PD4ML.NET is a 100% managed code port of PD4ML v3 conversion library, which allows you to create Adobe PDF documents on the fly from HTML documents or templates.
- Built-in security by using code access security and avoiding buffer overruns, which is very critical for server-side applications.
- Performance benefits gained from executing all code in the Common Language Runtime with use of the Just-In-Time compiler. Calling unmanaged code decreases performance because additional security checks are required.
- Ease of deployment
- Improved versioning.
- Implicit lifetime control of objects and garbage collection.
PD4ML.NET is encapsulated in an easy-to-deploy set of DLLs and it does not rely on any unsafe native components (like MS Internet Explorer renderer): it is based on proprietary HTML rendering engine, optimized for PDF layout generation. The rendering engine implements most of HTML4/CSS2 standard features plus a number of custom PDF-generation-specific functions: pagination control, headers/footers generation, watermarking, TOC generation etc.
PDF reporting does not require an utilization of complex report generators anymore. You create an HTML/ASP based report with images, charts, form elements and PD4ML.NET does the rest for you.
The component can be used from any .NET 1.1/2.0/3.x application (Windows forms, ASP.NET Web sites or command line tools), even if the application run under Mono framework on Linux platform.
Main features:
- Convert an URL or HTML string to a PDF file or byte stream.
- Set PDF page format and orientation
- Control page margins
- Define PDF headers and footers in HTML (including images and page numbers)
- Embed and use True Type and Open Type fonts.
- Support most of Asian, Middle-East, European and Latin character sets
- Generate external and internal hyperlinks
- Control header/footer appearance on selected pages
- Embed attachments
- Switch PDF encryption on and assign document security restrictions
- Generate PDF bookmarks
- Generate table of contents based on <H1>-<H6> structure
- Customize page background
- Watermark pages
- Override hardcoded document style with additional CSS style sheets
- Provide basic support for PDF forms
The rich set of features and the robustness of the managed code makes PD4ML famous as a perfect PDF generation solution for server-side and desktop applications.
Additional info: