Table of Contents

Elements

All visual content lives in one of the section's ElementLists — Header.ElementList, Pane.ElementList, or Footer.ElementList. Every element supports the standard positioning properties (Left, Top, Right, Bottom, Width, Height) as UnitValue strings, plus IsBackground to control draw order.

Text

Single-line text. Doesn't wrap — anything that exceeds the bounds is clipped.

section.Pane.ElementList.Add(new Text
{
    Value = "Invoice {InvoiceNumber}",
    FontSize = "14pt",
    TextAlignment = TextBase.Alignment.Right
});

Value supports the {Key} placeholder syntax — see Data and rendering. The HideValue property suppresses output when a referenced data key is empty — useful for optional headers.

TextBox

Multi-line text that wraps and can span multiple pages.

section.Pane.ElementList.Add(new TextBox
{
    Value = "Long descriptive copy that needs to wrap across many lines.",
    Width = "100%",
    Top   = "5cm"
});

Use a TextBox whenever the content length is unbounded. Combine with ReferencePoint (below) to stack content that grows.

Image

Embed an image from a URL, file path, or stream.

section.Header.ElementList.Add(new Image
{
    Source = "https://example.com/logo.png",
    Left = "0", Top = "0",
    Width = "5cm"
});

Source accepts an HTTP URL, a local file path, or a byte array serialised with Image.BytesToLongString. PNG and JPEG are decoded by PDFsharp itself, so images work on every platform.

BarCode

A Code 39 barcode. The bars are drawn as vector rectangles rather than an embedded raster image, so the barcode stays sharp at any print size and renders identically on every platform.

section.Pane.ElementList.Add(new BarCode
{
    Code   = "1234567890",
    Left   = "8mm",
    Right  = "8mm",
    Top    = "18mm",
    Bottom = "18mm"
});

The barcode fills the box you give it; size the box to the print area the scanner expects. A short code in a very wide box produces bars too wide to scan, so keep the box roughly proportional to the length of the code.

Code 39 encodes digits, upper-case letters, space and - . $ / + %. Lower case is upper-cased, so "abc123" encodes as ABC123. Anything the symbology cannot represent raises an InvalidOperationException naming the offending character, rather than being silently dropped from the barcode.

Line

Straight line. Without explicit position, draws across the full width.

section.Pane.ElementList.Add(new Line
{
    Thickness = "1mm",
    Color = Color.MidnightBlue
});

section.Pane.ElementList.Add(new Line
{
    Top       = "10cm",
    Thickness = "0.5mm",
    Color     = Color.Black
});

Rectangle

Outlined or filled rectangle.

section.Pane.ElementList.Add(new Rectangle
{
    Left   = "25%",  Top    = "25%",
    Width  = "50%",  Height = "50%",
    BorderColor      = Color.Green,
    BackgroundColor  = Color.LightYellow
});

Set only BorderColor for outline, only BackgroundColor for solid fill, or both.

Table

Renders tabular data from a DocumentDataTable. Tables grow across pages and support grouping rows.

var table = new Table
{
    Width = "100%",
    DataTableName = "InvoiceLines",
    Columns =
    {
        new TableColumn { Title = "Item",  ColumnName = "Item",  Width = "60%" },
        new TableColumn { Title = "Qty",   ColumnName = "Qty",   Width = "20%", HeaderAlignment = Table.Alignment.Right, ContentAlignment = Table.Alignment.Right },
        new TableColumn { Title = "Price", ColumnName = "Price", Width = "20%", HeaderAlignment = Table.Alignment.Right, ContentAlignment = Table.Alignment.Right },
    }
};

section.Pane.ElementList.Add(table);

The matching table data goes onto the DocumentData — see Data and rendering.

ReferencePoint

A logical container that holds child elements, with optional vertical stacking. Use it when you want a group of elements to flow as one block and grow downward.

var rp = new ReferencePoint
{
    Stack = ReferencePoint.StackMethod.Vertical,
    Top   = "3cm"
};
rp.ElementList.Add(new Text { Value = "First line" });
rp.ElementList.Add(new TextBox { Value = "Body paragraph that wraps." });
rp.ElementList.Add(new Text { Value = "Final line" });

section.Pane.ElementList.Add(rp);

With Stack = Vertical, each child is anchored directly below the previous one, so a growing TextBox shifts the elements after it instead of overlapping them.

Z-order and IsBackground

Elements draw in the order they're added to the ElementList. To put something behind the rest, set IsBackground = true on the element — backgrounds render in a pre-pass so foreground content overlays them.

Next

  • Data and rendering — DocumentData, table data, the full Renderer surface, and choosing a PageFormat.
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