PDF to PDF API - .Net

Join multiple PDF files in .Net using the Pdfcrowd API v2. The API is easy to use and the integration takes only a couple of lines of code.

Installation

Download pdfcrowd-4.4.2-dotnet.zip, unzip it and add a reference to pdfcrowd.dll to your project.

Learn more about other install options.

Authentication

Authentication is needed in order to use the Pdfcrowd API. The credentials used for accessing the API are your Pdfcrowd username and the API key.
Sign up for a Free Trial

Examples

Join 4 local PDF files together to a PDF file

using System;
using System.IO;

public class ApiTest
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        try
        {
            // create the API client instance
            pdfcrowd.PdfToPdfClient client = new pdfcrowd.PdfToPdfClient(
                "your_username", "your_apikey");

            // configure the conversion
            client.addPdfFile("/path/to/cover.pdf");
            client.addPdfFile("/path/to/proposal.pdf");
            client.addPdfFile("/path/to/price.pdf");
            client.addPdfFile("/path/to/contact.pdf");

            // run the conversion and write the result to a file
            client.convertToFile("offer.pdf");
        }
        catch(pdfcrowd.Error why)
        {
            // report the error
            System.Console.Error.WriteLine("Pdfcrowd Error: " + why);

            // handle the exception here or rethrow and handle it at a higher level
            throw;
        }
    }
}

Join 4 local PDF files together to in-memory PDF

using System;
using System.IO;

public class ApiTest
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        try
        {
            // create the API client instance
            pdfcrowd.PdfToPdfClient client = new pdfcrowd.PdfToPdfClient(
                "your_username", "your_apikey");

            // configure the conversion
            client.addPdfFile("/path/to/cover.pdf");
            client.addPdfFile("/path/to/proposal.pdf");
            client.addPdfFile("/path/to/price.pdf");
            client.addPdfFile("/path/to/contact.pdf");

            // create output file for conversion result
            FileStream outputFile = new FileStream("offer.pdf", FileMode.CreateNew);

            // run the conversion and store the result into a pdf variable
            byte[] pdf = client.convert();

            // write the pdf into the output file
            outputFile.Write(pdf, 0, pdf.Length);

            // close the output file
            outputFile.Close();
        }
        catch(pdfcrowd.Error why)
        {
            // report the error
            System.Console.Error.WriteLine("Pdfcrowd Error: " + why);

            // handle the exception here or rethrow and handle it at a higher level
            throw;
        }
    }
}

Join 4 local PDF files together and write the resulting PDF to an output stream

using System;
using System.IO;

public class ApiTest
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        try
        {
            // create the API client instance
            pdfcrowd.PdfToPdfClient client = new pdfcrowd.PdfToPdfClient(
                "your_username", "your_apikey");

            // configure the conversion
            client.addPdfFile("/path/to/cover.pdf");
            client.addPdfFile("/path/to/proposal.pdf");
            client.addPdfFile("/path/to/price.pdf");
            client.addPdfFile("/path/to/contact.pdf");

            // create output stream for conversion result
            FileStream outputStream = new FileStream("offer.pdf", FileMode.CreateNew);

            // run the conversion and write the result into the output stream
            client.convertToStream(outputStream);

            // close the output stream
            outputStream.Close();
        }
        catch(pdfcrowd.Error why)
        {
            // report the error
            System.Console.Error.WriteLine("Pdfcrowd Error: " + why);

            // handle the exception here or rethrow and handle it at a higher level
            throw;
        }
    }
}

Join 4 in-memory PDFs together to a PDF file

using System;
using System.IO;

public class ApiTest
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        try
        {
            // create the API client instance
            pdfcrowd.PdfToPdfClient client = new pdfcrowd.PdfToPdfClient(
                "your_username", "your_apikey");

