Introduction

GemBox.Pdf is a .NET component that enables you to read, write, edit, and print PDF files from .NET applications in a simple and efficient way.

Rich Set of Features

GemBox.Pdf allows you to:

  • Render PDF pages in image files (PNG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF or WMP) or WPF's . View PDF documents in WPF's . Print PDF documents.
  • Merge and split PDF documents.
  • Read PDF documents.
  • Write, create and convert to PDF and XPS (XML Paper Specification) documents.
  • Protect PDF documents.
  • Create, fill in, flatten, read, and export PDF interactive forms.
  • Programmatically access and change document components.

For a full list of features, see Features.

Unified programming interface for PDF and XPS formats

GemBox.Pdf provides a single programming interface for multiple fixed-layout document formats (PDF and XPS) which makes it very easy to programmatically create fixed-layout document content and save it in various file formats or to convert fixed-layout documents between various file formats.

For more details about supported file formats in GemBox.Pdf, see Supported File Formats.

Independent of Adobe Acrobat SDK

GemBox.Pdf does not use Adobe Acrobat SDK, so it can be used on machines without Adobe Acrobat installed.

Plain and Fair Licensing

We don't charge you additional server licenses. You can use our component for an unlimited number of projects (you don't need to purchase additional "OEM licenses"). Nor do we force you to purchase subscription packages.

Our licensing is very simple; every developer working with our component needs to be covered by a developer license. We don't care if it is a desktop, mobile or a web application; how many servers you use or if you have just one, or millions, of customers.

For more information about evaluating and licensing GemBox.Pdf, see Evaluation and Licensing.

High Performance

With GemBox.Pdf, you will experience high-performance reading, writing, updating, protecting and/or performing other PDF automation-related tasks.

Various caching techniques, transparent to the user, enable GemBox.Pdf to outperform all competitive products in terms of memory use.

Portability

GemBox.Pdf works on .NET Framework 3.5 or higher and platforms that implement .NET Standard 2.0 or higher.

With support for .NET Standard 2.0, GemBox.Pdf works on Windows, Linux, Unix and OSX operating systems (via .NET Core 2.0 that implements .NET Standard 2.0) and on Mono, Xamarin and Universal Windows platforms (that implement .NET Standard 2.0).

Simple and Intuitive API

GemBox.Pdf is designed and developed to conform to Microsoft standards and best practices for developing .NET libraries.

GemBox.Pdf contains strongly-typed PDF objects and collections that make GemBox.Pdf very easy to use (but very hard to use in an inappropriate way).

Unlike other PDF components that have complex, unintuitive, and fundamentally different APIs for reading and writing PDF Content Streams and Resources (the reader usually requires the visitor pattern interface to be implemented and the writer is implemented via a builder pattern), GemBox.Pdf compiles PDF Content Streams and Resources into an in-memory object tree composed of different content elements that represent text, geometrical paths, images, etc., which can be easily inspected and manipulated using a single API. For more information, see Content Streams and Resources.

GemBox.Pdf has been designed from a user-friendly point of view. GemBox.Pdf API is simple and intuitive, allowing users to spend less time on studying underlying technology and specifications and to spend more time on actual application development.

To help you get started coding with GemBox.Pdf, see Hello World Example.