Generating PDF Reports in C# (.NET) with QuestPDF

Generating PDF Reports in C# (.NET) with QuestPDF

In modern .NET platform development, there is often a need to create professional PDF documents: reports, invoices, waybills, analytical summaries, and other business documents. The QuestPDF library is a modern, high-performance, and intuitive solution for generating PDFs in C#. It does not require installing third-party utilities (e.g., wkhtmltopdf) and runs entirely in managed .NET code.

In this article, we will thoroughly cover how to get started with QuestPDF, set up a project, and create a simple report with a table, an image, and text formatting.

Installation and Setup

QuestPDF is distributed via NuGet. To install it, run the command in the Package Manager Console or through the Visual Studio/Rider interface:

Install-Package QuestPDF

Or via .NET CLI:

dotnet add package QuestPDF

After installation, you need to initialize the license once. A paid license is required for commercial use, but a free mode with a watermark is available for testing and small projects. To remove the watermark, add the following at the beginning of your program:

QuestPDF.Settings.License = LicenseType.Community;// or for commercial use:// QuestPDF.Settings.License = LicenseType.Professional;

Creating Your First PDF Document

QuestPDF uses a Fluent API — you describe the document structure with sequential method calls. Let's look at a minimal example:

using QuestPDF.Fluent;using QuestPDF.Helpers;using QuestPDF.Infrastructure;

// License setup (required)QuestPDF.Settings.License = LicenseType.Community;

// Create the documentDocument.Create(container =>{    container.Page(page =>    {        page.Size(PageSizes.A4);        page.Margin(2, Unit.Centimetre);        page.DefaultTextStyle(x => x.FontSize(12));

        page.Header()            .Text("Sales Report")            .SemiBold().FontSize(24).FontColor(Colors.Blue.Medium);

        page.Content()            .PaddingVertical(1, Unit.Centimetre)            .Column(col =>            {                col.Item().Text("Date: " + DateTime.Now.ToShortDateString());                col.Item().PaddingBottom(10).LineHorizontal(1);                col.Item().Text("Below is a table with data:");            });

        page.Footer()            .AlignCenter()            .Text(x =>            {                x.Span("Page ");                x.CurrentPageNumber();            });    });}).GeneratePdf("report.pdf");

This code creates a PDF file with a title, date, horizontal line, and page number in the footer.

Working with Tables

One of the most common tasks is displaying tabular data. QuestPDF provides a powerful API for creating tables with automatic column width adjustment:

container.Page(page =>{    page.Size(PageSizes.A4);    page.Margin(20);

    page.Content().Table(table =>    {        // Define columns (width as a percentage of available space)        table.ColumnsDefinition(columns =>        {            columns.RelativeColumn(3); // Product Name            columns.RelativeColumn(1); // Quantity            columns.RelativeColumn(1); // Price            columns.RelativeColumn(1); // Total        });

        // Table header        table.Header(header =>        {            header.Cell().Background(Colors.Grey.Lighten2).Padding(5).Text("Product");            header.Cell().Background(Colors.Grey.Lighten2).Padding(5).AlignCenter().Text("Qty");            header.Cell().Background(Colors.Grey.Lighten2).Padding(5).AlignCenter().Text("Price");            header.Cell().Backgrou