling.

IronPDF Overview

PDFsharp is an open-source library designed for PDF creation and manipulation in C#. However, while it does offer support to add a signature, you’ll need to integrate a third-party tool like BouncyCastle to ensure secure, accurate digital signing of PDF documents.

Steps to Add a Digital Signature with PDFsharp

1. Install PDFsharp and BouncyCastle via NuGet.
2. Create a digital certificate using X509Certificate2.
3. Sign the PDF with BouncyCastle.

Example Code

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates;
using PdfSharp.Drawing;
using PdfSharp.Pdf;
using BouncyCastleSigner; // Hypothetical namespace for illustration
// Ensure that you have the appropriate namespaces added

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        // Create a font for the appearance of the signature
        var font = new XFont("Verdana", 10.0, XFontStyle.Regular);

        // Create a new PDF document
        var document = new PdfDocument();
        var pdfPage = document.AddPage();

        // Prepare graphics for drawing on the PDF page
        var xGraphics = XGraphics.FromPdfPage(pdfPage);
        var layoutRectangle = new XRect(0.0, 0.0, pdfPage.Width.Point, pdfPage.Height.Point);

        // Add some text to the page
        xGraphics.DrawString("Signed sample document", font, XBrushes.Black, layoutRectangle, XStringFormats.TopCenter);

        // Define digital signature appearance options
        var options = new DigitalSignatureOptions
        {
            ContactInfo = "John Doe",
            Location = "Seattle",
            Reason = "License Agreement",
            Rectangle = new XRect(36.0, 700.0, 400.0, 50.0),
            AppearanceHandler = new SignatureAppearanceHandler()
        };

        // Sign the document using BouncyCastle signer
        var pdfSignatureHandler = DigitalSignatureHandler.ForDocument(document,
            new PdfSharp.Snippets.Pdf.BouncyCastleSigner(GetCertificate(), PdfMessageDigestType.SHA256), options);

        // Save the signed document
        document.Save("PdfSharpSignature.pdf");
    }

    static (X509Certificate2, X509Certificate2Collection) GetCertificate()
    {
        // Locate the certificate file and read its data
        var certFolder = "C:\\Users\\kyess\\AppData\\Roaming\\Adobe\\Acrobat\\DC\\Security";
        var pfxFile = Path.Combine(certFolder, "IronSoftware.pfx");
        var rawData = File.ReadAllBytes(pfxFile);

        // Load the certificate using its password (example password)
        var certificatePassword = "Passw0rd";
        var certificate = new X509Certificate2(rawData, certificatePassword,
            X509KeyStorageFlags.MachineKeySet | X509KeyStorageFlags.PersistKeySet | X509KeyStorageFlags.Exportable);

        // Create and return the certificate collection
        var collection = new X509Certificate2Collection();
        collection.Import(rawData, certificatePassword,
            X509KeyStorageFlags.MachineKeySet | X509KeyStorageFlags.PersistKeySet | X509KeyStorageFlags.Exportable);
        return (certificate, collection);
    }
}

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates;
using PdfSharp.Drawing;
using PdfSharp.Pdf;
using BouncyCastleSigner; // Hypothetical namespace for illustration
// Ensure that you have the appropriate namespaces added

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        // Create a font for the appearance of the signature
        var font = new XFont("Verdana", 10.0, XFontStyle.Regular);

        // Create a new PDF document
        var document = new PdfDocument();
        var pdfPage = document.AddPage();

        // Prepare graphics for drawing on the PDF page
        var xGraphics = XGraphics.FromPdfPage(pdfPage);
        var layoutRectangle = new XRect(0.0, 0.0, pdfPage.Width.Point, pdfPage.Height.Point);

        // Add some text to the page
        xGraphics.DrawString("Signed sample document", font, XBrushes.Black, layoutRectangle, XStringFormats.TopCenter);

        // Define digital signature appearance options
        var options = new DigitalSignatureOptions
        {
            ContactInfo = "John Doe",
            Location = "Seattle",
            Reason = "License Agreement",
            Rectangle = new XRect(36.0, 700.0, 400.0, 50.0),
            AppearanceHandler = new SignatureAppearanceHandler()
        };

        // Sign the document using BouncyCastle signer
        var pdfSignatureHandler = DigitalSignatureHandler.ForDocument(document,
            new PdfSharp.Snippets.Pdf.BouncyCastleSigner(GetCertificate(), PdfMessageDigestType.SHA256), options);

        // Save the signed document
        document.Save("PdfSharpSignature.pdf");
    }

    static (X509Certificate2, X509Certificate2Collection) GetCertificate()
    {
        // Locate the certificate file and read its data
        var certFolder = "C:\\Users\\kyess\\AppData\\Roaming\\Adobe\\Acrobat\\DC\\Security";
        var pfxFile = Path.Combine(certFolder, "IronSoftware.pfx");
        var rawData = File.ReadAllBytes(pfxFile);

        // Load the certificate using its password (example password)
        var certificatePassword = "Passw0rd";
        var certificate = new X509Certificate2(rawData, certificatePassword,
            X509KeyStorageFlags.MachineKeySet | X509KeyStorageFlags.PersistKeySet | X509KeyStorageFlags.Exportable);

        // Create and return the certificate collection
        var collection = new X509Certificate2Collection();
        collection.Import(rawData, certificatePassword,
            X509KeyStorageFlags.MachineKeySet | X509KeyStorageFlags.PersistKeySet | X509KeyStorageFlags.Exportable);
        return (certificate, collection);
    }
}

Output

As you can see here, while it was able to create a digital signature field and apply the certificate to our new document, the process is extensive, manual, and not overly efficient to implement when compared to libraries such as IronPDF.

IronPDF provides developers with a concise method for digitally signing PDF documents.

using IronPdf;
using System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates;

public class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        // Load the certificate with its password
        var sig = new PdfSignature("IronSoftware.pfx", "your-password");

        // Configure additional signature details
        sig.TimestampHashAlgorithm = TimestampHashAlgorithms.SHA256;
        sig.TimestampUrl = "http://timestamp.digicert.com";
        sig.SignatureImage = new PdfSignatureImage("IronPdf.png", 0, new Rectangle(150, 100, 200, 200));

        // Sign and save the PDF document
        sig.SignPdfFile("output.pdf");
    }
}

using IronPdf;
using System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates;

public class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        // Load the certificate with its password
        var sig = new PdfSignature("IronSoftware.pfx", "your-password");

        // Configure additional signature details
        sig.TimestampHashAlgorithm = TimestampHashAlgorithms.SHA256;
        sig.TimestampUrl = "http://timestamp.digicert.com";
        sig.SignatureImage = new PdfSignatureImage("IronPdf.png", 0, new Rectangle(150, 100, 200, 200));

        // Sign and save the PDF document
        sig.SignPdfFile("output.pdf");
    }
}

Output

This code demonstrates how to sign a PDF document using IronPDF's PdfSignature class. The program first creates a PdfSignature object, specifying the location of a .pfx certificate file and its password. It then sets additional signature properties, such as the hash algorithm (SHA256), timestamp URL, and a custom image for the signature (IronPdf.png).

Finally, the SignPdfFile method is called to apply the digital signature to the PDF document and save it as output.pdf. This process ensures the integrity and authenticity of the PDF by embedding the digital signature along with a timestamp and visual image.

PDFSharp:

• Open-source under MIT License.
• Requires external libraries (e.g., BouncyCastle) for advanced features like digital signing.

IronPDF:

• Commercial license with pricing based on developers and deployment instances.
• Free trial available
• Free for development use