scryber.core pdf engine

Change the way you create documents.

The scryber engine is an advanced, complete, pdf creation library for dotnet core 5. It supports the easy definition of documents, pages, content, shapes and images with html templates and simple code.

With a styles based template layout it is easy to create good looking, flowing documents with dynamic content from you applications or sites.

scryber supports:

standard html body, tables, lists, divs and spans and many newer html5 tags
flowing and flexible layout with multiple pages in css sizes, along with page headers, footers and breaks, and page numbering
cascading styles: linked, embedded or inline using css syntax and priority.
databinding for dynamic content or style on simple and complex object models with repeating templates.
embedding of external content,
sizing and positioning of elements inline, block, relative or absolute.
images and colours with text and shape fills, backgrounds and borders.
multiple fonts, including google fonts, supporting text alignment; spacing; leading; decoration and breaking.
SVG graphics support for drawing and paths and text.
Password security and restrictions on pdf files.
Full code support either as a whole document, or partial content, along with the html/css templates.

If you have used the previous pdfx files, the older templates should continue to work, but we are concentrating on html, css and svg going forwards.

Getting Started

The easiest way to begin is to use the Nuget Packages here

scryber.core package (Base libraries for GUI or console applications)

OR for asp.net mvc

scryber.core.mvc package (Which includes the scryber.core package).

Check out Read the Docs for more information on how to use the library.

scryber.core documentation

Example Template

Create a new html template file with your content.

    <!DOCTYPE HTML >
    <html lang='en' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml' >
        <head>
            <!-- support for standard document attributes -->
            <meta charset='utf-8' name='author' content='Richard Hewitson' />
            <title>Hello World</title>

            <!-- support for complex css selectors (or link to external style sheets )-->
            <style>
                body{
                    font-family: sans-serif;
                    font-size: 14pt;
                }

                p.header {
                    color: #AAA;
                    background-color: #333;
                    background-image: url('../html/images/ScyberLogo2_alpha_small.png');
                    background-repeat: no-repeat;
                    background-position: 10pt 10pt;
                    background-size: 20pt 20pt;
                    margin-top: 0pt;
                    padding: 10pt 10pt 10pt 35pt;
                }

                .foot td {
                    border: none;
                    text-align: center;
                    font-size: 10pt;
                    margin-bottom: 10pt;
                }

            </style>
        </head>
        <body>
            <header>
                <!-- document headers -->
                <p class="header">Scryber document creation</p>
            </header>
            <!-- support for many HTML5 tags-->
            <main style="padding:10pt">

                <!-- binding style and values on content -->
                <h2 style="{@:model.titlestyle}">{@:model.title}</h2>
                <div>We hope you like it.</div>
                <!-- Loop over or nested items binding in the parameters -->
                <ol>
                    <template data-bind='{@:model.items}'>
                        <!-- and bind the name value in the current object -->
                        <li>{@:.name}</li> 
                    </template>
                </ol>
            </main>
            <footer>
                <!-- footers and page numbers -->
                <table class="foot" style="width:100%">
                    <tr>
                        <td>{@:author}</td>
                        <td><page /></td>
                        <td>Hello World Sample</td>
                    </tr>
                </table>
            </footer>
        </body>
    </html>

From your application code.

      //using Scryber.Components

      static void Main(string[] args)
      {
          var path = System.Environment.CurrentDirectory;
            path = System.IO.Path.Combine(path, "../../../Content/HTML/READMESample.html");

            //create our sample model data.

            var model = new
            {
                titlestyle = "color:#ff6347",
                title = "Hello from scryber",
                items = new[]
                {
                    new { name = "First item" },
                    new { name = "Second item" },
                    new { name = "Third item" },
                }
            };

            using (var doc = Document.ParseDocument(path))
            {
                //pass data paramters as needed, supporting simple values, arrays or complex classes.

                doc.Params["author"] = "Scryber Engine";
                doc.Params["model"] = model;

                //And save it to a file or a stream
                using (var stream = new System.IO.FileStream("READMESample.pdf", System.IO.FileMode.Create))
                {
                    doc.SaveAsPDF(stream);
                }

            }
      }

Or from an MVC web application

      //using Scryber.Components
      //using Scryber.Components.Mvc

      public IActionResult HelloWorld(string title = "This is the title")
      {
          using(var doc = Document.ParseDocument("[input template]"))
          {
              doc.Params["author"] = "Scryber Engine";
              doc.Params["model"] = GetMyParameters(title);

              //This will output to the response inline.
              return this.PDF(doc); // inline:false, outputFileName:"HelloWorld.pdf"
          }
      }

And the output