Ozzie Perez

Given that you have an XSL-FO template ready to go, it’s pretty straight-forward to generate a PDF using FO.Net.

It’s not easy to create an XSL-FO from scratch, and I wouldn’t care to. There are programs that can convert your HTML into XSL-FO, though they usually cost a lot of money. You can create one on the cheap using HTML2FO though. The page shows the HTML tags that it supports. Run the application on the commandline and pass two parameters like this:

HTML2FO.exe  <inputHtmlFile>.html  <outputFileName>.fo

You can then use that output file to render a PDF using Fo.Net. I created a wrapper that takes in an XSL-FO file and an XML file and returns a PDF.

FonetButler.cs

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.IO;
using Fonet;
using Fonet.Pdf;
using Fonet.Render;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.XPath;
using System.Xml.Xsl;
using System.Xml.Linq;

namespace FonetButler{
    public class PDF
    {
        public static MemoryStream Render(XElement XmlData, string XslFoPath)
        {
            //get the xsl transform
            MemoryStream transformed = Transform(XmlData, XslFoPath);

            //allocate memory for the pdf
            MemoryStream pdffile = new MemoryStream();

            //create the pdf
            FonetDriver driver = FonetDriver.Make();
            driver.Render(transformed, pdffile);

            //return the pdf stream
            return new MemoryStream(pdffile.ToArray());
        }

        public static MemoryStream Render(string XmlDataPath, string XslFoPath)
        {
            //get the xsl transform
            MemoryStream transformed = Transform(XmlDataPath, XslFoPath);

            //allocate memory for the pdf
            MemoryStream pdffile = new MemoryStream();

            //create the pdf
            FonetDriver driver = FonetDriver.Make();
            driver.Render(transformed, pdffile);

            //return the pdf stream
            return new MemoryStream(pdffile.ToArray());
        }

        public static MemoryStream Render(XElement XmlData, Stream XslFoStream)
        {
            //get the xsl transform
            MemoryStream transformed = Transform(XmlData, XslFoStream);

            //allocate memory for the pdf
            MemoryStream pdffile = new MemoryStream();

            //create the pdf
            FonetDriver driver = FonetDriver.Make();
            driver.Render(transformed, pdffile);

            //return the pdf stream
            return new MemoryStream(pdffile.ToArray());
        }

        public static void Render(XElement XmlData, Stream XslFoStream, string OutputFilePath)
        {
            //get the xsl transform
            MemoryStream transformed = Transform(XmlData, XslFoStream);

            //allocate memory for the pdf
            MemoryStream pdffile = new MemoryStream();

            //create the pdf
            FonetDriver driver = FonetDriver.Make();
            driver.Render(transformed, pdffile);

            //reopen the stream
            pdffile = new MemoryStream(pdffile.ToArray());

            //create the file
            FileStream f = new FileStream(OutputFilePath, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.ReadWrite);
            f.Write(pdffile.ToArray(), 0, (int)pdffile.Length);
            f.Close();
        }

        public static void Render(string XmlDataPath, string XslFoPath, string OutputFilePath)
        {
            //get the xsl transform
            MemoryStream transformed = Transform(XmlDataPath, XslFoPath);

            //allocate memory for the pdf
            MemoryStream pdffile = new MemoryStream();

            //create the pdf
            FonetDriver driver = FonetDriver.Make();
            driver.Render(transformed, pdffile);

            //reopen the stream
            pdffile = new MemoryStream(pdffile.ToArray());

            //create the file
            FileStream f = new FileStream(OutputFilePath, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.ReadWrite);
            f.Write(pdffile.ToArray(), 0, (int)pdffile.Length);
            f.Close();
        }

        public static void Render(XElement XmlData, string XslFoPath, string OutputFilePath)
        {
            //get the xsl transform
            MemoryStream transformed = Transform(XmlData, XslFoPath);

            //allocate memory for the pdf
            MemoryStream pdffile = new MemoryStream();

            //create the pdf
            FonetDriver driver = FonetDriver.Make();
            driver.Render(transformed, pdffile);

            //reopen the stream
            pdffile = new MemoryStream(pdffile.ToArray());

