Net4x.PdfExporterLib 2.0.0.26253

PdfExporterLib

WPF building blocks for a PDF viewer/exporter application — Esportazione di pdf in altri formati.

The package provides a reusable Window base class that hosts the PdfViewerLibrary control inside WPF, a secondary window for reviewing extracted text and tabular data, and a small set of data utilities (CSV export, batch file renaming, visual-tree lookup, case-insensitive string replacement).

Installation

<PackageReference Include="Net4x.PdfExporterLib" Version="2.0.0.*" />

dotnet add package Net4x.PdfExporterLib

The consuming project must be a Windows desktop project that references PresentationCore, PresentationFramework, WindowsBase, System.Windows.Forms and WindowsFormsIntegration.

What is in the package

Hosting the PDF viewer

MainPdfWindow ships without markup of its own: derive your window from it and wire your XAML to the protected handlers it already implements.

<pdf:MainPdfWindow x:Class="MyApp.MainWindow"
                   xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
                   xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
                   xmlns:pdf="clr-namespace:PdfExporterLib;assembly=PdfExporterLib"
                   Title="PDF Exporter" Height="720" Width="1024"
                   AllowDrop="True"
                   Loaded="Window_Loaded" Drop="Window_Drop"
                   Closing="Window_Closing" StateChanged="Window_StateChanged">
    <Grid x:Name="ContentGrid">
        <Grid.RowDefinitions>
            <RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
            <RowDefinition />
        </Grid.RowDefinitions>
        <Menu Grid.Row="0">
            <MenuItem Header="File">
                <MenuItem Header="Apri..." Click="OpenMenu_Click" />
                <MenuItem Header="Esci" Click="ExitMenu_Click" />
            </MenuItem>
            <MenuItem Header="?">
                <MenuItem Header="Informazioni su..." Click="AboutMenu_Click" />
            </MenuItem>
        </Menu>
        
    </Grid>
</pdf:MainPdfWindow>

using PdfExporterLib;
using PdfViewerLibrary.Model;

public partial class MainWindow : MainPdfWindow
{
    public MainWindow()
    {
        InitializeComponent();

        // Adds a WindowsFormsHost carrying the PdfViewerControl to row 1 of the grid.
        // Pass null for the grid to let ControlFinder locate the first Grid in the window.
        LoadWfUserControl(ContentGrid);
    }

    protected override void OnPdfViewerControlPdfOpened(object sender, FileNameEventArgs e)
    {
        base.OnPdfViewerControlPdfOpened(sender, e);   // publishes MainPdfWindow.FileName
        Title = "PDF Exporter — " + MainPdfWindow.FileName;
    }
}

LoadWfUserControl(grid, printVisible, showOnlyFirstTab) gives control over the viewer chrome: printVisible: false hides the print command, showOnlyFirstTab: true collapses the viewer down to its first tab page.

Static helpers

MainPdfWindow.FileName;                              // last PDF opened by the viewer
MainPdfWindow.Unminimize(window);                    // restore a minimised window (no-op if not shown)
MainPdfWindow.GetTempFilePathWithExtension(".pdf");  // %TEMP%\<guid>.pdf
MainPdfWindow.GetTempFilePathWithoutExtension();     // %TEMP%\<guid>

Tray icon

The MainPdfWindow constructor installs a NotifyIcon with a Mostra / Nascondi / Esci context menu and shows it immediately. Minimising the window hides it to the tray; the Window_Closing handler removes the icon again, so wire your window's Closing event to it or the icon will outlive the window.

Batch folder processing

DoOpenFolder prompts for a folder, walks every *.pdf in it, opens and closes each document, and finally reports how many files were processed. The callback you pass is invoked once per file, before that file is opened, so the export destination can be prepared:

private void OpenFolderMenu_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    DoOpenFolder(PrepareAutomaticExport);
}

private void PrepareAutomaticExport()
{
    // Called once per PDF, just before it is opened.
}

Renaming before and after processing is driven by the application settings described below.

CsvTableExporter

using (var writer = new StreamWriter(path, false, Encoding.UTF8))
{
    CsvTableExporter.ExportDatatableToStream(writer, dataTable);
}

// or straight to a path
CsvTableExporter.ExportDatatableToStream(path, dataTable);

// fixed-width output, no header, no separators
CsvTableExporter.ExportDatatableToStream(
    putColumnNames: false,
    putColumnSeparators: false,
    columnLengths: new[] { 10, 30, 8 },
    outputFileStream: writer,
    dataReader: dataTable);

Behaviour worth knowing before you wire it up:

• The separator is Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture.TextInfo.ListSeparator — ; under it-IT, , under the invariant culture. Pin the culture if the output has to be stable.
• A separator is written after every column, including the last, so each row ends with a trailing delimiter.
• columnLengths pads short values with spaces and truncates long ones. Columns beyond the end of the array are written unpadded.
• The method closes the TextWriter it is given — do not reuse the writer afterwards.
• null and DBNull cells become empty fields. Combining them with columnLengths is not supported.
• The path overload opens the file without truncating it; delete an existing file first if it may be longer than the new content.

