Converting Asp.net page to pdf with Itextsharp (XMLWorker) returning damaged/blank pdf -

Converting Asp.net page to pdf with Itextsharp (XMLWorker) returning damaged/blank pdf -

not sure if skipped step in code, using itextsharp version 5.5.1 , xml worker version 5.5.1. doc.close throws exception "the document has no pages", watched sw.tostring (it has html content).

private void exporttopdf() { httpcontext.current.response.clear(); httpcontext.current.response.addheader("content-disposition", "attachment;filename=requestsummaryreport.pdf"); httpcontext.current.response.charset = ""; httpcontext.current.response.contenttype = "application/pdf"; stringwriter sw = new stringwriter(); htmltextwriter htw = new htmltextwriter(sw); var doc = new document(pagesize.a3, 45, 5, 5, 5); pdfwriter author = pdfwriter.getinstance(doc, response.outputstream); doc.open(); htmlpipelinecontext htmlcontext = new htmlpipelinecontext(null); htmlcontext.settagfactory(tags.gethtmltagprocessorfactory()); icssresolver cssresolver = xmlworkerhelper.getinstance().getdefaultcssresolver(false); ipipeline pipeline = new cssresolverpipeline(cssresolver, new htmlpipeline(htmlcontext, new pdfwriterpipeline(doc, writer))); xmlworker worker = new xmlworker(pipeline, true); xmlparser xmlparse = new xmlparser(true, worker); pnlreport.rendercontrol(htw); stringreader sr = new stringreader(sw.tostring()); xmlparse.parse(sr); xmlparse.flush(); doc.close(); response.write(doc); }

i spent 2 hours same symptoms, , figured out cause of problem. i'm guessing may have figured out (since, question asked 5 months ago) thought i'd post reply in case there others run same problem.

when create pdfwriter, pass in stream (in case response.outputstream) destination generated pdf content. when pdfwriter writes content stream, stream position incremented accordingly. when author finishes, stream position @ end of content, , makes sense because farther calls write should go on pdfwriter left off.

the problem when mvc pipeline takes response.outputstream (after method returns) , attempts read send contents client (or in general, whenever pdf destination stream consumed), stream position @ end of content, , means consumer appears stream empty, hence empty pdf output.

to solve this, reset the position of stream immediate after finished writing it, , before tries read it. in case insert:

response.outputstream.position = 0;

right after line xmlparse.flush(), since lastly line write stream.

pdf itextsharp httpresponse xmlworker