Kevsoft.PDFtk

.NET Library to drive the awesome pdftk binary.

Inspired by pypdftk from revolunet.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

You'll need to have PDFtk Server installed and the bin directory included within your PATH environment variable.

Windows

If you're on windows this can be installed directly from chocolatey.

choco install pdftk-server

Alternatively you can download the exe from PDFtk from their main site and install it manually.

Linux

This is very dependant on your Linux distribution, but you can install this from the package manager of choice.

Ubuntu

apt-get install pdftk

macOS

I don't have a mac anymore, but it seems you can install this with brew.

brew tap spl/pdftk
brew install pdftk

Installing Package

Kevsoft.PDFtk can be installed directly via the package manager console by executing the following commandlet:

Install-Package Kevsoft.PDFtk

alternative you can use the dotnet CLI.

dotnet add package Kevsoft.PDFtk

Usage

Filling a PDF Form.

Fill a PDF with given data and returns the PDF bytes.

var pdftk = new PDFtk();

var fieldData = new Dictionary<string, string>()
{
   ["Given Name Text Box"] = "Kevin",
   ["Language 3 Check Box"] = "Yes"
};

var result = await pdftk.FillFormAsync(
   pdfFile: await File.ReadAllBytesAsync("myForm.pdf"),
   fieldData: FieldData,
   flatten: false,
   dropXfa: dropfalse
);

if(result.Success)
{
   // Do something with result.Result (bytes[])
}

Get Field Information

Read PDF and output form field statistics.

var pdftk = new PDFtk();

var pdfBytes = await File.ReadAllBytesAsync("Form.pdf");
var result = await pdftk.GetDataFieldsAsync(pdfBytes);

if(result.Success)
{
   // Do something with result.Result (IDataField[])
}

IDataField interface:

public interface IDataField
{
    string? FieldValue { get; }
    string? FieldValueDefault { get; }
    string? FieldType { get; }
    string? FieldName { get; }
    string? FieldNameAlt { get; }
    string? FieldFlags { get; }
    string? FieldJustification { get; }
    string[] FieldStateOption { get; }
    string? FieldMaxLength { get; }
}

Concatenate Multiple PDFs

Merge multiple PDFs into one single PDF and returns the PDF bytes.

var pdftk = new PDFtk();

var result = await pdftk.ConcatAsync(new[]
{
    await File.ReadAllBytesAsync("Pdf1.pdf"),
    await File.ReadAllBytesAsync("Pdf2.pdf")
});

if(result.Success)
{
   // Do something with result.Result (bytes[])
}

Concatenate a List of Pages

Concatenate a list of page ranges into one single file and returns the PDF bytes.

var pdftk = new PDFtk();

var pages = new []{ 1, 5, 6, 7, 10 };
var pdfBytes = await File.ReadAllBytesAsync("Form.pdf");
var result = await pdftk.GetPagesAsync(pdfBytes, pages);

if(result.Success)
{
   // Do something with result.Result (bytes[])
}

Splitting a PDF into Many PDFs

Split a single PDF in many pages and return a list of PDF bytes.

var pdftk = new PDFtk();

var pdfBytes = await File.ReadAllBytesAsync("Form.pdf");
var result = await pdftk.SplitAsync(pdfBytes);

if(result.Success)
{
   foreach (var (fileName, bytes) in result.Result)
   {
       // Do something with each pdfPage.
   }
}

Getting Total Pages

Return the number of pages for a PDF bytes.

var pdftk = new PDFtk();

var pdfBytes = await File.ReadAllBytesAsync("Form.pdf");
var result = await pdftk.GetNumberOfPagesAsync(pdfBytes);

if(result.Success)
{
   // result.Result is the number of pages.
}

Stamping a PDF

Applies a stamp to the PDF file.

var pdftk = new PDFtk();

var result = await pdftk.StampAsync(
    await File.ReadAllBytesAsync("MyDocument.pdf"),
    await File.ReadAllBytesAsync("Stamp.pdf")
);

if(result.Success)
{
   // Do something with result.Result (bytes[])
}

Replace a Page

Replace a page in a PDF with another PDF.

var pdftk = new PDFtk();

var result = await pdftk.ReplacePage(
    await File.ReadAllBytesAsync("MyDocument.pdf"),
    page: 3,
    await File.ReadAllBytesAsync("replacement.pdf")
);

if(result.Success)
{
   // Do something with result.Result (bytes[])
}

Replace Pages

Replace multiple pages within a PDF with another PDF.

var pdftk = new PDFtk();

var result = await pdftk.ReplacePage(
    await File.ReadAllBytesAsync("MyDocument.pdf"),
    startPage: 3,
    endPage: 5,
    await File.ReadAllBytesAsync("replacement.pdf")
);

if(result.Success)
{
   // Do something with result.Result (bytes[])
}

Attach files

Attaches files to a PDF, if page argument is supplied then files are attached to a given page, if page argument is not specified then files are attached at document level.

var pdftk = new PDFtk();

var result = await _pdFtk.AttachFiles(
   await File.ReadAllBytesAsync("MyDocument.pdf"),
   new Dictionary<string, byte[]>
   {
         ["test-file1.txt"] = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes("Hello"),
         ["test-file2.txt"] = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes("World")
   },
   page: 10 // Optional page to attach files
   );

if(result.Success)
{
   // Do something with result.Result (bytes[])
}

Extract Attachments

Extracts attachments from a PDF file.

var pdftk = new PDFtk();

var result = await _pdFtk.ExtractAttachments(
   await File.ReadAllBytesAsync("MyDocument.pdf"));

if(result.Success)
{
   foreach (var (fileName, bytes) in result.Result)
   {
       // Do something with each attachment.
   }
}

Compression/Decompression

These are only useful when you want to edit PDF code in a text editor like vim or emacs. Remove PDF page stream compression by applying the uncompress filter.

Not Implemented yet.

Samples

The samples folder containers examples of how you could use the Kevsoft.PDFtk Library.

WebApplicationFillForm

This is a small razor pages website that has a form where you can fill in a PDF and generate an output for the browser to download.

Contributing

1. Issue
2. Fork
3. Hack!
4. Pull Request

This source includes a VSCode Remote Containers to help you get setup fast for development, it comes preinstalled with the prerequisites.