FileRenamer

var files  = Directory.GetFiles(folder, "*.pdf");
var offset = 0;

for (var i = 0; i < files.Length; i++)
    FileRenamer.RenameFile(ref i, files, ref offset, "Processed_", "pdf", dontRenameFile: false);

// zeta.pdf, alpha.pdf, mu.pdf  ->  Processed_1.pdf, Processed_2.pdf, Processed_3.pdf

The new name is {prefix}{index + offset + 1}.{extension}, in the source file's own directory. With dontRenameFile: true the original file name is kept and only the prefix and extension are applied. When the computed name equals the current one the file is left untouched. The return value is the full path of the file after the call.

The target name must not already exist: the collision branch does not recompute the candidate name and will not terminate. Rename into a clean prefix/extension pair, or check for existing targets before calling.

ControlFinder

var grid   = ControlFinder.FindChild<Grid>(this, null);        // first Grid in the visual tree
var editor = ControlFinder.FindChild<TextBox>(this, "Notes");  // first TextBox named "Notes"

Returns null when parent is null or nothing matches. Name matching is case sensitive. The search does not descend into a child that already matches T but carries a different name, so a same-typed ancestor will hide the element you are looking for.

StringExtension

using PdfExporterLib.DataUtility;

"Hello World".ReplaceCaseInsensitive("WORLD", "Earth");  // "Hello Earth"

The search term is matched literally (regex metacharacters are escaped) and $ in the replacement is not treated as a substitution group.

NotepadWindow

var notepad = new NotepadWindow { Text = extractedText };
notepad.DataGridView.DataSource = table;   // hosted System.Windows.Forms.DataGridView

if (notepad.ShowDialog() == true && notepad.TextModified)
    Save(notepad.Text);

TextModified only becomes true for changes made while the window is visible, so pre-filling Text before showing it is not reported as a user edit.

Application settings

Batch renaming in DoOpenFolder reads the PdfExporterLib.Properties.Settings application-scoped settings. Override them in the host application's App.config:

<configSections>
  <sectionGroup name="applicationSettings" type="System.Configuration.ApplicationSettingsGroup, System, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089">
    <section name="PdfExporterLib.Properties.Settings" type="System.Configuration.ClientSettingsSection, System, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" requirePermission="false" />
  </sectionGroup>
</configSections>
<applicationSettings>
  <PdfExporterLib.Properties.Settings>
    <setting name="RenameBeforeProcess" serializeAs="String"><value>False</value></setting>
    <setting name="BeforePrefix" serializeAs="String"><value>Processed_</value></setting>
    <setting name="BeforeExtension" serializeAs="String"><value>pdf</value></setting>
    <setting name="RanameFileNameBefore" serializeAs="String"><value>False</value></setting>
    <setting name="RenameAfterProcess" serializeAs="String"><value>True</value></setting>
    <setting name="AfterPrefix" serializeAs="String"><value /></setting>
    <setting name="AfterExtension" serializeAs="String"><value>processedPdf</value></setting>
    <setting name="RanameFileNameAfter" serializeAs="String"><value>False</value></setting>
  </PdfExporterLib.Properties.Settings>
</applicationSettings>

The setting names RanameFileNameBefore / RanameFileNameAfter are spelled as shown — the typo is part of the persisted configuration contract.

Dependencies

• Net4x.PdfViewerLibrary — the hosted PDF viewer control
• Net4x.InputBoxLibrary.WinForms — dialogs and shared resources
• Net4x.DataAccessLibrary.Data.Classes — DbConvert, used by the CSV exporter
• Net4x.Microsoft-WindowsAPICodePack-Core and -Shell — shell dialogs and property system
• AboutBox — the about window shown by AboutMenu_Click

Localisation

The built-in user interface strings (tray menu, window titles, about text, progress message) are in Italian. Override the protected handlers if you need another language.

Links

• Source: https://github.com/pieroviano/PdfExporterLib

Copyright © Piero Viano 2016. Released under the Apache-2.0 license.