I tried several libraries:
- PDF Focus .NET: https://sautinsoft.com/products/pdf-focus/index.php
- Aspose.PDF: https://products.aspose.com/pdf/net
- Gembox: https://www.gemboxsoftware.com/document
- Spire.PDF: https://www.e-iceblue.com/Introduce/pdf-for-net-introduce.html
- considered also using Word via COM automation to open and save to pdf programmatically.
Among all of them I liked PDF Focus .NET best of all, and I will explain why:
- They try to keep the structure of the document EDITABLE, so that
when I will try to continue editing the text, the paragraph will be
smoothly prolonged. Other libraries are trying to do a
"minimalistic" approach by inserting absolute positioned shapes, so
that if you continue editing the text, it will overlap with the next
piece of text.
- They do all their best to recognize tables, so
that tables in the output document will be REAL TABLES, but not a
collection of shapes and texts with absolute positioning (as
produced by other libraries).
A customer of ours is evaluating now different libraries, and I will recommend PDF Focus .NET first of all.
P.S. I AM NOT INVOLVED IN ANY KIND OF RELATIONSHIP WITH THIS SOFTWARE PRODUCER. As a former .NET developer I simply see a high quality components which really work fine.