Getting started

Install

For a typical .NET 8 / 9 / 10 application:

dotnet add package Tharga.Reporter

Tharga.Reporter targets net8.0, net9.0, and net10.0. At runtime it uses System.Drawing.Common, Aspose.BarCode, and PdfSharp.MigraDoc, so it expects a Windows host.

Namespaces

The core types span three namespaces — import them all at the top of the file that builds your document:

using Tharga.Reporter;            // Renderer, PageFormat
using Tharga.Reporter.Entity;     // Template, Section, DocumentData, DocumentProperties
using Tharga.Reporter.Entity.Element;  // Text, TextBox, Image, BarCode, Line, Rectangle, Table

Tharga.Reporter — Renderer and PageFormat, the rendering entry points.
Tharga.Reporter.Entity — the document model: Template, Section, units, document data, font.
Tharga.Reporter.Entity.Element — the visual elements you stack inside a section's pane, header, or footer.

Minimal example

The shortest useful program is: build a Section, add an element, wrap it in a Template, hand it to Renderer.GetPdfBinary:

using PdfSharp;
using Tharga.Reporter;
using Tharga.Reporter.Entity;
using Tharga.Reporter.Entity.Element;

var section = new Section();
section.Pane.ElementList.Add(new Text { Value = "Hello, world!" });

var template = new Template(section);
var renderer = new Renderer(template);
var pdfBytes = renderer.GetPdfBinary(PageSize.A4);

File.WriteAllBytes("hello.pdf", pdfBytes);

GetPdfBinary returns the PDF as a byte[], so you can stream it to a HTTP response, save it to disk, or hand it to a print pipeline.

Adding margins, a header, and a footer

Section exposes a Margin, a Header, a Pane, and a Footer. Each of the three areas has an ElementList:

using System.Drawing;
using PdfSharp;
using Tharga.Reporter;
using Tharga.Reporter.Entity;
using Tharga.Reporter.Entity.Element;

var section = new Section
{
    Margin = new UnitRectangle { Left = "1cm", Top = "2cm", Right = "1cm", Bottom = "2cm" }
};
section.Header.Height = "2cm";
section.Header.ElementList.Add(new Text { Value = "Invoice", FontSize = "18pt" });

section.Pane.ElementList.Add(new Text { Value = "Body content here." });

section.Footer.Height = "1cm";
section.Footer.ElementList.Add(new Text { Value = "Page {Page} of {TotalPages}" });

var pdf = new Renderer(new Template(section)).GetPdfBinary(PageSize.A4);

Units accept cm, mm, pt, in, and % (relative to the parent area). The {Page} and {TotalPages} tokens are built-in placeholders filled by the renderer.

Next steps