Question

Is there a way to get the XML presented in a XMLFormView? I’m trying to create a custom web part with a “Save as PDF” button for an InfoPath form. The idea is to combine the XML with the form’s XSL and make the resulting HTML into PDF which is presented to the user as a popup.

Because it is to be presented as a popup, using Workflows is not an option.

Answer 1

We ended up using the XmlFormHostItem.NotifyHost method to send HTML to a custom web part in a button-clicked event, which converted the HTML to PDF using Winnovative HTML to PDF converter.

HTML generation from InfoPath code-behind:

var formData = new XmlDocument();
var xslt = new XslCompiledTransform(true);

// Load the form data 
formData.LoadXml(MainDataSource.CreateNavigator().InnerXml);
// Extract the stylesheet from the package
xslt.Load(ExtractFromPackage("Print.xsl")); // (uses Template.OpenFileFromPackage(string fileName) to get xsl)

// Perform XSL-transformation
// [...]

// Send HTML to web part
this.NotifyHost(formData.InnerXml);

One drawback of this method is that the NotifyHost event only fires once per form, so if the user clicks ‘Save as PDF’ and then cancels, he must reload the form in order to be able to save as PDF.