Export gridview to pdf in asp.net - Part 58

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In this video, we will discuss about exporting gridview data to PDF. We will be using tblEmployee table for this demo. Please refer to Part 13 by clicking here, if you need the sql script to create and populate these tables.



Step 1: Create an asp.net web application project. 

Step 2: Drag and drop a gridview control and a button control on webform1.aspx. Autoformat the gridview control to use "BrownSugar" scheme. Double click on the button control, to generate click event handler method.

At this point the HTML on webform1.aspx should be as shown below.
<asp:GridView ID="GridView1" runat="server" BackColor="#DEBA84" 
    BorderColor="#DEBA84" BorderStyle="None" BorderWidth="1px" 
    CellPadding="3" CellSpacing="2">
    <FooterStyle BackColor="#F7DFB5" ForeColor="#8C4510" />
    <HeaderStyle BackColor="#A55129" Font-Bold="True" 
        ForeColor="White" />
    <PagerStyle ForeColor="#8C4510" HorizontalAlign="Center" />
    <RowStyle BackColor="#FFF7E7" ForeColor="#8C4510" />
    <SelectedRowStyle BackColor="#738A9C" Font-Bold="True" 
        ForeColor="White" />
    <SortedAscendingCellStyle BackColor="#FFF1D4" />
    <SortedAscendingHeaderStyle BackColor="#B95C30" />
    <SortedDescendingCellStyle BackColor="#F1E5CE" />
    <SortedDescendingHeaderStyle BackColor="#93451F" />
</asp:GridView>
<asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Button" 
onclick="Button1_Click" />

Step 3: To generate PDF documents we will be using open source assembly - iTextSharp.dll. This assembly can be downloaded from http://sourceforge.net/projects/itextsharp.

After you download the assembly, add a reference to it, from your web application.
a) In Solution Explorer, right click on the "References" folder and select "Add Reference"
b) Browse to the folder where you have downloaded the assembly and Click OK.

Step 4: Add the following "USING" statements, in your code-behind file.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using System.Data;
using System.Configuration;
using System.IO;
using iTextSharp.text;
using iTextSharp.text.pdf;
using iTextSharp.text.html.simpleparser;

Step 5: Copy and paste the following code. The code is well commented and is self-explanatory.
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (!IsPostBack)
    {
        BindGridViewData();
    }
}

// ADO.NET code to retrieve data from database
private void BindGridViewData()
{
    string CS = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["DBCS"].ConnectionString;
    using (SqlConnection con = new SqlConnection(CS))
    {
        SqlDataAdapter da = new SqlDataAdapter("Select * from tblEmployee", con);
        DataSet ds = new DataSet();
        da.Fill(ds);
        GridView1.DataSource = ds;
        GridView1.DataBind();
    }
}

protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    int columnsCount = GridView1.HeaderRow.Cells.Count;
    // Create the PDF Table specifying the number of columns
    PdfPTable pdfTable = new PdfPTable(columnsCount);

    // Loop thru each cell in GrdiView header row
    foreach(TableCell gridViewHeaderCell in GridView1.HeaderRow.Cells)
    {
        // Create the Font Object for PDF document
        Font font = new Font();
        // Set the font color to GridView header row font color
        font.Color = new BaseColor(GridView1.HeaderStyle.ForeColor);

        // Create the PDF cell, specifying the text and font
        PdfPCell pdfCell = new PdfPCell(new Phrase(gridViewHeaderCell.Text, font));

        // Set the PDF cell backgroundcolor to GridView header row BackgroundColor color
        pdfCell.BackgroundColor = new BaseColor(GridView1.HeaderStyle.BackColor);

        // Add the cell to PDF table
        pdfTable.AddCell(pdfCell);
    }

    // Loop thru each datarow in GrdiView
    foreach (GridViewRow gridViewRow in GridView1.Rows)
    {
        if (gridViewRow.RowType == DataControlRowType.DataRow)
        {
            // Loop thru each cell in GrdiView data row
            foreach (TableCell gridViewCell in gridViewRow.Cells)
            {
                Font font = new Font();
                font.Color = new BaseColor(GridView1.RowStyle.ForeColor);

                PdfPCell pdfCell = new PdfPCell(new Phrase(gridViewCell.Text, font));

                pdfCell.BackgroundColor = new BaseColor(GridView1.RowStyle.BackColor);

                pdfTable.AddCell(pdfCell);
            }
        }
    }

    // Create the PDF document specifying page size and margins
    Document pdfDocument = new Document(PageSize.A4, 10f, 10f, 10f, 10f);
    
    PdfWriter.GetInstance(pdfDocument, Response.OutputStream);

    pdfDocument.Open();
    pdfDocument.Add(pdfTable);
    pdfDocument.Close();

    Response.ContentType = "application/pdf";
    Response.AppendHeader("content-disposition", 
        "attachment;filename=Employees.pdf");
    Response.Write(pdfDocument);
    Response.Flush();
    Response.End();
}

At this point, run the application and click on the button. The data gets exported to PDF as expected. If you are using Google chrome as your browser, you may get a browser warning stating - this type of file can harm your computer do you want to keep Employees.pdf anyway? This is a know issue with Google chrome. Internet explorer, works fine.