asp.net - Calling wkhtmltopdf to generate PDF from HTML

Question

I'm attempting to create a PDF file from an HTML file. After looking around a little I've found: wkhtmltopdf to be perfect. I need to call this .exe from the ASP.NET server. I've attempted:

    Process p = new Process();
    p.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
    p.StartInfo.FileName = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("wkhtmltopdf.exe");
    p.StartInfo.Arguments = "TestPDF.htm TestPDF.pdf";
    p.Start();
    p.WaitForExit();

With no success of any files being created on the server. Can anyone give me a pointer in the right direction? I put the wkhtmltopdf.exe file at the top level directory of the site. Is there anywhere else it should be held?

---

Edit: If anyone has better solutions to dynamically create pdf files from html, please let me know.

Answer 1

Update:
My answer below, creates the pdf file on the disk. I then streamed that file to the users browser as a download. Consider using something like Hath's answer below to get wkhtml2pdf to output to a stream instead and then send that directly to the user - that will bypass lots of issues with file permissions etc.

My original answer:
Make sure you've specified an output path for the PDF that is writeable by the ASP.NET process of IIS running on your server (usually NETWORK_SERVICE I think).

Mine looks like this (and it works):

/// <summary>
/// Convert Html page at a given URL to a PDF file using open-source tool wkhtml2pdf
/// </summary>
/// <param name="Url"></param>
/// <param name="outputFilename"></param>
/// <returns></returns>
public static bool HtmlToPdf(string Url, string outputFilename)
{
    // assemble destination PDF file name
    string filename = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ExportFilePath"] + "" + outputFilename + ".pdf";

    // get proj no for header
    Project project = new Project(int.Parse(outputFilename));

    var p = new System.Diagnostics.Process();
    p.StartInfo.FileName = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["HtmlToPdfExePath"];

    string switches = "--print-media-type ";
    switches += "--margin-top 4mm --margin-bottom 4mm --margin-right 0mm --margin-left 0mm ";
    switches += "--page-size A4 ";
    switches += "--no-background ";
    switches += "--redirect-delay 100";

    p.StartInfo.Arguments = switches + " " + Url + " " + filename;

    p.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false; // needs to be false in order to redirect output
    p.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
    p.StartInfo.RedirectStandardError = true;
    p.StartInfo.RedirectStandardInput = true; // redirect all 3, as it should be all 3 or none
    p.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory = StripFilenameFromFullPath(p.StartInfo.FileName);

    p.Start();

    // read the output here...
    string output = p.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd(); 

    // ...then wait n milliseconds for exit (as after exit, it can't read the output)
    p.WaitForExit(60000); 

    // read the exit code, close process
    int returnCode = p.ExitCode;
    p.Close(); 

    // if 0 or 2, it worked (not sure about other values, I want a better way to confirm this)
    return (returnCode == 0 || returnCode == 2);
}