Using MigraDoc was always easy, of course.
Currently I am working on a library that makes using MigraDoc even easier. Working title is "MigraDoc Made EZR". In this post I show you some examples.
It is tradition to start with a "Hello, World!" program when learning a new programming language. "MigraDoc Made EZR" is not really a programming language, but here is the "Hello, World!" sample:
Code:
namespace MigraDocMadeEZ
{
class Program
{
static void Main()
{
// Instantiate MigraDocMadeEZR.
var mez = new MigraDocMadeEZR();
// Add the famous text.
mez.AddParagraph("Hello, World!");
// Create a PDF and open it in the default viewer.
mez.MakePdf("HelloWorld.pdf", true);
}
}
}
And that is the complete contents of the Program.cs file for my console application.
The basic ideas behind "MigraDoc Made EZR":
- One class giving access to the majority of the functions you need often, easily selectable with Intellisense
- Describe the document with easily readable code without tons of variables to store elements
- Easy handling for tables, images, styles, ...
Here is how you change a built-in style when using MigraDoc routines directly:
Code:
var style = document.Styles[StyleNames.Heading1];
style.Font.Name = "Arial";
style.Font.Size = 20;
style.ParagraphFormat.SpaceAfter = 6;
style.ParagraphFormat.SpaceBefore = 6;
And here we do the same using "MigraDoc Made EZR":
Code:
mez.Style(StyleNames.Heading1)
.Font("Arial", 20)
.SpaceAfter(6)
.SpaceBefore(6);
OK - it only saves a single line. But I think the lines are more readable. Every change you make to a style object returns the same style object, allowing you to chain together all needed changes in a single statement. This principle is also used when dealing with tables, images, and other objects.
Adding new styles is similar to changing existing styles. Here I create a new style for table headings and set the font to bold. The name of the font is defined as a constant so I have the literal only once in my source code.
Code:
mez.AddStyle(MyStyles.TableHeader)
.Bold(true);
The code that creates the table. The row in the middle has a fixed width of 3 cm, the remaining page width will be assigned to the other two columns with a relation of 2:5, indicated by the star "*" which behaves similar to WPF.
Code:
mez.AddTable("2*|3cm|5*")
.BorderWidth(0.5)
.Padding(5);
When I add the heading row of the table, I have to mark it as heading and assign my heading style.
Code:
mez.AddRow("Name", "Value", "Description")
.Heading(true)
.Style(MyStyles.TableHeader);
I don't have a style for the table body, so I simply add the data I need.
Code:
mez.AddRow("Beetle", "140 km/h", "The car that runs and runs.");
mez.AddRow("Spider", "258 km/h", "A bit more expensive.");
If you want to mix different font styles in a table cell, things are a bit more complicated.
Here's a routine that creates a paragraph with bold and regular text.
Code:
static MezParagraph TableCellHelper(string bold, string normal)
{
// Create a paragraph, add string "bold" as bold text, add string "normal" as regular text.
return new MezParagraph()
.AddFormattedText(new MezFormattedText(bold).Bold(true))
.AddText(" " + normal);
}
And the routine at work:
Code:
mez.AddRow("Beetle", TableCellHelper("140", "km/h"), "The car that runs and runs.");
mez.AddRow("Spider", TableCellHelper("258", "km/h"), "A bit more expensive.");
Can this be made easier? Yes, it can. I have the idea of supporting some mark-up in the strings passed to AddRow().
(To be continued.)
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