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I am trying to generate a Pdf from Html string using DynamicPdf.HmtlConverter library. For generating Html string I am using HtmlTextWriter class from System.Web.UI. I am trying to add the external style sheet as follows :

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.Append(@"<!DOCTYPE html>" + Environment.NewLine);
StringWriter stringWriter = new StringWriter();
using (HtmlTextWriter writer = new HtmlTextWriter(stringWriter))
{  //adding head and link tag 
   writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Html);
   writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Head);
   writer.Write("<meta charset=" + "\"UTF-8\">");
   //Add Link tag attributes
    writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Rel, "stylesheet");
    writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Href,@"~\Stylesheet1.css");  //style sheet reference 
writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Type, "text/css");
writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Link);
writer.RenderEndTag(); // end of Link tag
writer.RenderEndTag(); // end of head tag
// Body tag 
writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Body)
writer.RenderEndTag(); // end of Body tag 
writer.RenderEndTag(); // end of Html tag 
}
sb.Append(stringWriter);

So "sb" will have the Html string which will be passed to DynamicPdf library method to generate Pdf as below :

ceTe.DynamicPDF.HtmlConverter.Converter.Convert(sb.ToString(),@"~\output3.pdf", null, options);

External style sheet does not show any effect on Html controls.

any suggestions how to use external style sheet with HtmlTextWriter and DynamicPdf library to generate a Pdf ..!!!

Himanshu Pal
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2 Answers2

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The issue is with path used for stylesheet. HTML does not recognizes any special meaning for '~' character. See RFC3986 Section:2.3

In Linux, '~' has a special meaning and translates to the home directory but for HTML it is just another character. I would suggest you to use Path.GetFullPath("~") to get full path to home directory and then use that instead.

Update:

I was mostly concentrated on the HTML part but I noticed that the third parameter of ceTe.DynamicPDF.HtmlConverter.Converter.Convert() is set to null. It must be the base-path for all the file paths used in html string. See DynamicPDF Reference

So the code should look something like this:

ceTe.DynamicPDF.HtmlConverter.Converter.Convert(sb.ToString(),@"~\output3.pdf", new Uri(@"file://C:\Users\Z0042ADE\source\repos\HtmlTextWriterDemo\HtmlTextWriterDemo\"), options);

Then you may not need to use any path in HTML string. This can be just stylesheet name:

writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Href,@"Stylesheet1.css");

Hopefully this will fix the issue.

Community
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Ashutosh Raghuwanshi
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This worked for me : You can specify external CSS in the HTML source and use it for conversion without any problem using DynamicPdf library . You can get the CSS from a website using the URL or if you are using HTML string as input to the conversion and want to use external CSS then you will need to specify the base path to pick the resources. Please refer to the documentation on HTML converter base tags at: [1]: https://www.dynamicpdf.com/docs/dotnet/html-converter-base-urls

Please see the code example below :

Below HTML text uses external styles from a file placed in the folder which is specified in the BasePath Uri.

Uri basepath = new Uri(@"C:\Temp\Resource\sytlesheet.css");
ceTe.DynamicPDF.HtmlConverter.Converter.Convert(htmlText, @"C:\Temp\MyHTmlPDF.pdf", basepath);
Himanshu Pal
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