IronPDF Runtimes Folder

IronPDF requires the runtimes folder be included in a project/deployment.

Failing to include this folder will throw the following exceptions:

  • ExceptionMessage: "Failed to locate native library at path 'C:\path-to\your-app\chrome_elf.dll"

Recommended:

  1. Deploy using the Publishing Wizard within the Visual Studio. Once the publishing process have done, check the publish profile and ensure that the target runtime is Portable.
    This should be the case as Visual Studio will create a publish profile with Framework-dependent as the Deployment mode and Portable as target runtime by default. (everything in the runtimes folder will be automatically included in the publish profile).
    Learn more on the Visual Studio Deployment mode here

  2. If unable to use Visual Studio to manage your deployment, manually copy the runtimes folders from a development machine into the bin folder in your production machine

For users with multiple projects and wants to avoid requiring multiple runtimes folders:

  • Use the Windows installer to install a single IronPdf.dll that you can reference for all of your projects
  • Installing IronPDF in a separate PDF rendering microservice, and call from individual projects