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Quickstart for Adobe Document Generation API (.NET)

To get started using Adobe Document Generation API, let's walk through a simple scenario - using a Word document as a template for dynamic receipt generation in PDF. In this guide, we will walk you through the complete process for creating a program that will accomplish this task.

Prerequisites

To complete this guide, you will need:

  • .NET: version 6.0 or above
  • .Net SDK
  • A build tool: Either Visual Studio or .NET Core CLI.
  • An Adobe ID. If you do not have one, the credential setup will walk you through creating one.
  • A way to edit code. No specific editor is required for this guide.

Step One: Getting credentials

1) To begin, open your browser to https://acrobatservices.adobe.com/dc-integration-creation-app-cdn/main.html?api=document-generation-api. If you are not already logged in to Adobe.com, you will need to sign in or create a new user. Using a personal email account is recommend and not a federated ID.

Sign in

2) After registering or logging in, you will then be asked to name your new credentials. Use the name, "New Project".

3) Change the "Choose language" setting to ".Net".

4) Also note the checkbox by, "Create personalized code sample." This will include a large set of samples along with your credentials. These can be helpful for learning more later.

5) Click the checkbox saying you agree to the developer terms and then click "Create credentials."

Project setup

6) After your credentials are created, they are automatically downloaded:

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Step Two: Setting up the project

1) In your Downloads folder, find the ZIP file with your credentials: PDFServicesSDK-.NetSamples.zip. If you unzip that archive, you will find a folder of samples and the pdfservices-api-credentials.json file.

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2) Take the pdfservices-api-credentials.json file and place it in a new directory.

3) In your new directory, create a new file, GeneratePDF.csproj. This file will declare our requirements as well as help define the application we're creating.

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<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">


    <PropertyGroup>
        <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
        <TargetFramework>netcoreapp3.1</TargetFramework>
    </PropertyGroup>


    <ItemGroup>
        <PackageReference Include="log4net" Version="2.0.12" />
        <PackageReference Include="Adobe.PDFServicesSDK" Version="3.4.0" />
    </ItemGroup>


    <ItemGroup>
        <None Update="log4net.config">
            <CopyToOutputDirectory>Always</CopyToOutputDirectory>
        </None>
    </ItemGroup>


</Project>

Our application will take a Word document, receiptTemplate.docx (downloadable from here), and combine it with data in a JSON file, receipt.json (downloadable from here), to be sent to the Acrobat Services API and generate a receipt PDF.

4) In your editor, open the directory where you previously copied the credentials and created the csproj file. Create a new file, Program.cs.

Now you're ready to begin coding.

Step Three: Creating the application

1) Let's start by looking at the Word template. If you open the document in Microsoft Word, you'll notice multiple tokens throughout the document (called out by the use of {{ and }}).

Example of tokens

When the Document Generation API is used, these tokens are replaced with the JSON data sent to the API. These tokens support simple replacements, for example, {{Customer.Name}} will be replaced by a customer's name passed in JSON. You can also have dynamic tables. In the Word template, the table uses invoice items as a way to dynamically render whatever items were ordered. Conditions can also be used to hide or show content as you can see two conditions at the end of the document. Finally, basic math can be also be dynamically applied, as seen in the "Grand Total".

2) Next, let's look at our sample data: 

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{
  "author": "Gary Lee",
  "Company": {
    "Name": "Projected",
    "Address": "19718 Mandrake Way",
    "PhoneNumber": "+1-100000098"
  },
  "Invoice": {
    "Date": "January 15, 2021",
    "Number": 123,
    "Items": [
      {
        "item": "Gloves",
        "description": "Microwave gloves",
        "UnitPrice": 5,
        "Quantity": 2,
        "Total": 10
      },
      {
        "item": "Bowls",
        "description": "Microwave bowls",
        "UnitPrice": 10,
        "Quantity": 2,
        "Total": 20
      }
    ]
  },
  "Customer": {
    "Name": "Collins Candy",
    "Address": "315 Dunning Way",
    "PhoneNumber": "+1-200000046",
    "Email": "cc@abcdef.co.dw"
  },
  "Tax": 5,
  "Shipping": 5,
  "clause": {
    "overseas": "The shipment might take 5-10 more than informed."
  },
  "paymentMethod": "Cash"
}

Notice how the tokens in the Word document match up with values in our JSON. While our example will use a hard coded set of data in a file, production applications can get their data from anywhere. Now let's get into our code.

3) We'll begin by including our required dependencies:

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using System.IO;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using log4net.Repository;
using log4net.Config;
using log4net;
using System.Reflection;
using Adobe.PDFServicesSDK;
using Adobe.PDFServicesSDK.auth;
using Adobe.PDFServicesSDK.pdfops;
using Adobe.PDFServicesSDK.io;
using Adobe.PDFServicesSDK.exception;
using Adobe.PDFServicesSDK.options.documentmerge;
using Newtonsoft.Json.Linq;

4) Now let's define our main class and Main method:

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namespace GeneratePDF
{
    class Program
    {
        private static readonly ILog log = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(Program));
        static void Main()
        {
        }
    }
}

5) Inside our class, we'll begin by defining our input Word, JSON and output filenames. If the output file already exists, it will be deleted:

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String input = "receiptTemplate.docx";


String output = "/generatedReceipt.pdf";
if(File.Exists(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() + output))
{
    File.Delete(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() + output);
}


string json = File.ReadAllText("receipt.json");
JObject data = JObject.Parse(json);

These lines are hard coded but in a real application would typically be dynamic.

