Question

I’ve scoured the Web looking for examples on how to do this. I’ve found a few that seem to be a little more involved then they need to be. So my question is, using iTextSharp, is there a fairly concise way to append one PDF document to another one?

Optimally this would NOT involve a third file. Just open the first PDF doc, append the second PDF doc to the first and then close them both.

Answer 1

Ok, It’s not straight forward, but it works and is surprisingly fast. (And it uses a 3rd file, no such thing as open and append.) I ‘discovered’ this in the docs/examples. Here’s the code:

private void CombineMultiplePDFs( string[] fileNames, string outFile ) {     int pageOffset = 0;     ArrayList master = new ArrayList();     int f = 0;      Document document = null;     PdfCopy writer = null;     while ( f < fileNames.Length ) {         // we create a reader for a certain document         PdfReader reader = new PdfReader( fileNames[ f ] );         reader.ConsolidateNamedDestinations();         // we retrieve the total number of pages         int n = reader.NumberOfPages;         ArrayList bookmarks = SimpleBookmark.GetBookmark( reader );         if ( bookmarks != null ) {             if ( pageOffset != 0 ) {                 SimpleBookmark.ShiftPageNumbers( bookmarks, pageOffset, null );             }             master.AddRange( bookmarks );         }         pageOffset += n;          if ( f == 0 ) {             // step 1: creation of a document-object             document = new Document( reader.GetPageSizeWithRotation( 1 ) );             // step 2: we create a writer that listens to the document             writer = new PdfCopy( document, new FileStream( outFile, FileMode.Create ) );             // step 3: we open the document             document.Open();         }         // step 4: we add content         for ( int i = 0; i < n; ) {             ++i;             if ( writer != null ) {                 PdfImportedPage page = writer.GetImportedPage( reader, i );                 writer.AddPage( page );             }         }         PRAcroForm form = reader.AcroForm;         if ( form != null && writer != null ) {             writer.CopyAcroForm( reader );         }         f++;     }     if ( master.Count > 0 && writer != null ) {         writer.Outlines = master;     }     // step 5: we close the document     if ( document != null ) {         document.Close();     } }