            //create the file
            FileStream f = new FileStream(OutputFilePath, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.ReadWrite);
            f.Write(pdffile.ToArray(), 0, (int)pdffile.Length);
            f.Close();
        }

        private static MemoryStream Transform(XElement XmlData, Stream XslFo)
        {
            XmlWriter writer = null;
            try
            {
                //load the xsl-fo 
                XslCompiledTransform xslTrans = new XslCompiledTransform();
                xslTrans.Load(XmlReader.Create(XslFo));

                //create the output stream
                MemoryStream result = new MemoryStream();
                writer = XmlWriter.Create(result, null);

                //create the xml reader for the data
                XmlReader data = XmlData.CreateReader();

                //do the actual transform of xml
                xslTrans.Transform(data, null, writer);

                writer.Close();

                return new MemoryStream(result.ToArray());
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                if (writer != null) writer.Close();
                throw e;
            }
        }

        private static MemoryStream Transform(string XmlDataPath, string XslFoPath)
        {
            XmlWriter writer = null;
            try
            {
                //load the Xml doc
                XPathDocument myXPathDoc = new XPathDocument(XmlDataPath);

                //load the Xsl
                XslCompiledTransform xslTrans = new XslCompiledTransform();
                xslTrans.Load(XmlDataPath);

                //create the output stream
                MemoryStream result = new MemoryStream();
                writer = XmlWriter.Create(result, null);

                //do the actual transform of Xml
                xslTrans.Transform(myXPathDoc, null, writer);

                writer.Close();

                return new MemoryStream(result.ToArray());
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                if (writer != null) writer.Close();
                throw e;
            }
        }

        private static MemoryStream Transform(XElement XmlData, string XslFoPath)
        {
            XmlWriter writer = null;
            try
            {
                //load the xsl
                XslCompiledTransform xslTrans = new XslCompiledTransform();
                xslTrans.Load(XslFoPath);

                //create the output stream
                MemoryStream result = new MemoryStream();
                writer = XmlWriter.Create(result, null);

                //create the xml reader for the data
                XmlReader data = XmlData.CreateReader();

                //do the actual transform of xml
                xslTrans.Transform(data, null, writer);

                writer.Close();

                return new MemoryStream(result.ToArray());
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                if (writer != null) writer.Close();
                throw e;
            }
        }
    }
}

Sample Code

Creating a physical PDF in classic ASP.Net:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
    //a physical xml file
    XElement xmldata = XElement.Load(Server.MapPath("~/Content/XML/Application.xml"));

    //a physical xsl file
    string xslfo = Server.MapPath("~/Content/XML/Application.xslt");

    //the path for the physical file
    string outputPath = Server.MapPath("~/Content/XML/Application.pdf");

    //create the pdf
    FonetButler.PDF.Render(xmldata, xslfo, outputPath);
}

Generate a PDF in memory in classic ASP.Net:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
    //a physical xml file
    XElement xmldata = XElement.Load(Server.MapPath("~/Content/XML/Application.xml"));

    //a physical xsl file
    string xslfo = Server.MapPath("~/Content/XML/Application.xslt");

    //create the pdf file stream
    MemoryStream pdf = FonetButler.PDF.Render(xmldata, xslfo);

    //prepare output stream
    Response.ContentType = "application/pdf";
    Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment;filename=Application.pdf");
    Response.Buffer = true;
    Response.Clear();
    Response.OutputStream.Write(pdf.ToArray(), 0, (int)pdf.Length);
    Response.OutputStream.Flush();
    Response.End();
}

Create a physical PDF in MVC:

public ViewResult CreatePdf()
{
    //xml file
    XElement xmldata = XElement.Load(Server.MapPath("~/Content/XML/Application.xml"));

    //xsl file
    string xslfo = Server.MapPath("~/Content/XML/Application.xslt");

    //the path for the physical file
    string outputPath = Server.MapPath("~/Content/XML/Application.pdf");

    //the pdf file stream
    FonetButler.PDF.Render(xmldata, xslfo, outputPath);

    return View();
}

Generating a PDF in memory using MVC:

public FileStreamResult ServePdf()
{
    //xml file
    XElement xmldata = XElement.Load(Server.MapPath("~/Content/XML/Application.xml"));

    //xsl file
    string xslfo = Server.MapPath("~/Content/XML/Application.xslt");

    //the pdf file stream
    MemoryStream pdf = FonetButler.PDF.Render(xmldata, xslfo);

    return new FileStreamResult(pdf, "application/pdf");
}