6) Set the environment variables PDF_SERVICES_CLIENT_ID and PDF_SERVICES_CLIENT_SECRET by running the following commands and replacing placeholders YOUR CLIENT ID and YOUR CLIENT SECRET with the credentials present in pdfservices-api-credentials.json file:

  • Windows:

    • set PDF_SERVICES_CLIENT_ID=<YOUR CLIENT ID>
    • set PDF_SERVICES_CLIENT_SECRET=<YOUR CLIENT SECRET>

  • MacOS/Linux:

    • export PDF_SERVICES_CLIENT_ID=<YOUR CLIENT ID>
    • export PDF_SERVICES_CLIENT_SECRET=<YOUR CLIENT SECRET>

7) Next, we setup the SDK to use our credentials.

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// Initial setup, create credentials instance.
Credentials credentials = Credentials.ServicePrincipalCredentialsBuilder()
    .WithClientId(Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("PDF_SERVICES_CLIENT_ID"))
    .WithClientSecret(Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("PDF_SERVICES_CLIENT_SECRET"))
    .Build();


// Create an ExecutionContext using credentials and create a new operation instance.
ExecutionContext executionContext = ExecutionContext.Create(credentials);

This code both points to the credentials downloaded previously as well as sets up an execution context object that will be used later.

8) Now, let's create the operation:

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DocumentMergeOptions documentMergeOptions = new DocumentMergeOptions(data, OutputFormat.PDF);
DocumentMergeOperation documentMergeOperation = DocumentMergeOperation.CreateNew(documentMergeOptions);


// Provide an input FileRef for the operation.
FileRef sourceFileRef = FileRef.CreateFromLocalFile(input);
documentMergeOperation.SetInput(sourceFileRef);

This set of code defines what we're doing (a document merge operation, the SDK's way of describing Document Generation), points to our local JSON file and specifies the output is a PDF. It also points to the Word file used as a template.

9) The next code block executes the operation:

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// Execute the operation.
FileRef result = documentMergeOperation.Execute(executionContext);


// Save the result to the specified location.
result.SaveAs(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() + output);

This code runs the document generation process and then stores the result PDF document to the file system.

Example running at the command line

Here's the complete application (Program.cs):

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using System.IO;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using log4net.Repository;
using log4net.Config;
using log4net;
using System.Reflection;
using Adobe.PDFServicesSDK;
using Adobe.PDFServicesSDK.auth;
using Adobe.PDFServicesSDK.pdfops;
using Adobe.PDFServicesSDK.io;
using Adobe.PDFServicesSDK.exception;
using Adobe.PDFServicesSDK.options.documentmerge;
using Newtonsoft.Json.Linq;


namespace GeneratePDF
{
    class Program
    {
        private static readonly ILog log = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(Program));
        static void Main()
        {
            // Configure the logging.
            ConfigureLogging();
            try
            {


                String input = "receiptTemplate.docx";


                String output = "/generatedReceipt.pdf";
                if(File.Exists(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() + output))
                {
                    File.Delete(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() + output);
                }


                string json = File.ReadAllText("receipt.json");
                JObject data = JObject.Parse(json);


                // Initial setup, create credentials instance.
                Credentials credentials = Credentials.ServicePrincipalCredentialsBuilder()
                    .WithClientId(Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("PDF_SERVICES_CLIENT_ID"))
                    .WithClientSecret(Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("PDF_SERVICES_CLIENT_SECRET"))
                    .Build();


                // Create an ExecutionContext using credentials and create a new operation instance.
                ExecutionContext executionContext = ExecutionContext.Create(credentials);


                DocumentMergeOptions documentMergeOptions = new DocumentMergeOptions(data, OutputFormat.PDF);
                DocumentMergeOperation documentMergeOperation = DocumentMergeOperation.CreateNew(documentMergeOptions);
 
                // Provide an input FileRef for the operation.
                FileRef sourceFileRef = FileRef.CreateFromLocalFile(input);
                documentMergeOperation.SetInput(sourceFileRef);
                
                // Execute the operation.
                FileRef result = documentMergeOperation.Execute(executionContext);


                // Save the result to the specified location.
                result.SaveAs(Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() + output);
                
                Console.Write("All Done.\n");


                
            }
            catch (ServiceUsageException ex)
            {
                log.Error("Exception encountered while executing operation", ex);
            }
            catch (ServiceApiException ex)
            {
                log.Error("Exception encountered while executing operation", ex);
            }
            catch (SDKException ex)
            {
                log.Error("Exception encountered while executing operation", ex);
            }
            catch (IOException ex)
            {
                log.Error("Exception encountered while executing operation", ex);
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                log.Error("Exception encountered while executing operation", ex);
            }
        }


        static void ConfigureLogging()
        {
            ILoggerRepository logRepository = LogManager.GetRepository(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly());
            XmlConfigurator.Configure(logRepository, new FileInfo("log4net.config"));
        }
    }
}

Next Steps

Now that you've successfully performed your first operation, review the documentation for many other examples and reach out on our forums with any questions. Also remember the samples you downloaded while creating your credentials also have many demos.

Jasnoor Singh
Last updated 9/4/2024
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