iText IN ACTION – Creating and Manipulating PDF

While this isn’t specifically targeted at iTextSharp, which we’ve been covering in recent posts, this is really the closest book you are going to find on the subject.

The basics are the same. Keep in mind that the main difference is that set_PropertyName_ and get_PropertyName_ methods have been changed to .NET style properties (versus Java style) where it makes sense. Method names start with a capital letter in iTextSharp, and event wiring is a little funky (we’ll get to that later).

Basically iTextSharp takes all the Java syntax out of iText and makes it look more like what you would expect in a .NET library. Keep that in mind while you are working through this book or using it as a reference, and you’ll be well on your way to mastering iTextSharp.

Product Description
Imagine a publisher who wants to “stamp” his e-books on the fly with the name of the buyer (to discourage sharing). Such a publisher would (and we know one who does) use iText for the task. Developers looking to enhance web and other applications with dynamic PDF document generation and/or manipulation will find this book unique in content and readability. Based on ongoing examples that encourage learning “in action,” they will finally understand PDF and learn how to build applications that produce professional, high-quality PDF documents. While the basic functionality of iText is easy to acquire, this book lowers the learning curve for more advanced functionality. It explains how to use iText to create/manipulate PDF documents on-the-fly in one or more of the following situations:

• Due to time or size, the PDF documents can’t be produced manually
• The content of the document must be calculated or based on user input.
• The content needs to be customized or personalized.
• The PDF content needs to be served in a web environment.

• Documents are to be created in “batch process” mode.

  All the examples are written in Java, but they can be easily adapted to .NET by developers using one of the .NET ports: iTextSharp (C#). While iText is a free Java library and the examples are written from the point of view of the Java developer, nine out of ten examples can be run by .NET developers with only minimal changes.

  Check it out