iTextSharp generated PDF: How to send the pdf to the client and add a prompt?

Question

I have generated a pdf using iTextSharp, when its created it saves automatically in the location provided in my code on the server not on the client side and of course witho

Answer 1

You do not need to use MemoryStream. Use Response.OutputStream instead. That's what it's there for. No need to use Response.BinaryWrite() or any other call to explicitly write the document either; iTextSharp takes care of writing to the stream when you use Response.OutputStream.

Here's a simple working example:

Response.ContentType = "application/pdf";
Response.AppendHeader(
  "Content-Disposition",
  "attachment; filename=test.pdf"
);
using (Document document = new Document()) {
  PdfWriter.GetInstance(document, Response.OutputStream);
  document.Open();
  document.Add(new Paragraph("This is a paragraph"));
}

Here's how to add the proper HTTP headers. (getting the prompt to save the file) And if your code is in a web form, (button click handler), add Response.End() to the code example above after the using statement so that the web form's HTML output is not appended the PDF document.