How to generate DYNAMIC PDF in C# using iTextSharp (or other method)

I have an MVC3 app (C#, razor) with an object that has all of the data I need for a dynamic PDF report that is to be viewed in the users browser. My Companies VS2010 solution already has iTextSharp.dll v 5.0.5 referenced and is used elsewhere for "stamping" values on a static PDF form.

All of the examples I find for iTextSharp are doing Static PDF with stamper(easy) or they are using 4.1.6 and they leverage iTextHandler. ITextHandler is not in v 5.0.5. I tried using HTMLWorker with no luck. My code is below

3 ways to do dynamic PDF

preferred solution: 1. I want to bind to a dynamic PDF form. By dynamic, I mean the ability to do repeating subforms, etc. I have a PDF I created in Adobe LifeCycle ES2 and saved as a XLA. I see all of the Adobe Docs referr开发者_如何学Going to making connections with XML, etc. but no examples of how to actually implement this. I know this can't be hard. Example in C# please?

optional solution: 2. Use what I have now (Works w/ iTextSharp.dll 4.1.6 only) Use

optional solution: 3. Generate as HTML and start looking at HTML to PDF methods

Option 2 Code: This code is in a controller class:

    /// <summary>
    /// Returns a PDF action result. This method renders the view to a string then
    /// use that string to generate a PDF file. The generated PDF file is then
    /// returned to the browser as binary content. The view associated with this
    /// action should render an XML compatible with iTextSharp xml format.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="model">The model to send to the view.</param>
    /// <returns>The resulted BinaryContentResult.</returns>
    protected ActionResult ViewPdf(object model)
    {
        // Create the iTextSharp document.
        Document doc = new Document();
        // Set the document to write to memory.
        MemoryStream memStream = new MemoryStream();
        PdfWriter writer = PdfWriter.GetInstance(doc, memStream);
        writer.CloseStream = false;
        doc.Open();

        //// Render the view xml to a string, then parse that string into an XML dom.
        string xmltext = this.RenderActionResultToString(this.View(model));

        #region  This code works with iTextSharp version 4.1.6.0 (free version of iTextSharp)
        /*
        XmlDocument xmldoc = new XmlDocument();
        xmldoc.InnerXml = xmltext.Trim();

        // Parse the XML into the iTextSharp document.
        ITextHandler textHandler = new ITextHandler(doc);
        textHandler.Parse(xmldoc);
        */
        #endregion

        #region  This code works with iTextSharp version 5.0.5 (not free version of iTextSharp)
        HTMLWorker htmlWorker = new HTMLWorker(doc);
        StringReader reader = new StringReader(xmltext);
        htmlWorker.Parse(reader);
        #endregion

        // Close and get the resulted binary data.
        doc.Close();
        byte[] buf = new byte[memStream.Position];
        memStream.Position = 0;
        memStream.Read(buf, 0, buf.Length);

        // Send the binary data to the browser.
        return new BinaryContentResult(buf, "application/pdf");
    }
    #endregion

Option 2 Code: This code is in a view (cshtml) file:

 @model SomeModelSpecificToMyPurpose
 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
 <itext  creationdate="@DateTime.Today" producer="iTextSharpXML">
 <paragraph leading="18.0" font="unknown" size="16.0" align="Default">
    <chunk>RTPA Result in PDF</chunk>
</paragraph>
<paragraph leading="18.0" font="unknown" size="16.0" align="Default">
    <chunk>@DateTime.Today</chunk>
</paragraph>
<paragraph leading="18.0" font="unknown" size="10.0" align="Default">
    <chunk>Customer Name: @this.Model.Transaction.PatientFirstName</chunk><newline />
    <chunk>Address: @this.Model.Transaction.ProviderFullName</chunk><newline />
</paragraph>
<paragraph leading="18.0" font="unknown" size="10.0" align="Default">
<chunk font="unknown" size="12.0">Orders:</chunk><newline />
</paragraph>

LifeCycle forms and iText don't get along all that well. It'll get/set values, but that's about it.

You could do something similar by regenerating your form in code for each user, but that's a non-trivial task.