I'm attempting to create a PDF file from an HTML file. After looking around a little I've found: wkhtmltopdf to be perfect. I need to call this .exe from the ASP.NET server. I've attempted:
Process p = new Process();
p.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
p.StartInfo.FileName = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("wkhtmltopdf.exe");
p.StartInfo.Arguments = "TestPDF.htm TestPDF.pdf";
p.Start();
p.WaitForExit();
With no success of any files being created on the server. Can anyone give me a pointer in the right direction? I put the wkhtmltopdf.exe file at the top level directory of the site. Is there anywhere else it should be held?
Edit: If anyone has better solutions to dynamically create pdf files from html, please let me know.
Update:
My answer below, creates the pdf file on the disk. I then streamed that file to the users browser as a download. Consider using something like Hath's answer below to get wkhtml2pdf to output to a stream instead and then send that directly to the user - that will bypass lots of issues with file permissions etc.
My original answer:
Make sure you've specified an output path for the PDF that is writeable by the ASP.NET process of IIS running on your server (usually NETWORK_SERVICE I think).
Mine looks like this (and it works):
/// <summary>
/// Convert Html page at a given URL to a PDF file using open-source tool wkhtml2pdf
/// </summary>
/// <param name="Url"></param>
/// <param name="outputFilename"></param>
/// <returns></returns>
public static bool HtmlToPdf(string Url, string outputFilename)
{
// assemble destination PDF file name
string filename = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ExportFilePath"] + "\\" + outputFilename + ".pdf";
// get proj no for header
Project project = new Project(int.Parse(outputFilename));
var p = new System.Diagnostics.Process();
p.StartInfo.FileName = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["HtmlToPdfExePath"];
string switches = "--print-media-type ";
switches += "--margin-top 4mm --margin-bottom 4mm --margin-right 0mm --margin-left 0mm ";
switches += "--page-size A4 ";
switches += "--no-background ";
switches += "--redirect-delay 100";
p.StartInfo.Arguments = switches + " " + Url + " " + filename;
p.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false; // needs to be false in order to redirect output
p.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
p.StartInfo.RedirectStandardError = true;
p.StartInfo.RedirectStandardInput = true; // redirect all 3, as it should be all 3 or none
p.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory = StripFilenameFromFullPath(p.StartInfo.FileName);
p.Start();
// read the output here...
string output = p.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
// ...then wait n milliseconds for exit (as after exit, it can't read the output)
p.WaitForExit(60000);
// read the exit code, close process
int returnCode = p.ExitCode;
p.Close();
// if 0 or 2, it worked (not sure about other values, I want a better way to confirm this)
return (returnCode == 0 || returnCode == 2);
}