            // configure the conversion
            client.addPdfRawData(File.ReadAllBytes("/path/to/cover.pdf"));
            client.addPdfRawData(File.ReadAllBytes("/path/to/proposal.pdf"));
            client.addPdfRawData(File.ReadAllBytes("/path/to/price.pdf"));
            client.addPdfRawData(File.ReadAllBytes("/path/to/contact.pdf"));

            // run the conversion and write the result to a file
            client.convertToFile("offer.pdf");
        }
        catch(pdfcrowd.Error why)
        {
            // report the error
            System.Console.Error.WriteLine("Pdfcrowd Error: " + why);

            // handle the exception here or rethrow and handle it at a higher level
            throw;
        }
    }
}

Join 2 in-memory PDFs together with 2 local PDF files to a PDF file

using System;
using System.IO;

public class ApiTest
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        try
        {
            // create the API client instance
            pdfcrowd.PdfToPdfClient client = new pdfcrowd.PdfToPdfClient(
                "your_username", "your_apikey");

            // configure the conversion
            client.addPdfRawData(File.ReadAllBytes("/path/to/cover.pdf"));
            client.addPdfFile("/path/to/proposal.pdf");
            client.addPdfRawData(File.ReadAllBytes("/path/to/price.pdf"));
            client.addPdfFile("/path/to/contact.pdf");

            // run the conversion and write the result to a file
            client.convertToFile("offer.pdf");
        }
        catch(pdfcrowd.Error why)
        {
            // report the error
            System.Console.Error.WriteLine("Pdfcrowd Error: " + why);

            // handle the exception here or rethrow and handle it at a higher level
            throw;
        }
    }
}

Get info about the current conversion

using System;
using System.IO;

public class ApiTest
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        try
        {
            // create the API client instance
            pdfcrowd.PdfToPdfClient client = new pdfcrowd.PdfToPdfClient(
                "your_username", "your_apikey");

            // configure the conversion
            client.setDebugLog(true);
            client.addPdfRawData(File.ReadAllBytes("/path/to/cover.pdf"));
            client.addPdfRawData(File.ReadAllBytes("/path/to/proposal.pdf"));

            // run the conversion and write the result to a file
            client.convertToFile("offer.pdf");
            
            // print URL to the debug log
            System.Console.WriteLine("Debug log url: " + client.getDebugLogUrl());
            
            // print the number of available conversion credits in your account
            System.Console.WriteLine("Remaining credit count: " + client.getRemainingCreditCount());
            
            // print the number of credits consumed by the conversion
            System.Console.WriteLine("Consumed credit count: " + client.getConsumedCreditCount());
            
            // print the unique ID of the conversion
            System.Console.WriteLine("Job id: " + client.getJobId());
            
            // print the total number of pages in the output document
            System.Console.WriteLine("Page count: " + client.getPageCount());
            
            // print the size of the output in bytes
            System.Console.WriteLine("Output size: " + client.getOutputSize());
        }
        catch(pdfcrowd.Error why)
        {
            // report the error
            System.Console.Error.WriteLine("Pdfcrowd Error: " + why);

            // handle the exception here or rethrow and handle it at a higher level
            throw;
        }
    }
}

Tips & Tricks

Error Handling

try 
{
    // call the API 
}
catch(pdfcrowd.Error why) 
{
    // print error
    System.Console.Error.WriteLine("Pdfcrowd Error: " + why);

    // print just error code
    System.Console.Error.WriteLine("Pdfcrowd Error Code: " + why.getCode());

    // print just error message
    System.Console.Error.WriteLine("Pdfcrowd Error Message: " + why.getMessage());

    // or handle the error in your way
}

Troubleshooting

Check API Status Codes in case of the error code is returned.
You can use setDebugLog and getDebugLogUrl to get detailed info about the conversion, such as conversion errors, time, console output.
Take a look at the FAQ section.

API Reference - class PdfToPdfClient

Conversion from PDF to PDF. All setter methods return PdfToPdfClient object unless otherwise specified.

Constructor

public PdfToPdfClient(string userName, string apiKey)

Constructor for the Pdfcrowd API client.

