Determine Number of Pages in a PDF File using C# (.NET 2.0)

Question

Hi,

I need to determine the number of pages in a specified PDF file using C# code (.NET 2.0). The PDF file will be read from the file system, and not from a URL. Does anyone have any pointers on how this could be done? Note, Adobe Acrobat Reader is installed on the PC where this check will be carried out.

Thanks in advance for your answers.

Kind Regards, Andy.

Answer 1

you'll need a PDF API for C#.. maybe iTextSharp

i think there are better ones...

Answer 2

PDFsharp

this one should be better =)

Answer 3

i have used pdflib for this.

try {

    p = new pdflib();

    /* Open the input PDF */
    indoc = p.open_pdi_document("myTestFile.pdf", "");
    pageCount = (int) p.pcos_get_number(indoc, "length:pages");

}
catch (ExSomething { }

from
http://www.pdflib.com

Answer 4

I have good success using CeTe Dynamic PDF products. They're not free, but are well documented. They did the job for me.

http://www.dynamicpdf.com/

Answer 5

found a way at http://www.dotnetspider.com/resources/21866-Count-pages-PDF-file.aspx this does not require purchase of a pdf library

Answer 6

This should do the trick:

    public int getNumberOfPdfPages(string fileName)
    {
        using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(File.OpenRead(fileName)))
        {
            Regex regex = new Regex(@"/Type\s*/Page[^s]");
            MatchCollection matches = regex.Matches(sr.ReadToEnd());

            return matches.Count;
        }
    }

From Rachel's answer and this one too.

Answer 7

I've used the code above that solves the problem using regex and it works, but it's quite slow. It reads the entire file to determine the number of pages.

I used it in a web app and pages would sometimes list 20 or 30 PDFs at a time and in that circumstance the load time for the page went from a couple seconds to almost a minute due to the page counting method.

I don't know if the 3rd party libraries are much better, I would hope that they are and I've used pdflib in other scenarios with success.