PDF to PDF API - .Net SDK

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-4.3.5-dotnet.zip, unzip it and add a reference to pdfcrowd.dll to your project.

You can learn more about other install options here.

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. You can sign up for the Pdfcrowd API here.

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 output_file = new FileStream("offer.pdf", FileMode.CreateNew);

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

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

            // close the output file
            output_file.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 output_stream = new FileStream("offer.pdf", FileMode.CreateNew);

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

            // close the output stream
            output_stream.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

API Reference - class PdfToPdfClient

Conversion from PDF to PDF.

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
Returns
  • PdfToPdfClient - The converter object. 
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.
Returns
  • PdfToPdfClient - The converter object. 
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.
Returns
  • PdfToPdfClient - The converter object.

 

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.
Parameter Description Default
debugLog
Set to true to enable the debug logging.
false
Returns
  • PdfToPdfClient - The converter object. 
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.
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.
Returns
  • PdfToPdfClient - The converter object.

 

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
Returns
  • PdfToPdfClient - The converter object. 
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/4.3.5 (http://pdfcrowd.com)
Returns
  • PdfToPdfClient - The converter object. 
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.
Returns
  • PdfToPdfClient - The converter object. 
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
Returns
  • PdfToPdfClient - The converter object.

 

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 by your way
}

Troubleshooting