Parameter	Description	Default
userName	Your username at Pdfcrowd.
apiKey	Your API key.

PDF Manipulation

public PdfToPdfClient setAction(string action)

Specifies the action to be performed on the input PDFs.

Parameter	Description	Default
action	Allowed values: join Concatenate input PDFs into a single one. shuffle Collate pages from input PDFs into a single one, take one page at a time from each input PDF. This is useful when combining two scanned documents containing odd and even pages.	join

public byte[] convert()

Perform an action on the input files.

Returns

byte[] - Byte array containing the output PDF.

public void convertToStream(Stream outStream)

Perform an action on the input files and write the output PDF to an output stream.

Parameter	Description	Default
outStream	The output stream that will contain the output PDF.

public void convertToFile(string filePath)

Perform an action on the input files and write the output PDF to a file.

Parameter	Description	Default
filePath	The output file path. The string must not be empty.

public PdfToPdfClient addPdfFile(string filePath)

Add a PDF file to the list of the input PDFs.

Parameter	Description	Default
filePath	The file path to a local PDF file. The file must exist and not be empty.

public PdfToPdfClient addPdfRawData(byte[] pdfRawData)

Add in-memory raw PDF data to the list of the input PDFs.
Typical usage is for adding PDF created by another Pdfcrowd converter.

Example in PHP:
$clientPdf2Pdf->addPdfRawData($clientHtml2Pdf->convertUrl('http://www.example.com'));

Parameter	Description	Default
pdfRawData	The raw PDF data. The input data must be PDF content.

Miscellaneous

public PdfToPdfClient setDebugLog(bool debugLog)

Turn on the debug logging. Details about the conversion are stored in the debug log. The URL of the log can be obtained from the getDebugLogUrl method or available in conversion statistics.

Parameter	Description	Default
debugLog	Set to true to enable the debug logging.	false

public string getDebugLogUrl()

Get the URL of the debug log for the last conversion.

Returns

string - The link to the debug log.

public int getRemainingCreditCount()

Get the number of conversion credits available in your account.
This method can only be called after a call to one of the convertXYZ methods.
The returned value can differ from the actual count if you run parallel conversions.
The special value 999999 is returned if the information is not available.

Returns

int - The number of credits.

public int getConsumedCreditCount()

Get the number of credits consumed by the last conversion.

Returns

int - The number of credits.

public string getJobId()

Get the job id.

Returns

string - The unique job identifier.

public int getPageCount()

Get the total number of pages in the output document.

Returns

int - The page count.

public int getOutputSize()

Get the size of the output in bytes.

Returns

int - The count of bytes.

public PdfToPdfClient setTag(string tag)

Tag the conversion with a custom value. The tag is used in conversion statistics. A value longer than 32 characters is cut off.

Parameter	Description	Default
tag	A string with the custom tag.

API Client Options

public PdfToPdfClient setUseHttp(bool useHttp)

Specifies if the client communicates over HTTP or HTTPS with Pdfcrowd API.

Parameter	Description	Default
useHttp	Set to true to use HTTP.	false

public PdfToPdfClient setUserAgent(string userAgent)

Set a custom user agent HTTP header. It can be usefull if you are behind some proxy or firewall.

Parameter	Description	Default
userAgent	The user agent string.	pdfcrowd_dotnet_client/4.4.2 (http://pdfcrowd.com)

public PdfToPdfClient setProxy(string host, int port, string userName, string password)

Specifies an HTTP proxy that the API client library will use to connect to the internet.

Parameter	Description	Default
host	The proxy hostname.
port	The proxy port.
userName	The username.
password	The password.

public PdfToPdfClient setRetryCount(int retryCount)

Specifies the number of retries when the 502 HTTP status code is received. The 502 status code indicates a temporary network issue. This feature can be disabled by setting to 0.

Parameter	Description	Default
retryCount	Number of retries wanted.	1