iTextSharp - Table in absolute coordinates

Question

I am trying to use this tutorial to position table in absolute coordinates using iTextSharp. Here is my code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using iTextSharp;
using iTextSharp.text;
using iTextSharp.text.pdf;
using System.IO;

namespace iTextSharpQuestion
{
    class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        System.IO.FileStream fs = new FileStream(@"C:\Temp\" + "First PDF document.pdf", FileMode.Create);
        Document document = new Document(PageSize.LETTER, 25, 25, 30, 30);
        document.SetPageSize(iTextSharp.text.PageSize.LETTER.Rotate());
        PdfWriter writer = PdfWriter.GetInstance(document, fs);
        document.Open();
        PdfContentByte cb = writer.DirectContent;
        BaseFont f_cn = BaseFont.CreateFont(BaseFont.TIMES_ROMAN, BaseFont.CP1252, false);
        cb.BeginText();
        cb.SetFontAndSize(f_cn, 9);

        PdfPTable ObjTestTable = TestTable();
        ObjTestTable.WriteSelectedRows(0, -1, 200, 50, cb);

        cb.EndText();
        // Close the document
        document.Close();
        // Close the writer instance
        writer.Close();
        // Always close open filehandles explicity
        fs.Close();
    }
    public static PdfPTable TestTable()
    {
        PdfPTable table = new PdfPTable(3);
        PdfPCell cell = new PdfPCell(new Phrase("Header spanning 3 columns"));
        cell.Colspan = 3;
        cell.HorizontalAlignment = 1; //0=Left, 1=Centre, 2=Right
        table.AddCell(cell);
        table.AddCell("Col 1 Row 1");
        table.AddCell("Col 2 Row 1");
        table.AddCell("Col 3 Row 1");
        table.AddCell("Col 1 Row 2");
        table.AddCell("Col 2 Row 2");
        table.AddCell("Col 3 Row 2");
        return table;

    }

}
}

The following line generates error message

ObjTestTable.WriteSelectedRows(0, -1, 200, 50, cb);

The error message is

The table width must be greater than zero.

Tutorial suggests to use width zero. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

You have several errors in your code.

When you add a table at absolute positions, it is forbidden to use BeginText() and EndText() as that would cause nested text objects. As explained in ISO-32000-1, you can not next BT/ET sequences and that's exactly what will happen if your table contains text. As you can not add a table inside a text object, it also doesn't make sense to use SetFontAndSize().

This being said: you need to define a width for the table:

PdfContentByte cb = writer.DirectContent;
PdfPTable table = new PdfPTable(1);
table.TotalWidth = 400f;
table.AddCell("Test");
table.WriteSelectedRows(0, -1, 200, 50, cb);

Note that the site you refer too contains an illegal copy of a book published by Manning Publications of which I am the author.