Add Header and Footer for PDF using iTextsharp

Question

How can I add header and footer for each page in the pdf.

Headed will contain just a text Footer will contain a text and pagination for pdf (Page : 1 of 4)

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Answer 1

The answers to this question, while they are correct, are very unnecessarily complicated. It doesn't take that much code for text to show up in the header/footer. Here is a simple example of adding text to the header/footer.

The current version of iTextSharp works by implementing a callback class which is defined by the IPdfPageEvent interface. From what I understand, it's not a good idea to add things during the OnStartPage method, so instead I will be using the OnEndPage page method. The events are triggered depending on what is happening to the PdfWriter

First, create a class which implements IPdfPageEvent. In the:

public void OnEndPage(PdfWriter writer, Document document)

function, obtain the PdfContentByte object by calling

PdfContentByte cb = writer.DirectContent;

Now you can add text very easily:

ColumnText ct = new ColumnText(cb);

cb.BeginText();
cb.SetFontAndSize(BaseFont.CreateFont(BaseFont.TIMES_ROMAN, BaseFont.CP1252, BaseFont.NOT_EMBEDDED), 12.0f);
//Note, (0,0) in this case is at the bottom of the document
cb.SetTextMatrix(document.LeftMargin, document.BottomMargin); 
cb.ShowText(String.Format("{0} {1}", "Testing Text", "Like this"));
cb.EndText();

So the full for the OnEndPage function will be:

public void OnEndPage(PdfWriter writer, Document document)
{
    PdfContentByte cb = writer.DirectContent;
    ColumnText ct = new ColumnText(cb);

    cb.BeginText();
    cb.SetFontAndSize(BaseFont.CreateFont(BaseFont.TIMES_ROMAN, BaseFont.CP1252, BaseFont.NOT_EMBEDDED), 12.0f);
    cb.SetTextMatrix(document.LeftMargin, document.BottomMargin);
    cb.ShowText(String.Format("{0} {1}", "Testing Text", "Like this"));
    cb.EndText();

}

This will show up at the bottom of your document. One last thing. Don't forget to assign the IPdfPageEvent like this:

writter.PageEvent = new PDFEvents();

To the PdfWriter writter object

For the header it is very similar. Just flip the SetTextMatrix y coordinate:

cb.SetTextMatrix(document.LeftMargin, document.PageSize.Height - document.TopMargin);