Creating a PDF Generator in ASP.NET Core using IronPDF

1. NuGet Package Manager

To install the IronPDF C# .NET Core Library from the NuGet Package Manager:

• Open the NuGet Package Manager by clicking on Tools > NuGet Package Manager > Manage NuGet Packages for Solution.

NuGet Package Manager

• Or, right-click on the project in the Solution Explorer and click Manage NuGet Packages.

NuGet Package Manager - Solution Explorer

• Search for IronPDF. Select IronPDF and click on Install. The library will begin installing.

NuGet Package Manager - Solution Explorer

1. Create a PDF using an ASP.NET WebForms (ASPX)

This section will demonstrate how to generate PDF files from ASP.NET WebForms, which only supports .NET Framework version 4. Hence, this requires IronPdf.Extensions.ASPX from the official NuGet page for ASPX to be installed. It is not available in .NET Core because ASPX is superseded by the MVC model.

Open the source file of the ASPX web page that you want to convert into a PDF document, in this case, create a new Default.aspx page.

NuGet Package Manager - Solution Explorer

Open the Default.aspx.cs file, and add the IronPDF namespace at the top of it.

using IronPdf;

using IronPdf;

Next, write the following line of code in the Page_Load() function:

// This code renders the current ASPX page as a PDF file and displays it in the browser.
AspxToPdf.RenderThisPageAsPdf(AspxToPdf.FileBehavior.InBrowser);

// This code renders the current ASPX page as a PDF file and displays it in the browser.
AspxToPdf.RenderThisPageAsPdf(AspxToPdf.FileBehavior.InBrowser);

With just one line of code, a new PDF document is created from an ASP.NET webpage.

The RenderThisPageAsPdf method is used within the AspxToPdf class to convert the ASPX page into a PDF file.

When you run the project, a PDF of the web page will appear in the browser. This is done on the server side.

The above code only shows the PDF document in the browser. It is also possible to download the PDF document directly onto the computer by adding this line of code in the Page_Load() function:

// This code downloads the generated PDF file of the current ASPX page to the client.
AspxToPdf.RenderThisPageAsPdf(IronPdf.AspxToPdf.FileBehavior.Attachment);

// This code downloads the generated PDF file of the current ASPX page to the client.
AspxToPdf.RenderThisPageAsPdf(IronPdf.AspxToPdf.FileBehavior.Attachment);

This code will download the PDF file of the ASPX web page into the .NET project directory.

Output:

ASPX Page to PDF

2. Create PDF using ASP.NET Core from an HTML file

This section will demonstrate how to generate PDF files in ASP.NET Core. IronPDF can convert everything in an HTML file, including images, CSS, forms, etc. directly to a PDF document. Add a button that will generate PDFs when clicked.

Add the markup below to any .cshtml page of your choice (index.cshtml will be used here).

<div>
    <form method="post" asp-page="Index" asp-page-handler="GeneratePDF">
        <input type="Submit" value="GeneratePDF"/>
    </form>
</div>

<div>
    <form method="post" asp-page="Index" asp-page-handler="GeneratePDF">
        <input type="Submit" value="GeneratePDF"/>
    </form>
</div>

In the index.cshtml.cs file, create a method called OnPostGeneratePDF. This function will be used to render the HTML as a PDF.

public void OnPostGeneratePDF()
{
    // Placeholder method that will handle PDF generation.
}

public void OnPostGeneratePDF()
{
    // Placeholder method that will handle PDF generation.
}

Next, add a new HTML page to your web application.

Add a New Web Page

Add some text to the body of this page, e.g., "Generating PDF files from HTML pages."

Finally, add the following code in the OnPostGeneratePDF action method.

public void OnPostGeneratePDF()
{
    // Create a new instance of the ChromePdfRenderer class to handle PDF rendering.
    var renderer = new ChromePdfRenderer();

    // Render the HTML file as a PDF by specifying the path and save the resulting PDF file.
    var pdf = renderer.RenderHtmlFileAsPdf("Pages/htmlpage.html");

    // Save the generated PDF document with the specified name.
    pdf.SaveAs("MyPdf.pdf");
}

public void OnPostGeneratePDF()
{
    // Create a new instance of the ChromePdfRenderer class to handle PDF rendering.
    var renderer = new ChromePdfRenderer();

    // Render the HTML file as a PDF by specifying the path and save the resulting PDF file.
    var pdf = renderer.RenderHtmlFileAsPdf("Pages/htmlpage.html");

    // Save the generated PDF document with the specified name.
    pdf.SaveAs("MyPdf.pdf");
}

Above, the RenderHtmlFileAsPdf function is used to create PDFs from HTML files by specifying the path to the HTML file that will be converted.

Run the project and click on the "Generate PDF" button. The generated PDF file will appear in the ASP.NET Core project folder.

Output:

ASP.NET HTML Page to PDF

Visit the tutorial pages to learn how to convert MVC views to PDFs in ASP.NET Core.