As technology continues to advance, displaying PDF files in a WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) application has become a common requirement. PDF (Portable Document Format) is a popular file format for sharing documents because it preserves the formatting and layout of the original document. In this article, we will discuss how to display PDF files in a WPF application.
The first step is to add a reference to the WindowsFormsIntegration assembly in your WPF project. This assembly provides the WindowsFormsHost control, which allows us to host Windows Forms controls in a WPF application.
Next, we need to add a WindowsFormsHost control to our WPF application's XAML code. This control will act as a container for our PDF viewer.
<WindowsFormsHost Name="pdfHost" />
Now, we need to add a reference to the PDF viewer control in our project. There are many third-party PDF viewer controls available, such as Adobe Acrobat Reader, Foxit Reader, and Syncfusion PDF Viewer. For the purpose of this article, we will be using the Syncfusion PDF Viewer control.
After adding the reference to the Syncfusion PDF Viewer control, we need to set the WindowsFormsHost control's child property to an instance of the PdfViewerControl.
pdfHost.Child = new PdfViewerControl();
Next, we need to specify the PDF file that we want to display in the PDF viewer control. This can be done by setting the PdfViewerControl's load method to the path of the PDF file.
pdfHost.Child.Load("C:\Users\Username\Documents\Sample.pdf");
We can also set the PDF file directly from a byte array, stream, or URI using the appropriate overload of the load method.
Once the PDF file is loaded, the PDF viewer control will display the first page of the document. The user can then navigate through the pages using the navigation buttons provided by the control.
In addition to displaying the PDF file, we can also perform various operations on the file, such as zooming, searching, and printing. These operations can be performed using the methods and properties provided by the PdfViewerControl.
For example, to zoom in on a specific portion of the PDF document, we can use the ZoomToRectangle method and pass in the coordinates of the area we want to zoom in on.
pdfHost.Child.ZoomToRectangle(new RectangleF(100, 100, 200, 200));
To search for a specific text in the PDF document, we can use the SearchText method and pass in the text we want to search for.
pdfHost.Child.SearchText("Lorem ipsum");
To print the PDF document, we can use the Print method.
pdfHost.Child.Print();
In addition to these basic operations, the Syncfusion PDF Viewer control also provides advanced features such as text selection, annotation support, and form filling.
In conclusion, displaying PDF files in a WPF application can be easily achieved by using the WindowsFormsHost control and a third-party PDF viewer control like Syncfusion PDF Viewer. With its advanced features and easy integration, the Syncfusion PDF Viewer control is a great choice for displaying PDF files in a WPF application. So, next time you need to display a PDF file in your WPF application, you know what to do!
