PDF Document API
- 3 minutes to read
The PDF Document API is a non-visual .NET library that allows you to generate, convert, merge, split, edit, password-protect, and digitally sign PDF files. You can use this library in desktop and web applications that target a variety of platforms (Windows Forms, WPF, ASP.NET Web Forms, ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Core, and Blazor).
Important
You need a license for the DevExpress Office File API Subscription or DevExpress Universal Subscription to use this library in production code.
If you are new to the PDF Document API, refer to the following topics first:
Manage PDF Files and Organize Pages
The PDF Document API allows you to generate/modify PDF documents and organize individual pages. You can execute the following actions:
- Generate document layout from scratch.
- Merge multiple files into a single PDF file.
- Add or remove document pages.
- Copy pages from one PDF file to another.
- Transform page content (scale, rotate, flip, or shift).
- Rotate a page by a specific angle.
- Add custom graphic content.
Interactive Forms
The PDF Document API allows you to create, fill, flatten, and delete fillable PDF forms (AcroForms). You can edit form field properties, and import and export form field data to FDF, XFDF, XML, and TXT formats.
Additional Content
The PDF Document API supports the following document elements:
- Bookmarks
- Create bookmarks to quickly jump to a different view or page within a PDF document.
- Hyperlinks
- Insert hyperlinks to navigate to a specific page, external document, or website.
- File Attachments
- A document can contain multiple file attachments in any format (images, text files, PDF files, and so on).
- Annotations
- The PDF Document API allows you to create, edit, flatten, and remove text annotations (sticky notes) and text markup annotations (text highlights). You can also insert comments and reviews associated with annotations.
- XMP Metadata
- You can embed Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) data in your PDF document. XMP is a standard format for metadata generation, processing, and interchange.
Protect and Secure Documents
The PDF Document API allows you to protect your documents to prevent unauthorized access. Security options include:
- Document Protection
- You can encrypt your files with user and owner passwords and set permissions to specify whether users can copy, edit, and print PDF content.
- Digital Signatures
- Add new or remove existing signatures, define signature appearance, apply multiple signatures, use document-level timestamps to sign documents, and sign PDF files in deferred mode.
Print and Export
Use the PDF Document API to print PDF documents and define print settings (such as page orientation, paper size, and page margins).
You can also save PDF files as bitmap and multi-page TIFF images.
Extract Document Content
The PDF Document API allows you to find and retrieve PDF document content. The following features are supported:
- Text Extraction
- You can extract text from a page or specific document region.
- Image Extraction
- Extract individual images from a PDF file and convert them to different formats (such as BMP, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, or GIF).
- Text Search
- Search for words or phrases in a PDF document and specify search options (such as case sensitivity and search direction).
DevExpress PDF Viewers
If you need to display and manage PDF documents within your desktop app, you can use the following DevExpress PDF Viewer UI controls: