How to print a PDF with C#

Question

I´ve trying to solve this problem for nearly 2 days. There are a lot of more or fewer good solutions on the net, but not a single one fits my task perfectly.

Task:

• Print a PDF programmatically
• Do it with a fixed printer
• Don´t let the user do more than one Button_Click
• Do it silent - the more, the better
• Do it client side

First Solutions:

Do it with a Forms.WebBrowser

If we have Adobe Reader installed, there is a plugin to show PDF´s in the webbrowser. With this solution we have a nice preview and with webbrowserControlName.Print() we can trigger the control to print its content.

Problem - we still have a PrintDialog.

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Start the AcroRd32.exe with start arguments

The following CMD command let us use Adobe Reader to print our PDF.

InsertPathTo..\AcroRd32.exe /t "C:\sample.pdf" "\printerNetwork\printerName"

Problems - we need the absolute path to AcroRd32.exe | there is an Adobe Reader Window opening and it has to be opened until the print task is ready.

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Use windows presets

Process process = new Process();

process.StartInfo.FileName = pathToPdf; 
process.StartInfo.Verb = "printto";
process.StartInfo.Arguments = "\"" + printerName + "\""; 
process.Start();

process.WaitForInputIdle();
process.Kill();

Problem - there is still an Adobe Reader window popping up, but after the printing is done it closes itself usually.

Solution - convince the client to use Foxit Reader (don´t use last two lines of code).

---

Convert PDF pages to Drawing.Image

I´ve no idea how to do it with code, but when I get this to work the rest is just a piece of cake. Printing.PrintDocument can fulfill all demands.

---

Anyone an idea to get some Drawing.Image´s out of those PDF´s or another approach how to do it?

Best Regards, Max

Solution 1

The most flexible, easiest and best performing method I could find was using GhostScript. It can print to windows printers directly by printer name.

"C:\Program Files\gs\gs9.07\bin\gswin64c.exe" -dPrinted -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=mswinpr2 -dNoCancel -sOutputFile="%printer%printer name" "pdfdocument.pdf"

Add these switches to shrink the document to an A4 page.

-sPAPERSIZE=a4 -dPDFFitPage

Solution 2

Another approach would to use spooler function in .NET to send the pre-formatted printer data to a printer. But unfortunately you need to work with win32 spooler API

you can look at How to send raw data to a printer by using Visual C# .NET

you only can use this approach when the printer support PDF document natively.

Solution 3

If a commercial library is an option, you can try with Amyuni PDF Creator. Net.

Printing directly with the library:
For opening a PDF file and send it to print directly you can use the method IacDocument.Print. The code in C# will look like this:

// Open PDF document from file<br>
FileStream file1 = new FileStream ("test.pdf", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
IacDocument doc1 = new IacDocument (null);
doc1.Open (file1, "" );
// print document to a specified printer with no prompt
doc1.Print ("My Laser Printer", false);

Exporting to images (then printing if needed):
Choice 1: You can use the method IacDocument.ExportToJPeg for converting all pages in a PDF to JPG images that you can print or display using Drawing.Image

Choice 2: You can draw each page into a bitmap using the method IacDocument.DrawCurrentPage with the method System.Drawing.Graphics.FromImage. The code in C# should look like this:

FileStream myFile = new FileStream ("test.pdf", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
IacDocument doc = new IacDocument(null);
doc.Open(myFile);
doc.CurrentPage = 1;
Image img = new Bitmap(100,100);
Graphics gph = Graphics.FromImage(img);
IntPtr hdc = gph.GetHDC();
doc.DrawCurrentPage(hdc, false);
gph.ReleaseHdc( hdc );

Disclaimer: I work for Amyuni Technologies

Solution 4

I tried many things and the one that worked best for me was launching a SumatraPDF from the command line:

// Launch SumatraPDF Reader to print
String arguments = "-print-to-default -silent \"" + fileName + "\"";
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("SumatraPDF.exe", arguments);

There are so many advantages to this:

1. SumatraPDF is much much faster than Adobe Acrobat Reader.
2. The UI doesn't load. It just prints.
3. You can use SumatraPDF as a standalone application so you can include it with your application so you can use your own pa. Note that I did not read the license agreement; you should probably check it out yourself.

Solution 5

I found a slightly different version of your code that uses the printto verb. I didn't try it, but maybe it helps you:

http://vbcity.com/forums/t/149141.aspx

View more solutions

Comments

[Rafal]

try Print existing PDF (or other files) in C#.

[HABJAN]

To get Drawing.Image you can take a look at this sample: ghostscriptnet.codeplex.com/SourceControl/…

[B.K.]

This is a couple of years later... have you been able to figure out the Drawing.Image route?

[Mx.]

@B.K. Sadly not - but may there is a better way today

[B.K.]

@Max I've been looking around for several months and I've yet to find a solution that doesn't involve installing something on the client machine... which is not an option in my case.

[csensoft]

Is there a solution on this. I am going through the exact same problem. Would appreciate if there is any recommendation

[Mx.]

@csensoft Still nothing that matches this specific requirement. I went with adding an extra service that would handle the Printing. Here are a lot of good answers that may help you.

[csensoft]

@Mx. alright. Thanks

[Mx.]

As I described, this would work with a Drawing.Image for example. It won´t work with a .pdf. Check up the pd_PrintPage(object sender, PrintPageEventArgs ev) Event. There is every line in the .txt file converted for the print output.

[Gavin]

See daniweb.com/software-development/csharp/threads/90272/… for a possible solution.

[Turbot]

good point that i didn't mentioned in my answer. I'll update the answer, but might be what OP needed ?

[Mx.]

Good point, but I can´t be sure that all printers support it natively. Even if at the moment all printers support it, there would be a problem if they will buy another product without this feature.

[Hinek]

Ok, just saw this won't work: Adobe's forum says, new versions of Adobe Reader will not allow you to print "silent", "for security reasons" (sure, Adobe) ... there will always be a window.

[HABJAN]

I would recommend to use Ghostscript wrapper for this. Something like: ghostscriptnet.codeplex.com

[Johan van der Slikke]

@HABJAN Thanks for that suggestion, looks quite usable indeed.

[Keith]

I used Ghostscript.NET (available via NuGet). When I tried the latest version of ghostscript (9.18), I received memory access exceptions. I uninstalled 9.18, and found that the latest version prior to the last build of Ghostscript.NET was 9.15. Once I installed that, everything appears to have started working. You can get prior releases of ghostscript at downloads.ghostscript.com/public

[zuko]

Ghostscript's mswinpr2 quality is rather poor - it converts input PDF file to raster file and prints it. The better approach is to use 3rd party component or try to implement something on your own, especially PDF/PS are well known by printers. Here I found simple and nice command line tool effisoft.pl/rawfileprinter

[funkymushroom]

link now goes to a 404.