How to return PDF to browser in MVC?

Question

I have this demo code for iTextSharp

    Document document = new Document();
    try
    {
        PdfWriter.GetInstance(document, new FileStream("Chap0101.pdf", FileMode.Create));

        document.Open();

        document.Add(new Paragraph("Hello World"));

    }
    catch (DocumentException de)
    {
        Console.Error.WriteLine(de.Message);
    }
    catch (IOException ioe)
    {
        Console.Error.WriteLine(ioe.Message);
    }

    document.Close();

How do I get the controller to return the pdf document to the browser?

EDIT:

Running this code does open Acrobat but I get an error message "The file is damaged and could not be repaired"

  public FileStreamResult pdf()
    {
        MemoryStream m = new MemoryStream();
        Document document = new Document();
        PdfWriter.GetInstance(document, m);
        document.Open();
        document.Add(new Paragraph("Hello World"));
        document.Add(new Paragraph(DateTime.Now.ToString()));
        m.Position = 0;

        return File(m, "application/pdf");
    }

Any ideas why this does not work?

Answer 1

If you return a FileResult from your action method, and use the File() extension method on the controller, doing what you want is pretty easy. There are overrides on the File() method that will take the binary contents of the file, the path to the file, or a Stream.

public FileResult DownloadFile()
{
    return File("path\\to\\pdf.pdf", "application/pdf");
}

Answer 2

Return a FileContentResult. The last line in your controller action would be something like:

return File("Chap0101.pdf", "application/pdf");

If you are generating this PDF dynamically, it may be better to use a MemoryStream, and create the document in memory instead of saving to file. The code would be something like:

Document document = new Document();

MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream();

try
{
    PdfWriter pdfWriter = PdfWriter.GetInstance(document, stream);
    pdfWriter.CloseStream = false;

    document.Open();
    document.Add(new Paragraph("Hello World"));
}
catch (DocumentException de)
{
    Console.Error.WriteLine(de.Message);
}
catch (IOException ioe)
{
    Console.Error.WriteLine(ioe.Message);
}

document.Close();

stream.Flush(); //Always catches me out
stream.Position = 0; //Not sure if this is required

return File(stream, "application/pdf", "DownloadName.pdf");

Answer 3

I got it working with this code.

using iTextSharp.text;
using iTextSharp.text.pdf;

public FileStreamResult pdf()
{
    MemoryStream workStream = new MemoryStream();
    Document document = new Document();
    PdfWriter.GetInstance(document, workStream).CloseStream = false;

    document.Open();
    document.Add(new Paragraph("Hello World"));
    document.Add(new Paragraph(DateTime.Now.ToString()));
    document.Close();

    byte[] byteInfo = workStream.ToArray();
    workStream.Write(byteInfo, 0, byteInfo.Length);
    workStream.Position = 0;

    return new FileStreamResult(workStream, "application/pdf");    
}

Answer 4

You must specify :

Response.AppendHeader("content-disposition", "inline; filename=file.pdf");
return new FileStreamResult(stream, "application/pdf")

For the file to be opened directly in the browser instead of being downloaded