Convert HTML to PDF in .NET on Multiple Platforms
The Cross-Platform EVO HTML to PDF Client for .NET is a component of the EVO PDF Client Library for .NET
which can be easily integrated in any .NET application on various platforms to convert HTML documents to PDF, raster images or SVG vector images.
The HTML to PDF is a powerful tool helping you to instantly create nicely formatted and easily maintainable PDF documents from HTML pages.
The client library offers in general the same features, quality and API as the regular HTML to PDF Library for .NET and it can be used on Windows,
Linux, MacOS operating systems and on restrictive platforms like Azure App Service, Azure Functions, Universal Windows Platform (UWP), Xamarin for iOS and Android and other platforms.
Before starting to use the client library for .NET in your applications you first have to install the EVO PDF Server as described in the sections below.
The converter offers full support for HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, SVG, Web Fonts,
page breaks control with CSS and from API, automatically repeated HTML table header and footer,
live URLs and internal links, automatically generated hierarchical bookmarks and table of contents,
PDF fillable forms, creation of digitally signed and password protected PDF documents.
EVO PDF Client Library for .NET includes also under the same namespace the API for the Word to PDF, Excel to PDF, PDF to Text, PDF to Image, PDF to HTML and PDF Images Extractor
components from EVO PDF Toolkit.
Compatibility
EVO PDF Client Library for .NET is compatible with any platform which supports .NET Standard 2.0 and above or .NET Framework 4.0 and above, including:
- .NET Core 7, 6, 5, .NET Standard 2.0 (and above)
- .NET Framework 4.8.1, 4.7.2, 4.6.1, 4.0 (and above)
- Windows, Linux, macOS
- Azure, Azure App Service and Azure Functions
- Xamarin for iOS, macOS and Android
- Universal Windows Platform (UWP)
- Web, Console and Desktop applications
Software Download
EVO PDF Client Libraries
EVO PDF Client library for .NET has separate ZIP packages for .NET Core and for .NET Framework you can download, containing libraries, demo applications and documentation
specific to each platform.
The package for .NET Core contains the product binaries targeting .NET Standard 2.0, demo Visual Studio projects with full C# code for ASP.NET Core targeting .NET Core 6.0 and later versions,
the library documentation in CHM format.
The package for .NET Framework contains the product binaries, demo Visual Studio projects with full C# code for ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC
targeting .NET Framework 4 and later versions, the library documentation in CHM format.
EVO PDF Server
Before starting to use the EVO HTML to PDF Client for .NET in your applications you first have to install the EVO PDF Server.
The server can be installed as Azure Cloud Service Worker Role, Azure Cloud Service Web Role, Azure Service Fabric Application,
IIS ASP.NET Web Application or Windows Service.
EVO PDF Server package contains the server files and detailed installation instructions for each platform.
You can start by installing EVO PDF Server as a Windows Service on the local development machine with default options. In this case the assigned IP address is 127.0.0.1
which is also the default IP address in the demo client applications from software package.
Getting Started
After the EVO PDF Server was installed, you are ready to use the EVO PDF Client Library for .NET in your applications. You can quickly start with
the demo applications from the Demo folder of this package or you can integrate the library in your own project.
To start with your own project, first add a reference to
EvoPdf.Client NuGet package. Alternatively you can reference the EvoPdfClient_NetCore.dll library directly
from the Bin folder of the client library ZIP package for .NET Core or the EvoPdfClient.dll library from the Bin folder of the client library ZIP package for .NET Framework.
After the reference to library was added to your project you are now ready to start writing code to convert HTML to PDF in your .NET application
C# Code Samples
Copy the C# code lines from the section below to use the HTML to PDF Converter component to create a PDF document from a web page or from a HTML string and save
the resulted PDF to a memory buffer for further processing, to a PDF file or send it to browser for download in ASP.NET applications.
The server IP address is assigned during server installation and it can be omitted from HtmlToPdfConverter constructor if the server was installed on the localhost IP address 127.0.0.1 .
There are also variants of the constructor accepting an URL instead of IP address if the server was installed as a web service in Azure or in IIS.
At the top of your C# source file add the using EvoPdfClient; statement to make available the EVO PDF Client API for your .NET application.
// add this using statement at the top of your C# file
using EvoPdfClient;
To convert a HTML string or an URL to a PDF file you can use the C# code below.
// create the converter object in your code where you want to run conversion
// change the serverIP value if the server was installed on a remote machine
string serverIP = "127.0.0.1";
HtmlToPdfConverter converter = new HtmlToPdfConverter(serverIP);
// convert the HTML string to a PDF file
converter.ConvertHtmlToFile("<b>Hello World</b> from EVO PDF !", null, "HtmlToFile.pdf");
// convert HTML page from URL to a PDF file
string htmlPageURL = "http://www.evopdf.com";
converter.ConvertUrlToFile(htmlPageURL, "UrlToFile.pdf");
To convert a HTML string or an URL to a PDF document in a memory buffer and then save it to a file you can use the C# code below.
// create the converter object in your code where you want to run conversion
// change the serverIP value if the server was installed on a remote machine
string serverIP = "127.0.0.1";
HtmlToPdfConverter converter = new HtmlToPdfConverter(serverIP);
// convert a HTML string to a memory buffer
byte[] htmlToPdfBuffer = converter.ConvertHtml("<b>Hello World</b> from EVO PDF !", null);
// write the memory buffer to a PDF file
System.IO.File.WriteAllBytes("HtmlToMemory.pdf", htmlToPdfBuffer);
// convert an URL to a memory buffer
string htmlPageURL = "http://www.evopdf.com";
byte[] urlToPdfBuffer = converter.ConvertUrl(htmlPageURL);
// write the memory buffer to a PDF file
System.IO.File.WriteAllBytes("UrlToMemory.pdf", urlToPdfBuffer);
To convert in your ASP.NET Core and ASP.NET MVC applications a HTML string or an URL to a PDF document in a memory buffer and then send it for download to browser you can use the C# code below.
// create the converter object in your code where you want to run conversion
// change the serverIP value if the server was installed on a remote machine
string serverIP = "127.0.0.1";
HtmlToPdfConverter converter = new HtmlToPdfConverter(serverIP);
// convert a HTML string to a memory buffer
byte[] htmlToPdfBuffer = converter.ConvertHtml("<b>Hello World</b> from EVO PDF !", null);
FileResult fileResult = new FileContentResult(htmlToPdfBuffer, "application/pdf");
fileResult.FileDownloadName = "HtmlToPdf.pdf";
return fileResult;
To convert in your ASP.NET Web Forms application a HTML string to a PDF document in a memory buffer and then send it for download to browser you can use the C# code below.
// create the converter object in your code where you want to run conversion
// change the serverIP value if the server was installed on a remote machine
string serverIP = "127.0.0.1";
HtmlToPdfConverter converter = new HtmlToPdfConverter(serverIP);
// convert a HTML string to a memory buffer
byte[] htmlToPdfBuffer = converter.ConvertHtml("<b>Hello World</b> from EVO PDF !", null);
HttpResponse httpResponse = HttpContext.Current.Response;
httpResponse.AddHeader("Content-Type", "application/pdf");
httpResponse.AddHeader("Content-Disposition",
String.Format("attachment; filename=HtmlToPdf.pdf; size={0}",
htmlToPdfBuffer.Length.ToString()));
httpResponse.BinaryWrite(htmlToPdfBuffer);
httpResponse.End();