Export GridView To Pdf-ASP.NET

In this example i'm explaining how to Export GridView To PDF Using iTextsharp In Asp.Net 2.0,3.5,4.0 Using C# VB.NET i am exporting Gridview populated with SqlDataSource to Pdf using iTextSharp in click event of Button

I have populated gridview with SqlDataSource and placed one button on the page to create pdf from gridview.

   1:  <asp:GridView ID="GridView1" runat="server" 

   2:                AutoGenerateColumns="False" 

   3:                DataSourceID="SqlDataSource1">

   4:  <Columns>

   5:  <asp:BoundField DataField="Name" HeaderText="Name"/>

   6:  <asp:BoundField DataField="Location" HeaderText="Location"/>

   7:  </Columns>

   8:  </asp:GridView>

   9:   

  10:  <asp:Button ID="btnExport" runat="server" 

  11:              OnClick="btnExport_Click" Text="Export to PDF" />

  12:              

  13:  <asp:SqlDataSource ID="SqlDataSource1" runat="server" 

  14:  ConnectionString="<%$ ConnectionStrings:ConnectionString %>"

  15:  SelectCommand="SELECT [Name], [Location] FROM [Test]">

  16:  </asp:SqlDataSource>

To use iTextSharp , we need to add these namspaces in the code behind and itextsharp.dll in Bin folder of Application

using iTextSharp.text;
using iTextSharp.text.pdf;
using iTextSharp.text.html;
using System.IO;
using System.Collections;
using System.Net;

Now in Click event of button i m creating a new HtmlForm and adding the gridview control to this form in code behind , than creating instance of StringWriter class and HtmlTextWriter to write strings and than rendernig these to form created earlier

protected void btnExport_Click
(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
HtmlForm form = new HtmlForm();
form.Controls.Add(GridView1);
StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
HtmlTextWriter hTextWriter = new HtmlTextWriter(sw);
form.Controls[0].RenderControl(hTextWriter);
string html = sw.ToString();

In next lines of code i m creating a new Document in specified location and opening it for writing

Document Doc = new Document();

If u wanna save the pdf in application's root folder in server
than use Requesr.PhysicalApplicationPath

//PdfWriter.GetInstance
//(Doc, new FileStream(Request.PhysicalApplicationPath 
//+ "\\AmitJain.pdf", FileMode.Create));

And if u wanna save the PDF at users Desktop than use
Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop

PdfWriter.GetInstance
(Doc, new FileStream(Environment.GetFolderPath
(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop)
+ "\\AmitJain.pdf", FileMode.Create));
Doc.Open();

Now i m adding a paragraph to this document to be used as
Header by creating a new chuck and adding it to paragraph

Chunk c = new Chunk
("Export GridView to PDF Using iTextSharp \n",
FontFactory.GetFont("Verdana", 15));
Paragraph p = new Paragraph();
p.Alignment = Element.ALIGN_CENTER;
p.Add(c);
Chunk chunk1 = new Chunk
("By Amit Jain, amit_jain_online@yahoo.com \n",
FontFactory.GetFont("Verdana", 8));
Paragraph p1 = new Paragraph();
p1.Alignment = Element.ALIGN_RIGHT;
p1.Add(chunk1);

Doc.Add(p);
Doc.Add(p1);

Now i m reading the html string created above through 
xmlTextReader and htmlParser to parse html elements

System.Xml.XmlTextReader xmlReader =
new System.Xml.XmlTextReader(new StringReader(html));
HtmlParser.Parse(Doc, xmlReader);

Doc.Close();
string Path = Environment.GetFolderPath
(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop)
+ "\\AmitJain.pdf";


ShowPdf(Path);

The complete code looks like this

using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Security;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;
using iTextSharp.text;
using iTextSharp.text.pdf;
using iTextSharp.text.html;
using System.IO;
using System.Collections;
using System.Net;

public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{

}
protected void btnExport_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
HtmlForm form = new HtmlForm();
form.Controls.Add(GridView1);
StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
HtmlTextWriter hTextWriter = new HtmlTextWriter(sw);
form.Controls[0].RenderControl(hTextWriter);
string html = sw.ToString();
Document Doc = new Document();

//PdfWriter.GetInstance
//(Doc, new FileStream(Request.PhysicalApplicationPath 
//+ "\\AmitJain.pdf", FileMode.Create));

PdfWriter.GetInstance
(Doc, new FileStream(Environment.GetFolderPath
(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop)
+ "\\AmitJain.pdf", FileMode.Create));
Doc.Open();

Chunk c = new Chunk
("Export GridView to PDF Using iTextSharp \n",
FontFactory.GetFont("Verdana", 15));
Paragraph p = new Paragraph();
p.Alignment = Element.ALIGN_CENTER;
p.Add(c);
Chunk chunk1 = new Chunk
("By Amit Jain, amit_jain_online@yahoo.com \n",
FontFactory.GetFont("Verdana", 8));
Paragraph p1 = new Paragraph();
p1.Alignment = Element.ALIGN_RIGHT;
p1.Add(chunk1);

Doc.Add(p);
Doc.Add(p1);

System.Xml.XmlTextReader xmlReader =
new System.Xml.XmlTextReader(new StringReader(html));
HtmlParser.Parse(Doc, xmlReader);

Doc.Close();
string Path = Environment.GetFolderPath
(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop)
+ "\\AmitJain.pdf";


ShowPdf(Path);


}

private void ShowPdf(string strS)
{
Response.ClearContent();
Response.ClearHeaders();
Response.ContentType = "application/pdf";
Response.AddHeader
("Content-Disposition","attachment; filename=" + strS);
Response.TransmitFile(strS);
Response.End();
//Response.WriteFile(strS);
Response.Flush();
Response.Clear();

}

}

This code doesn't work if paging is enabled in GridView and the other this is cloumns become of variable width in PDF document , to fix these issues read my next Post Exporting Paging enabled GridView to PDF using iTextSharp

Download the sample Code


Other Gridview articles you would like to read:

1. Populating dropdown based on the selection of first drop down in DetailsView using FindControl and ItemTemplate

2. Pouplating Multiple DetailsView based on single GridView using DataKeyNames in ASP.NET

3. Merging GridView Headers to have multiple Headers in GridView using C# ASP.NET