What is a good way to output an asp.net, C# GridView into a PDF.

Question

I tried using the Microsoft ReportingControls but found them overly cumbersome, with too little documentation. I'd like a simple control that would convert a GridView control into a PDF document. I've started looking into PDFSHarp and am running into dead ends with documentation. Same thing with iTextSharp. I'm willing to dig into them further if they have worked for others in the past.

Answer 1

You could iterate over the data in your gridview and write it to a PDF table using iTextSharp. Have a look here: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/iTextSharpPdfTables.aspx

I also recommend getting the book iText In Action.

Answer 2

I can recommend the ceTe DynamicPDF product if you just need to create PDF files. It is well documented and pretty easy to use. The only caveat that I would have is that your reports will all be built in Code. If you plan on adding a lot of reports then you might want to explore an alternative like Telerik's new reporting tool (which will export to PDF).

Well, make that two caveats: DynamicPDF is a bit expensive if you are just doing the one GridView export.