SmartRecords

SmartRecords is a ridiculously simple library for generating PDF reports out of .NET object models. It's built on top of iTextSharp, which is a problem because it's not free for commercial use (your project must be AGPL compatible). Depending on the SmartRecords acceptance, I may try to implement a renderer using some commercial-use compatible PDF library. Let's see what happens.

SmartRecords is ideal for exporting data for storage or printing. It's good because it's simple, strongly-typed, designer-free and very fast.

The package you download comes with a sample application that explores all the currently available functionalities (not many). All you have to do is to download it and run the SmartRecords.Sample. The generated PDF will pop up. All dependencies are included and no setup is required.

Usage

First thing to do is to define a frame for your report, that is, to determine what will be displayed in the header and the footer of your report pages. SmartRecords comes with a simple implementation called ReportFrame, but you can, of course, roll your own.

You create a report by instantiating the report Report class. Inside the report, you create data contexts to which components can be added. There are 3 components: Card, Grid and Title which are self explanatory.

After the report is finished, just call SaveToFile to export the resulting PDF file.

static void Main(string[] args)
{
	// the frame determines what is displayed in the header and in the
	// footer of your report pages
	var frame = new ReportFrame(
		new ReportFrameData()
		{
			Header1 = "Contacts list sample",
			Header2 = "Created by André Pena's SmartRecords",
			FooterLeft1 = "Created by SmartRecords",
			FooterLeft2 = "http://www.smartrecords.net",
			FooterRight1 = "",
			FooterRight2 = ""
		});

	// creates a new report
	var report = new Report(frame);
	foreach (var contact in ContactsDataSource.GetContacts())
	{
		// creates a data-context for each contact inside the report.
		// a data context is a section of your report that is bound to
		// a particular data object.
		using (var contactContext = report.AddDataContext(contact))
		{
			// creates a title for the contact
			contactContext.AddTitle(ReportTitleSize.H1, m => "Contact: " + m.FirstName + " " + m.LastName);

			// creates a Card to display the contacts details
			var card = contactContext.AddCard();
			card.AddField(m => m.FirstName);
			card.AddField(m => m.LastName);
			card.AddField(m => m.DateOfBirth);
			card.AddField(m => m.Email, true);
			card.AddField(m => m.Notes);

			// creates another Card for displaying the contact's address details
			contactContext.AddTitle(ReportTitleSize.H2, m => "Address");
			var addressCard = contactContext.AddCard(m => m.Address);
			addressCard.AddField(m => m.AddressLine1, true);
			addressCard.AddField(m => m.AddressLine2, true);
			addressCard.AddField(m => m.City);
			addressCard.AddField(m => m.State);
			addressCard.AddField(m => m.Country);
			addressCard.AddField(m => m.Zip);

			// creates a Grid for displaying the contact's appointments
			contactContext.AddTitle(ReportTitleSize.H2, m => "Appointments");
			var appointmentCard = contactContext.AddGrid(m => m.Appointments);
			appointmentCard.AddColumn(m => m.With);
			appointmentCard.AddColumn(m => m.Date);
		}
	}
	
	// exports the resulting document
	const string fileName = "document.pdf";
	report.SaveToFile(fileName);
	
	// opens the file
	Process.Start(fileName);
}

The above code generates this PDF file.

License

SmartRecords is MIT Licensed.

About the author

Hello everyone, my name is André Pena. I'm a .NET developer from Brazil. I hope you will enjoy SmartRecords as much as I enjoy developing it. If you have any problems, you can post a GitHub issue. You can reach me out at [email protected] or andrerpena.net (Tumblr).

Third party

SmartRecord is built on top of iTextSharp. In the sample application, objects are generated using AutoPoco. I'm not associated with these projects at any way.