c# - 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 without telling anything to the user.

I need to send it to the client and I need to prompt a dialogue box to ask the user where he wants to save his pdf..

how can i do this please?

this is my pdf code:

using (MemoryStream myMemoryStream = new MemoryStream())
{
    Document document = new Document();
    PdfWriter PDFWriter = PdfWriter.GetInstance(document, myMemoryStream);

    document.AddHeader("header1", "HEADER1");


    document.Open();

      //..........

    document.Close();

    byte[] content = myMemoryStream.ToArray();

    // Write out PDF from memory stream.
    using (FileStream fs =      File.Create(HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~\report.pdf")))
    {
        fs.Write(content, 0, (int)content.Length);
    }

EDIT

this is an example of the result i want http://examples.extjs.eu/?ex=download

thanks to your replies ,I modified my code to this:

HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentType = "application/pdf";
HttpContext.Current.Response.AppendHeader( "Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=test.pdf");


using (MemoryStream myMemoryStream = new MemoryStream())
{    
Document document = new Document();    
PdfWriter PDFWriter = PdfWriter.GetInstance(document, myMemoryStream);

document.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=wissalReport.pdf");

document.Open();

  //..........

document.Close();


byte[] content = myMemoryStream.ToArray();
HttpContext.Current.Response.Buffer = false;  
HttpContext.Current.Response.Clear();         
HttpContext.Current.Response.ClearContent(); 
HttpContext.Current.Response.ClearHeaders();  
HttpContext.Current.Response.AppendHeader("content-disposition","attachment;filename=" + "my_report.pdf");                
HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentType = "Application/pdf";        

//Write the file content directly to the HTTP content output stream.    
HttpContext.Current.Response.BinaryWrite(content);         
HttpContext.Current.Response.Flush();                
HttpContext.Current.Response.End(); 

but i get this error:

Uncaught Ext.Error: You're trying to decode an invalid JSON String: 
%PDF-1.4 %???? 3 0 obj <</Type/XObject/Subtype/Image/Width 994/Height 185/Length 13339/ColorSpace/DeviceGray/BitsPerComponent 8/Filter/FlateDecode>>stream x???|E?
...........

im absolutely sure my itextsharp to create pdf is correct because i can save it on the server, but thats not what i need to do ,when i try to send it to the client i got the error above

thanks in advance

Answer 1

In case of a web application you probably want to stream the pdf as binary to user, that would either open the pdf or prompt user to save the file.

Remember pdf generation is happening at server, even if user provides the path it won't be of any use on server. See following links -

• How To Write Binary Files to the Browser Using ASP.NET and Visual C# .NET

In your case you are generating the file and hence will already be having a binary stream instead of file, hence you can directly use Response.BinaryWrite instead of Response.WriteFile.

Modified sample:

Response.Buffer = false;
Response.Clear();
Response.ClearContent();
Response.ClearHeaders();
//Set the appropriate ContentType.
Response.ContentType = "Application/pdf";
//Write the file content directly to the HTTP content output stream.
Response.BinaryWrite(content);
Response.Flush();
Response.End();